Ep: 36 Meet the Outstanding Women in Manufacturing & Technology in Surviving a Health Crisis

Meet the Outstanding Women in Manufacturing and Technology with special guest Laila Lechopier

Welcome

Therese (00:05):

Welcome to our DELMIA podcast, Global Operations on the Go. I'm your host, Therese Snow. Today we're continuing our series that features women who are making a difference. I'm so pleased to announce that this is a really, truly insightful, and personal show with our guests, Laila Lechopier. Laila, a CPO, advocacy manager, senior manager will be discussing her involvement with the Dassault Systèmes Cancer Works Project, along with her own personal journey as a breast cancer survivor. Laila, welcome!

Laila (00:39):

Hello Therese. I'm very happy to be here and to share my experience with you and with all the DELMIA follower.

Therese (00:47):

Absolutely. So glad that you are our guest today and were able to make it. Thank you for attending and let's start now with the basics, what you do and how long you have been at DELMIA.

Meet Laila Lechopier

Laila (00:58):

In fact, I'm working on the supply chain market since more than 25 years. I was previously working in ems, which is a company which was acquired by Dassault Systèmes five years ago. I was a marketing manager for nine years in this company prior to the acquisition and since I'm in Dassault Systèmes, I'm still working in marketing. I'm part of the marketing team. I am focused on some events which are in France and all the program around customer, which is Dania advocacy service in our company. So we do a lot of things where I'm managing the recruitment of user champion. I'm doing a lot of testimonial and I really like to visit customer to visit factory to understand how they are doing things and how our solution can help them to work better. So it's a type of storytelling also to work with customer and to try to have the best way to explain the story that they are working with our solution.

Therese (02:12):

Absolutely, that sounds fantastic. Certainly enough to keep you busy, which is even more impressive that you have projects even above and beyond your normal work. So for example, I understand that you've been involved in a DESO systems cancer prevention project for listeners to, so systems sign the Working with Cancer pledge, basically showing their unwavering commitment to health and wellbeing and providing a favorable and frankly suitable environment that enables our colleagues who are affected by cancer to continue working in the way that they want to do. So this is basically following a global initiative in 2021, which is a Dassault Systèmes we care for your health initiative. Adding to that, Lila, I understand that you personally have been involved in a countrywide initiative called Cancer at Work. Can you please tell our listeners about Cancer at Work?

Cancer at Work Project

Laila (03:10):

Yes, of course. So Cancer at Work is a French organization, the work every day to change the way society and business view patients in order to allow everyone, patient, caregiver, operational manager, colleagues, human resource and every department to live better with cancer and chronic disease because it could be also chronic disease and the way it's how can you work with all this type of disease at work. So Dassault Systèmes is part of this program and the purpose is to have better comprehension and to train manager when the face with people on their team, for example, who have this sort of treatment because of course it's not so easy sometimes for manager to know and to understand how to work with their colleague and to face this sort of disease. So for example, how to support them when they're out of work, how to help them when they go back to work, how to adapt the job for them because they can be quite tired.

(04:22):

So really purpose of Cancer at Work is really to help the company to adapt and understand how to work better with people who have and who are facing to cancer. For example, they have also an initiative for people when they had a cancer and for example, they are looking for a job so you can help, they can have some recruitments inquiries with volunteer like me for example, to train and to be more confident because they want to change their work after cancer. One of the initiative of Cancer at Work is really to help people also when they are ill and when they go back also to work, which is not always so easy because of course as I says, it could be less tired. Sometimes they want to do a lot of things, but in fact as there are more terrors that can stress them. So it's really important that sometimes all the environment can be adapted to the people when they go back to work.

Therese (05:25):

You definitely make some good points, just the being tired and the stress of going back to work in addition to dealing with cancer or a chronic illness. So Lila, I understand that you yourself are a cancer survivor and you have your own personal experience to share with other people. Can you please tell us about your experience and how that experience has influenced you in helping others?

A survivor’s story

Laila (05:49):

Yes, of course. So I had a breast cancer 10 years ago and it shows that having a cancer will change your world and your life. Life is not exactly the same. I remember my boss at or times when he knew that I had a concert, he told me there will be life before and the life after cancer. And that is really, it's really true because I think cancer can make you better and help you to go to the point to realign your purity. So of course as a breast cancer survivor, I have the experience and I can share with other people because I know how you feel. I know when you learn that you have a counselor, everything is so terrific at the beginning you are very anxious for your family. You are very anxious sometimes also for yourself and I know all the steps that you can go through when you are sick.

