How do you know when it’s time to make your next big career move? With International Women’s Day around the corner, we are excited to feature Avni Patel Thompson, Founder and CEO of Milo. Avni is building technology that directly supports the often overlooked emotional and logistical labor that falls on parents—especially women. Milo is an AI assistant designed to help families manage that invisible load more efficiently. In this episode, Avni shares her journey from studying chemistry to holding leadership roles at global brands like Adidas and Starbucks, to launching her own ventures. She discusses how she approaches career transitions, the importance of unpleasant experiences, and why she’s focused on making everyday life easier for parents. [01:26] Avni's University Days and Early Career [04:36] Non-Linear Career Paths [05:16] Pursuing Steep Learning Curves [11:51] Entrepreneurship and Safety Nets [15:22] Lived Experiences and Milo [19:55] Avni’s In Her Ellement Moment [20:03] Reflections Links: Avni Patel Thompson on LinkedIn Suchi Srinivasan on LinkedIn Kamila Rakhimova on LinkedIn Ipsos report on the future of parenting About In Her Ellement: In Her Ellement highlights the women and allies leading the charge in digital, business, and technology innovation. Through engaging conversations, the podcast explores their journeys—celebrating successes and acknowledging the balance between work and family. Most importantly, it asks: when was the moment you realized you hadn’t just arrived—you were truly in your element? About The Hosts: Suchi Srinivasan is an expert in AI and digital transformation. Originally from India, her career includes roles at trailblazing organizations like Bell Labs and Microsoft. In 2011, she co-founded the Cleanweb Hackathon, a global initiative driving IT-powered climate solutions with over 10,000 members across 25+ countries. She also advises Women in Cloud, aiming to create $1B in economic opportunities for women entrepreneurs by 2030. Kamila Rakhimova is a fintech leader whose journey took her from Tajikistan to the U.S., where she built a career on her own terms. Leveraging her English proficiency and international relations expertise, she discovered the power of microfinance and moved to the U.S., eventually leading Amazon's Alexa Fund to support underrepresented founders. Subscribe to In Her Ellement on your podcast app of choice to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, business, and technology.…
Which factors have influence on the choice of an office? The answer is simple: all those contributing to our well being and productivity. We know that the "price" factor is more and more decisive, but more competitive professionals and companies face the office as an investment: the work they develop always passes through the office (whether a serviced or a virtual one) and we know we spend most part of our time in our work place. Let us star by the location. The ideal solution is to install our office close to home and at the same time close to our clients. Despite the technologies development, the personal contact with clients and partners still continues to be fundamental in many activities, and for those the time spend in dislocations is always important. The choice of renting a place seems to be the right one, facing the current conjuncture and the flexibility this model offers. Serviced Office, Virtual Office or Coworking? Depends on the defined objectives. Regardless of the conventional office is the most common choice, there is a growing tendency for the Virtual Office choice, not only for the inherent price (average amounts of 70€/80€ per month in our market), but also because it is the most rational choice for those who do not need a permanent office and want to use punctually work and meeting rooms, as well as to guarantee a secretariat support and a personalized telephone call 24h/7 days per week. On the contrary of what you may think, it is not only liberal professionals who choose the virtual office; multinationals use this model for a long time now: they can settle in a country in less than 24 hours insuring a prestige address to establish the companies head office (image and credibility reinforcement) professional secretariat and meeting rooms with state of the art technology. Responding to the new market tendencies, Business Centres are betting also on the Coworking, which may also be the right choice for many professional who work at home or at the client's premises. This model consists on renting a work place in an open-space, in a daily or monthly basis, with a turnkey service which may include internet connexion and access to work rooms. Main advantage? The cooperation environment which potentiates the networking among users and the possibility of using secretariat services rendered by the Business Centres.…
A recent article from Emily Sokolow published on the blog wixmobile.com highlighted the fact that the virtual office had been declared as Dr. Owen Hunt work space, from the famous American series “Grey’s Anatomy.” "The way I see it, my office is where I am!" it was with this statement that Dr. Owen Hunt, recent promoted to head of Surgery, highlighted that the his work organization model is not based on a fixed place: what really matters is the works he develops and not place where he develops it. It’s not just about using new technologies in order to make our work easier, like tablets or remote access to office; the main objective is the productivity and efficiency increase of our organizations. Analising this episode, we conclude that is only one example of how companies and professionals can deal with the challenges of modern economy and with the current recession contect. The