Journey of resilience, challenges, and growth

Dar es Salaam. Phylisiah Mcheni, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at IRIS Advisory Services Africa - a Human Resource and Change Advisory Services organization talks to The Citizen Rising Woman about her experience in the recruitment world.

“At the age of 16, I started working for an advertising agency as a sales representative on commission basis. At the same time I was attending a course in secretarial. On completion of the one-year course, I worked as a Personal Assistant for several organizations and from this role, I progressed to administrative assistant for a Marine & Fishing Group of companies whilst at the same time attending a course on advanced certificate in business administration and Higher Diploma in Human Resource Management,” says Ms Mcheni.

Immediately upon her completion, Ms Mcheni joined Wartsila East Africa Plant as Human Resource Lead, thereafter she continued with her part-time studies pursuing a Master’s degree in Business Administration in Human Resource Management.

Prior to starting IRIS Executive Development Centre, she had worked with Tanzania Cigarette Company (TCC) as Training Manager, Zantel as the Human Resource Systems Development Manager and Barclays Bank as the Head of Talent, Learning and Development.

“My journey has really been one of resilience, challenges and great opportunities for growth,” says Ms Mcheni.

She says when a person is young, it is normal to dream big, sometimes the dreams can become unattainable depending on one’s background.

“I had goals and as long as you possess goals, you will not be lost completely. I got detracted from them from time to time but, I would again re-focus,” details Ms Mcheni.

She further says; “I would not overlook my former bosses who recognized my potential and held my hand and allowed me to learn, presented me with resources and opportunities for growth.”

Ms Mcheni explains that the most vulnerable moment of her life was when she lost her husband five years ago.

“My entrepreneurial journey has been difficult and toilsome at times but one of the merits that I have acquired from my past experiences is resilience and strength. Nonetheless, each time I fell, I was obliged to obtain strength in order to rise. Thus each time I rose, I was a little stronger and more optimistic than before,” she shares.

Ms Mcheni says she is naturally an extremely introverted person and in terms of her leadership style, she focuses more on execution and results rather than inconsequential issues like clocking in and out.

“I expect that when I share my vision, then our focus should be on the deliverables,” she notes.

Ms Mcheni appraised mentorship as she categorizes it as one of the growth processes in a person’s life.

“As we move along our life journey, we all need to have mentors, people that would challenge our status quo and way of thinking, when I was working at TCC, I was mentored by Tatiana Dearden and Patrick Foya, who I worked with,” she says.

Ms Mcheni has been a mentor with several non-profit organizations like Manjano Foundation in Tanzania and also with ‘Unreasonable East Africa’ and ‘SHONA’ in Uganda to assist young start-ups in setting up their human resource infrastructure.

“I have also been involved in unstructured mentor relationships with several young women who are in the HR profession, and mostly I would want mentees with a willingness to take feedback,” she explains. She says that leadership is enhanced by skills development because in the current transformative working world, we need to focus on building skills.

“I would also encourage leaders to make use of Assessment Centres, as the process will help build their emotional intelligence and self-awareness,” says Ms Mcheni.

As she addressed lack of diversity in top leadership, Ms Mcheni says women need to continue building self confidence and ensure that they effectively participate in all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life.

“We should not wait to be given, we need to take our space as equal partners. We must learn to use our voices where there are injustices and unfairness be it at home, workplace or in the community. Women change the world for the better – the question is, are we doing it?,” she notes. Ms Mcheni details that part of women empowerment methods is the establishment of women recognition initiatives that spotlights women generally whilst balancing gender. She says these kinds of initiatives can be sustained by encourage culture learning and personal and societal growth.

“The society needs to do away with the culture of organizing events that don’t add long term value to women,” she noted, adding; “The women empowerment initiatives should not only focus on providing ‘fishing rods’ but also on the how to use the ‘fishing rods’ effectively and opening up opportunities to women at all levels.”

My proudest achievement since the establishment of IRIS, is that we pioneered the annual HR summit – a gathering of human resource professionals in Tanzania for the past 10 years.