(06:49):

So for example, like a lot of people who have breast cancer, I have lose my hair and I know how much it could be difficult to face with this new challenge. I know about the chemotherapy, how much you are tired. And of course one thing which is really important when you are ill is the fact that you are very anxious for your family and for all your children if you have. And of course also you can be anxious also by your work. You want to be frozen when you will be again the same for you. So all these sort of things is something that I know. So for some people it's really important to continue to work for them. Know me. I know that it was very important. So at the beginning I really wanted to work two days by week. So I did it during three months and after started researching therapy to be very tired and my boss say, no, no, I don't want to see you anymore at the office.

(07:53):

You really need to rest and to take your time. And I think when I can see that now with the time that perhaps I go back to work very quickly, I remember it was just the day after my last radiotherapy and doctor didn't want it, but I really insisted and I said, no, no, no, I want to go back to work. For me it was very important, but in fact I was quite tired so it was a little bit stressful. So now I know that it would have been better if I would have take practice one month more, which was not so much at the end, but sometimes you need to do your own experience. So what I want to if possible is to share my journey and also what I really expect is to have people with my journey. Of course everybody will have his own journey and it's not the same for everybody.

(08:48):

But I think with concept at work what is really important is to be able to have access to people where you can speak, share with other who have the same type of experience. Of course some people would like to do it, some won't, it's depending. But it's important that inside a company that if you have this sort of challenge, you will have people who can help and support you. So for example, in the initiatives that I am working with in cancer at work, we have one initiative which help people to have some support during their journey and other initiative, which is how to help people when they will go back to work.

Therese (09:59):

Absolutely. It's really easy to understand based on your experience, how you're able to share your experience, would it have been important to you and helpful with your own journey? For example, can you walk us through how you were able to overcome not having someone to share your experience with and the resources that you yourself and just so offers Today

Laila (10:24):

When I was sick and when I have learned about my cancer, really you have the impressions that the word is falling in your head. At the beginning of my concert, I have the opportunity to share with some friends or friends who have this experience. I was quite young, I was 46-year-old, which is quite young for a breast concert and I had some friend or friend who have someone who had this experience and it was really helpful for me to share with two or three women to know a little bit better what will happen to me, who the team will be, how is the challenge to lose your hair, some tips and tricks that they can have. So really for me it was something important. But what happened to me in my case is that two years after all my treatments, I had the results of genetic screening and I have learned that I was a carrier of the BC one gene, which is a very, very bad gene, one of the most dangerous since the breast cancer.

(11:37):

So the first thing is that my capacity to have a new concept was terrifically huge. The older I got the more my chance will be to be sick again and will be able to increase till 95%, which was absolutely terrific. And to be honest, when you had the experience to have chemotherapy and to have surgery, all that to have survival, all these steps you don't want to go through again. So I had two choice at this possibility, two option to have regular mammography and scan every six months with a feeling of having a sword of DLA above my head or to take the decision to remove my ovaries and my breasts. I remember when I had the results of my genetic screening, I was with my husband and I just get out of the hospital and I said to my husband, I don't think I will be able to remove my ovaries and my breasts.

(12:42):

It's so hard. I need to think about it. And my husband say, anyway, I don't know. It's such a personal decisions that I cannot tell you to do something. It's really your own responsibility. What you need to know is that whatever your decision, I'm here and I will support it, but it's your body so me, I don't want to influence you. It's really something that you should feel. And I just take time of the weekend to read a lot of things regarding this genetic screening when I see what was the option of BC one relief for me, no option. Even two days after I took release decision to remove my ovaries and my breast and I try really try to find people who have this experience, I try to call different association to see if I can share with people who have done that in order to have an idea how it was remove the breast because the virus for me was not really a problem because I had already a daughter, but it was really the breast was a little bit more complicated for me and impossible to find anybody to help me.

(13:58):

And you have to understand that 10 years ago it was not such common in France to do that. And really to be frank, what really helped me at exactly the same moment Angelina Jo really communicated about her gene, about the fact that she took the decision to remove also her breast. And I suppose her varies because on her family I think she lost her mother, her sister and very young. And to see someone like her, which is a really beautiful woman to take this decision and to be able to say to everybody, really help me. Perhaps it could be stupid. But really for me it was a help to say I can continue to be a woman, no worry even if I have no more my breath. So I stopped to work for four weeks, I was 47. And during this period I think it was really important for me to do something nice to change, lead into gold and to face a challenge.

(15:03):

I had a C Dream since I was 12 because I knew when I was 12 somebody was doing that and that was really impressive for me and I wanted to tell story to seek children in hospital. So I decided to take this time where I will be at home to see how I can do it in my town and who I can organize it. This is why in fact I decided to become a storyteller for hospital. In fact, when I think storyteller was quite an evidence because I'm coming from a Norwegian mother, so all the Scandinavian tells are part of my world. My mother was telling me the story of Anderson like the Little Mermaid or the little Match girl. And as my father was Nigerian, so I was working with the tales of thousand one of one night for example, all the story of she and Alibaba of and the 40 seed Alladin, a lot of tales which are very famous.