new work spaces – whether the virtual office model, Coworking or teleworking – have to respond to two fundamental needs of the 21st century organizations: flexibility and rationality. In the case of the Virtual offices, they allow professionals to develop their work in full, with more reduced costs and in a more productive way, wherever they are, in case they do not need a permanent office to work in. A study made this year by the consultant Unwired Ventures concluded that 71% of the professionals of younger generations is prepared to adopt the virtual office, in contrast of the traditional office. Besides the habits we acquire in relation to remote access to information, the main advantages have to do with time spend in travelling, costs reduction, balance between professional life and the comfort of be able to work anywhere. They were, very likely, also these the reasons that took the surgeon Dr. Owen Hunt to choose the Virtual Office solution.…
There are things more predictable than others. Can we easily predict the office of the future? Some of the more futuristic tendencies related with workspaces and new office models have been recently presented in Lisbon, in a Conference promoted by Cushmann & Wakefield and by the OJE journal. Wim Van Hove, from Procos Group, highlighted that the office of the future will have more spaces of human interaction and that, more and more, individual work will be done outside of the company, whether at home, on journeys or simply in public spaces. Accordingly to Van Hove, a work station will only work for tasks implying human interaction, like meetings and presentations; each collaborator will be reachable in any part of the worlds, using remote communications that will be more intuitive and offices will be very different from the models we nowadays know: they will conjugate retreat areas, private areas, small meetings areas and meeting rooms for bigger groups. In reality, there will be a new office concept because there will also be a new work world – more dynamic, more efficient and based on an more open relation between leaders and collaborators, promoting social responsibility and a higher balance between professional and personal life. After all, all it is needed is to acquire new habits and to manage work in a more rational way, taking advantage of what new technologies have to offer. Currently, some companies have already adopted this model (the more known examples are Microsoft and Google), but also in the SME and micro companies world we have register a major change facing the functioning of the conventional office. In Portugal is already common for a small company with market notoriety to occupy temporarily work stations in a Business Center. Teams may work in any part of the world and workstations are rented only when work or clients meetings are necessary. If to this service we add the Virtual Office, this is, the adoption of a prestige address, distant secretariat support with personalized telephone answering and the online access to collaborative platforms, whether by the PC or smartphone, then we are talking of a new paradigm, synonym of a higher flexibility, costs contention, efficiency and productivity. The “Office Anywhere” concept came to stay and it is one of the company’s main allies.…
This year edition of Expo Franchise, in Lisbon, revealed once again to be an excellent support initiative to entrepreneurship, at a time where there is a crescent tendency of professionals to bet on the start up of their own businesses. “The entrepreneurship does not depend of the crisis nor of economical cycles, depends on good ideas”: This declaration of João Carvalho, CEO of MELOM, start-up brand awarded this year by the Franchising Information Institute, represents the state of mind of companies which do not fear to invest, namely on business models already tested, and as it’s the case of franchised brands. Nowadays, the labour precariousness is a reality and, according to the Franchising Information Institute, the major part of this year visitors presented a profile oriented towards the creation of their own employment and with a higher qualification level, in comparison with previous years. According with the last Census made by this Institute, the activity sector which has grown the most is Services, representing 52% of the brands (in 1999, this sector represented only 28%). It is precisely in the Services sector that brands have betted on innovating formats which result in efficiency gains and fixed costs reduction for the Franchisors. Several international case studies demonstrate that the Virtual Office has been a fairly valid option for franchised companies to start up their activity. In Spain, one the success case has been the brand “myCenter”, in the financial advisory area: the franchisors do not need a permanent Office; they develop their work from home and have the support of a Business Center which guarantees them a distant secretariat, personalized telephone answering and occasional use of meeting rooms. These are the major advantages of the Virtual Office: flexibility, costs reduction and focus on the core business. In Portugal, brands like Home Instead, in the domiciliary support area, and Publipan, in the advertising supports area, are excellent examples of brands which are expanding their Franchising network using, namely, the Virtual Office: this way, they can offer their franchisors a low cost solution, where the major part of the investment is resumed to entry rights and royalties, using a Premium service which allows them to separate their personal life from Professional, use an address for the head Office, meeting and work rooms, as well as a personalized telephone answering 24 hours/day. An intelligent idea which can be applied independently from the times of crisis and economical cycles.…
