The Most Powerful Woman in the Room, by Lydia Feet

Review by Lisa Mulligan

I hadn’t heard of Lydia Fenet until Business Chicks featured her in one of their online Masterclasses called “the most powerful woman in the room is you”. As soon as she came on screen I was captivated by her energy and I loved what she was saying. And then I found out she had written a book, so I ordered it while still on the masterclass.

The book arrived just before I was taking a week of annual leave so had some dedicated time to read it. Yay!

So who is Lydia Fenet? She’s the Global Head of Strategic Partnerships and the lead benefits auctioneer at Christies (you know, the luxury auction house). She’s also now an author. In her book she tells her career story while imparting lessons along the way on how to be powerful and get to where you want to be. 

I found her book enjoyable to read because Lydia is telling her own story along the way. You learn about how she got started at Christies, how she became a charity auctioneer (and then how she became a very successful charity auctioneer) and how she created her own opportunities (and started the strategic partnerships function at Christies).

And she doesn’t just tell the success stories. She tells the stories when things didn’t go well but how she built on these to learn and grow. My favourite stories were about how she came to learn to sell as herself (chapter 2), the importance of networking (chapter 6) and how she learnt she was being severely underpaid and what she did about it, to creating a road map for her career. 

There were a couple of times though where I felt very challenged by her story. In chapter 8 Lydia lays out a typical day for her. She is a busy woman, as many women are dealing with the home/kids/work juggle, and Lydia effectively has 2 jobs. It made me feel anxious when she talked about using “waiting time” (being on the subway, waiting in line for coffee or to pick up the kids) to check and answer emails. For the past 5 years at least I have been trying to ween myself off doing this and instead just having a few moments of calm that don’t involve looking at my phone or thinking about work.

The other time was when she talked about not messing with a southern woman (chapter 10). I guess not being from the US my stereotypes about southern women only come from movies, and I’m not sure I could even explain these stereotypes apart from knowing that southern women are usually very well dressed.   The lessons Lydia shared were:

1.     Always write a thank you note

2.     Get up, dress up and show up

3.     Stop b*tching and start fixing 

4.     Never let them see you sweat

5.     You catch more bees with honey, but honey don’t mess with a southern woman

All great lessons, however when she shared that hiring southern women in her team came with unexpected benefits, I squirmed because this seemed like a bias that might exclude others from being in her team.

Overall the book has some great lessons and reminders of getting ahead in your career. In particular it would be great for graduates and people new in their career to read and learn from.