Helping others navigate chronic diseases

(16:10):

So when I decided to organize this project, I wanted to be able to do it after work. So it was around night because I was not able to go to the hospital before half past six or seven. And in fact you have a lot of activity during the day for child, for children, but nothing at this time. In fact, it's a time which is difficult for children because it's a time where sometimes the family should go back home because they have sometimes younger child that they should manage also. So it's time which is not so easy for children because it's out of the day, the night is coming. So sometimes a very difficult period. So I found enough hospital for child in Leon who was very happy that I can have this project and I started to do that and to tell story to eight children, which is very interesting experience.

(17:14):

I learned a lot with them. And I think the fact to be ill was easier for me because I know what sort of things they could face even if I'm not working in a cancer service. But anyway, I know what to because where I'm working a service where it's majority of chronic disease. So I saw children sometimes for many years because they have chronic disease and I see children will have to live with a disease. Of course. What I like with the story, it's a way of really how people to feel better because they can travel, they can imagine, they can just stop the time and enter in tell time where everything is top and you go in a new word which is a little bit more magic and you really see that for me is the best thing when I can see a big smile on the face of term children who say, oh, thank you, I feel better now.

Soothing with storytelling

(18:23):

I will have a good night. Thank you so much for the story. So last year in fact, I decided also to launch my activity as a storyteller, not just for hospital but also for children in school or also for doing for example a birthday, a children birthday, but also family meeting. And I do a lot of also of storytelling for women and for adults because I have a lot of story coming from the book that I love to read. And I think with the storytelling you really touch things like self-confidence, subconscious, you can't really touch immersion and imagination. So it's really helped people to dream, to travel. It's not something that you read because when you are a storyteller, you never read a text, you just tell a story, never exactly the same way. And I think it's so you adapt also some details sometimes with the people that you'll be in face, face to you.

(19:33):

So it's not exactly something which is exactly the same. It's always a new experience. I think I like a lot. Also, it's really helped me because since my cancer, I don't have very, very, very good night. So when I wake up, I work on my stories. I don't wake up, I stay in my bed and I imagine some new details that I can add to one of my character in the story. I say, oh no, perhaps this time I can imagine that he likes that and he has these sort of things because it's the fact that all the details that you will give to people will help them to imagine. I think it's really what I like is to create really picture to people picture. And of course if I told you imagine on a street a woman working, she had long hair, you will imagine your woman and it won't be the same that my woman. I think it's something that I really like.

Therese (20:34):

Yeah, absolutely. I think with your storytelling and as you mentioned creating the magic and a dream and giving patients something else to think about, an escape and clearly you do it well, Lila, your journey is really inspirational and it's clear to see how you've touched so many lives and you'll continue to do so. I'm sure making a positive impact on many, many more through your great storytelling. So is there a way to help our listeners who either need someone to share a story with or get involved, hear a story, something in order to help people with cancer or other chronic illnesses or even help themselves?

Laila (21:19):

So anyway, for Cancer at work only in Dassault Systèmes in France. But for me, if anyone who is listening to this podcast want to have some support to want to talk, I will be very happy just to be here. So don't hesitate to contact me for that, for this aspect will be always very happy to support you as far as I can. And if regarding my storytelling activity, I have created a Facebook and an Instagram and my website is in progress. I hope perhaps it would be ready beginning of the year. The name of the activity is Voya Ammo, which mean travel in words because I love the travel and I think for me what is interesting with activity of storytelling is that really you have people to travel. And I like also story coming from everywhere in the world. I think it's my DNA to travel freedom and just have people to be more confident. Everything is inside us, sometimes we don't know it, that's all. And we have a lot of brochures and I think even a disease and to have been, ill help you also to find all the treasures that you have inside you. And we have so many.

Therese (22:48):

Yep, absolutely. Very eloquently said. And I can definitely agree with that being in your DNA, the traveling, the storytelling, and bringing so much to others. So thank you for that. And I will certainly be sure to post the information about the Facebook, Instagram, and upcoming website where the podcast is hosted. So thank you so, so much Lila for taking the time to speak with me today and share your story.

Conclusion

Laila (23:16):

Thank you very much, RIS. It was really interesting for me to share this experience and I hope again that it can help people. So if you need to talk to someone who have this sort of experience, really feel free to contact me. I will be very happy to support you.

Therese (23:33):

I am sure that it's so appreciated and our listeners will keep that in mind. Definitely. So thank you again Laila. And right now I'd like to thank our listeners for tuning in. I'm your host Therese Snow, and you've been listening to DELMIA’s podcast, Global Operations on the Go.