Recent studies made by the multinationals RingCentral and Regus allowed taking interesting conclusions on the new tendencies related to the use of work spaces and on the adoption of telework models. One of the studies, made on December 2009 close to SME in the United States, showed that only 15% of collaborators works on a single place; on the other hand, when working outside the office, and on the phone with their client, 80% of the employers wants to pass the idea that is on the office. This same study shows that, during the year of 2010, practically two thirds (67%) of SME will hire more collaborators and among these, around 57% would work remotely, from home or from the client's premises, considering the savings obtained with Offices rental and the possibility to access to a Virtual Office service. This alternative has been a crescent demand both for SME and for big companies, facing the possibility to use meeting rooms and secretariat services provided by Business Centers that are specialized in this kind of solutions, both in the United States and in Europe.A case-study highly disclosed in recent times has been the one of the "Inc Magazine" based in Manhattan, which allowed an annual saving of 500.000 USD and a 20 % productivity increase through the adoption of telework for the editorial team, by keeping in the headquarters the support departments and meeting rooms for punctual use, in case of need. Factors like the time gained with travels and the family balance were highlighted among the collaborators, besides the technological means that make more and more efficient the remote work. The implementation of these measures passes not only for the trust in the work teams but also for the consciousness of the advantages of the virtual Office model, both for small companies and multinationals, namely on a business prospection phase. The current recession climate came to conscious the interest of several companies in this type of solutions, being an opportunity for many of them to develop their activity in a sustained and rational way.…
At a time where costs rationalization is the word of order, enterprises search more and more for flexible solutions at a work spaces and administrative support level. The initials VO, CW and VA mean, in order, Virtual Office, Coworking and Virtual Assistant. This new models, yet to be assimilated in our market, have been raised to power by the technological boom and by the possibility to work in any part of the world: we can have a Virtual Office, where we can use a work space temporarily and benefit from distant secretariat services; we can adopt coworking, sharing a work space with other professionals and enterprises at a reduced cost, promoting synergies and networking; or we can hire a Virtual Assistant, in case we wish to have a personalized secretariat service, always available online. Imagine a start-up, with a limited initial financial capacity, which for a fair price can have a prestige address, meeting rooms equipped with state of the art technologies, a personalized telephone answering, as well as professional virtual secretariat service. The Virtual Office, Coworking and Virtual Assistant options came to allow to these enterprises to focus on their core, diminishing fixed costs and adopting a flexible structure. These concepts can, in an equal way, to be applied to a multinational that decides to open and Office in another country. With minimal investment, these companies take less risks in a business prospecting stage, choosing an Office that by being designated as “virtual” has, in reality, shared work offices (coworking) and a professional secretariat team, reinforcing their image and market credibility. Independently from when or where they are located, these services reduce physical distance, maintain the enterprise operational and avoid means and resources displacement. It is also in the organizational restructuring stage that these concepts present themselves as decisive factors in the delivery of a quality service at competitive prices, being predictable that, in a near future, these new initials to be integrated in the daily vocabulary of organizations. However, it is today, more than ever that they present themselves as innovating resources, facing a continuous challenging scenario imposing intelligent solution with maximum efficiency.…
The article "Work Smarter with a Virtual Office" recently published on the website officetoday.com by Karen Condi, CEO of the American consultant Alliance Office Strategies, came to highlight the importance that big companies have been giving in the last years to the new models of workspaces management. Recent statistics published in the United States of America indicate that big enterprises like IBM and Accenture have around 50% of their personnel working outside their facilities, and from the 115 thousand employees of the American IBM, 46.000 adopt regularly alternative work places. The Virtual Office concept was born in the eighties of the past century, gaining a greater awareness in the nineties, at a time where the new technologies and the Internet, in particular, contributed to a higher professional’s mobility bringing major advantages to the companies betting on internationalization. In practice, these companies did not need a physical space to settle in a country: it was enough to hire a virtual office service in a Business Center that gave them a prestige address on a central area, professional telephone attendance and meeting rooms for work sessions. Besides the financial amounts involved in this operations, much lower than the traditional option