Heka founder: Becoming a mother made me a better leader

Steph Hind co-founded Heka with her husband in 2016. Her secret is that parenthood ended up making her a better leader, though it's not a lesson that she learned straight away.

In 2016, Hind left a promising role in retail, as an area manager for Aldi, to begin her entrepreneurship journey. Her time at Aldi had taught her about the connection between employee well-being and productivity. She used this insight to set up Heka, which provides a range of employee benefits for clients, who are typically medium to large-sized companies.

Employees are given a monthly credit allocation which can be used to purchase benefits on a flexible basis, from gym memberships and pottery classes to mindfulness sessions and health scans.

The company now has more than 250 clients, revenues of £3m and 20 employees.

But Hind, who has two young children, says that becoming a mother while growing a start-up was a big challenge for her and the business.

"For so long there's been so many conversations within the start-up world and the investment space of 'we need more female founders'," says Hind, "but actually there aren't that many conversations about how you can help support females on a longer journey within their start-up and their founder lifespan."

She worried about the impact her absence would have on the business she'd "poured her heart into", during her first pregnancy in 2021. The stress took an extreme toll on her health. Yet she returned to work too quickly after her first child was born and had to take some further time away.

Her second maternity leave went much more smoothly as she felt confident about taking more time off.

"My business thrived in my absence, which is fantastic to be able to say as a founder," says Hind. "I was almost blown away when I came back from maternity and saw how my vision had been created because I'd put the right steps in place."

Like many founders, she realised that she had to "let go for the business to grow", in this case in the context of parenthood and maternity leave.

"You have to build and trust the team around you, which are two separate steps," says Hind.