#163 — What do you wish someone had told you about motherhood and being a CEO? Shama Hyder is a digital strategist, speaker, and bestselling author. She is the CEO of Zen Media, a global marketing and digital PR firm. She also has a 1-year old at home.

She gives us an honest accounting of how much work motherhood takes, and how many people it takes to run her business and her team while at the helm of a 30-person award-winning digital strategy organization while also having a one-year old at home.

She has been named the “Zen Master of Marketing” by Entrepreneur Magazine and the “Millennial Master of the Universe” by Fast Company. Shama has also been honored at both the White House and The United Nations as one of the top 100 young entrepreneurs in the country.

As the CEO of Zen Media, she and her team help both B2B and B2C brands to make meaningful connections with the modern-day customer via influencer marketing, experiential and digital storytelling — and then turning those into bottom line results.

In this conversation, we talk about how she got her start in business at the rise of social media. At that time major companies weren't paying attention—so she started her own company focused on the power of moments in galvanizing media attention.

She also tells us honestly about her experience of motherhood and parenting, including:

• How it took a while for her to really fall in love with her kiddo and get to know them—it wasn't an instantaneous jolt, like she thought it would be.
• She's always been a night owl, working late and sleeping in late. Children? They get up early. After a few months with her newborn, she and her husband decided to figure out a way to make it so that they could still do do the night work they prefer. Today, they have a nanny who comes in at 7am and they (the parents) sleep in until 11am most days and work late, keeping their night owl schedules.
• Her plans for maternity leave, what she expected to do, what actually happened, and why there were differences.
• How she thinks about social media and content creation, and how she batches and repurposes things to get the most leverage for her online work.

Get the show notes and episode sponsor at startuppregnant.com/164