of renting or buying an Office, the “flexibility” and “efficiency” factors were decisive for the wide spread of the Virtual Office concept. Currently, dozens of multinational enterprises have settled in Portugal trough this service, seizing the competitive advantages herein existent at a technological level, with innovating multichanel solutions that allow an online contact and in real time with clients "anytime-anywhere". On the contrary of what might be thought, the Virtual Office does not belong exclusively to the universe of SME and independent professionals with limited budgets in the beginning of their activity. As an example, Google opened a virtual Office in Brazil and Starbucks adopted the same strategy in Portugal, being able to fulfil the objective of sustained growth that is a characteristic of these enterprises, following the principle defended by Karen Condi: "Work Smart".…
"The new business models are those which bring innovation into the market and the companies of the future will be those selling innovation ". This declaration from Eurico Neves, CEO of the consultant Inovamais, in the scope of Tech Media Europe Conference that took place in Oporto in February 2011, resumes well the new paradigm of the entrepreneurship market and the challenges it is subdue. The Event organized by Europe Unlimited and by APDC – Portuguese Association for the Communications Development – allowed to spread dozens of European projects from start-up companies, where some Portuguese companies were highlighted. In the estate area, was presented the myOffice app, the first worldwide virtual office application for smartphones from the authorship of Avila Business Centers. This Business Center counted with the partnership of the technological companies Swipe Twice and WATERDOG mobile, which developed the versions for iPhone/iPad and for Android, respectively, this last to be launched in March 2011. In the Mobile area, the latest studies refer we can assist to a tremendous growth of the number of users. In 2020 it is previewed 50 billion and the launch of 100 new innovating applications every day, accordingly to data presented by Ericsson and which the Barcelona World Mobile Congress came to confirm. This reality does not leave much space for Business Centers willing to follow the new consumption trends in the work spaces area – more and more business are made at a global scale and the quickness of answer is crucial for their success, as well as Professional mobility – in this point, smartphones and, more recently, Tablets, came to revolutionize the existent habits, contributing to an efficiency increase in organizations and to a change in their organizational philosophy: the principle is the following: it does not matter where companies do it but what they do. Concepts like Virtual Office, coworking and distant secretariat start to have more and more fans, not only in micro-enterprises but also in medium and big companies searching to rationalize costs and work models in the current economic context. The office of the future will be more and more a support tool for professionals searching to manage better their time, balancing their familiar and professional life, optimizing their work through solutions which offer, not only the temporary use of work spaces and telephone answering, but also in mobile applications representing “Office 3.0”: wherever you are, professionals are in contact with the office and the world.…
Some days ago, someone told me it was safer to have your own business than to work for others. Effectively the economic recession the country is facing has forced many companies to reduce their structure, fitting them into new market realities. On the other hand, many companies, of smaller dimensions that have bet on a sustained growth have been able to face the current difficulties: adopting a flexible management model with a strong leadership and decision capacity. If, on the one hand, this crisis has thinned some companies, on the other hand it has also contributed for the assertion of many professionals who decided to assume the role of entrepreneurs, taking advantage of the opportunity in order to develop innovating projects and of great potential. At this stage it can be questioned whether one should create a large business structure or if it’s preferable to manage a small company, controlling the service quality and betting on the product or service specialization and differentiation. Observing the SME market, in our country is very easy to find business opportunities because the progression margin is immense (like in Tourism) and competition is often limited. The bet on a medium and long term is becoming more and more an entrepreneur’s strategy and one can only achieve it with small and agile structures. Currently there are several tools that allow the disclosure of our brand or company in a simple, effective and cheap way, like the social networks and networking actions organized by chambers of commerce and business associations. The involvement in these initiatives establishes itself an extra motivation factor for the entrepreneur, both from a professional and personal point of view, for the shared experiences and learning they provide. In this domain, Business Centres have offered to start-up companies solutions like the virtual Office, distant secretariat, Office rental with shared services and co-working. These Centres contribution has been crucial to the development of these companies, maintaining a light structure in a logic defended by the British economist E. F. Schumacher in 1973, when his book was published "Small is Beautiful". This sentence has never been so up to date.…
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