Our Story

Hi, I’m Sophie and my journey to setting up MATRI has been years in the making and developing.

It’s not a mission I set out planning to do, but something I have felt compelled to try and make a difference in, as my experience grew.

When I took maternity leave to have my first son, the company I worked at was a small but rapidly growing communications agency. Back then, whilst the culture was supportive, there was little expectation of my return to work at all, no specific post-maternity leave support, and very little understanding of being a ‘working mother’.

It was just something you quietly got on with.

I returned to work exhausted, wracked with guilt about not being at work, or at home enough, trying to work exactly as I had done before, largely pretending I didn’t have a baby I wanted to see daily, and trying to creep out the door at 5:30 hoping no one would notice.

Some days I literally hid my coat and bag outside the office so I could just pretend I was nipping off somewhere briefly, and not be seen leaving with my stuff.

Madness.

After my second maternity leave, I came back into a welcome promotion and within a couple of years I had been promoted again to my first CEO role.

At that point I became, rather abruptly, a single working mother, to 3 & 5 year old boys, working 4 days a week at an executive level, and commuting in and out of London daily. That was hard.

As the company grew rapidly, more and more women took maternity leave and came back into the company, and as they struggled, they were pointed in my direction as ‘the senior woman who seemed to make it all work’ for advice.

I had woman after woman asking to meet me for a chat or coffee, and more often than not, bursting into tears seconds later, asking for advice on how I ‘made it look so easy’, when they were struggling.

I was extremely quick to dispel those myths and make it very clear that every day was usually a balancing act of ever changing logistics, clock watching, managing my mothers guilt, making choices about what to miss either at home or at work, generally feeling pretty exhausted and feeling I was never quite doing anything well enough.

Over the years, I sought advice from those working mothers a few years ahead of me, and I became a mentor to many a few years behind me. I picked up many methods, tips, tactics and sage ways of thinking about being a working mum which helped me, and so I duly passed those on to others.

My support group, and their ways of managing, sense of humour and ways of thinking, became utterly invaluable to me as my career progressed, and I ended up with an absolute fascination on the subject; giving talks, hosting panel debates and writing articles on the subject ‘in support of the working mother’.

In lockdown - alongside homeschooling my boys and working - I decided to retrain as an Executive coach so I could become more than a mentor to these women, and since qualifying I have been delivering a maternity coaching programme to the business I work in - as a personal passion. I have seen the incredible difference this can make in the mothers I work with, helping them leave feeling confident about their return, maintaining their confidence over maternity leave, and returning owning and managing their new responsibilities in a way that works for both business and employee.

But very few companies currently offer such support.

The undeniable truth, and the data is clear - show that a huge swathe of brilliant professional women leave their roles over this specific period of change, leaving a substantial impact and cost to their company, and society at large - both in the short term in the role they have given up, but of course in the long term as they don’t progress up the ladder to take the top jobs in business and society.

The MATRI programme is designed to tackle this across companies - I’ve had clients describe it as ‘NCT for the working mother’ - giving coaching support right through maternity leave, and providing that incredible group support with others in the same phase of life.

I am absolutely passionate that these brilliant, capable, professional women feel able to pursue their dreams and careers through this transitional phase in their lives, and the businesses they work in don’t suffer the loss and cost of losing the talent they need.

Welcome to MATRI!