S3: Ep 6: Alisya Bengi Danisman, Lawyer, Blenheim Chalcot, Venture Builders, London, UK

"At a later stage, I got out of my comfort zone and made the decision to start over and change my life". 

Alisya was born, raised and educated in Turkey where she became a Commercial Lawyer for a large firm in Istanbul. She moved to London to get her Masters in Law and made the decision to continue her career in the UK. She currently works for a Venture Builder firm assisting their clients in the legal aspects of their companies.  While living in Turkey she acted as a volunteer attorney by night to young protestors and was a commercial lawyer during the day. "It's not so much about the job, but about the experience, take what you can and learn from those around you".
Alisya's resilience is shown through her experience and dedication to change - both in her profession and career. 

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Thank you 
Jann Danyluk, Career Resilience.

Transcript

 | 00:12 | So excited to welcome you to season three of career resilience. My name is Jann Danyluk. I'm a senior human resources consultant at Ford keast, a progressive accounting firm in London, Ontario, Canada.

 | 00:26 | Each week I get to talk with people about their career path and their career journey and maybe we can all learn from each other how to be a little bit more resilient in the challenging world of work. Please check out my website career dash resilience dot com where you'll find season one and season two and now season three. Welcome. Love what you do and do what you love. The best career advice I've received follow the fun.

 | 00:54 | Those opportunities will just organically and present themselves. You know, establish those connections and maintain those connections, acceptance just means accepting what is. I don't think we should just put ourselves in a box. At the end of the day, it was always me that I said, I'm not doing good enough right now. I want it to always be you know movie night on Friday night. My guest today is Alicia Dennis Munn. And Alyssia is a lawyer in London, England.

 | 01:25 | She's in-house counsel for a venture builder organization called blenheim shall cut. That's the name of the organization. But Alicia is also originally from turkey, and we want to talk a little bit about her background there and what made her decide to move to the UK and settle in the UK because that's a big decision for someone to make, so. So Alicia, welcome to career resilience. Thank you, John. Hi. It's great to have you here. I'm so excited about the opportunity to talk with you.

 | 01:56 | And I'd like a course to chat with you about your career as a lawyer and what made you decide to become a lawyer because that's not an easy career path. Also, your decision to settle in the UK and what made you leave your home country and it'd be willing to do that because that's also a difficult thing to do. So you are obviously a very strong woman. So what I wanted to start with, though, is just any sort of interesting fact about you.

 | 02:25 | It can be about anything that's just sort of different, not work related, just something about you that is an interesting fact. I think one that I can think of of the top of my head is that my name, Alicia, was not my official name in my identity card until I turned 6 years old. Well, that's kind of unusual.

 | 02:54 | Usually, it's right within the first few weeks of birth. So what was your name on your identity card? My name on my identity card was my second name, which still exists and why I went to court, which has been. So I was named Alicia since I was born, but my parents had difficulty in registering this name by the authorities back then.

 | 03:24 | Because in 1985, which is the year I was born, I gave away my age as well. This was when turkey was having the post military coup decade and things were quite political, obviously, and there was a nationalist wave very much impactful in the country in general, in people's daily lives, how they would name their kids, to a very, very large extent.

 | 04:00 | And this is why when my dad went to this local authority to get my first identity card, they refused to write it because of because of the foreign origin of the name. Because it's not Turkish origin. So that's how it happened. And then obviously everyone was calling me Alicia. But I had a different name on my identity card. And at some point, my mom decided to go to court and get a court decision to have it written on my ID.

 | 04:32 | Yeah. And this happened when I was 6 years old. And she made it what is the origin of the name Alicia? How is that foreign? Where is it from? I think I mean, I heard that my mom decided to name me this after reading a book and liking the character in the book named Alicia.

 | 04:58 | But in the book, when she read the name for the first time, she did a research on it and she found out that its ego Slavic Yugoslavian origin. But obviously there are versions throughout the world. I know there's another spelling in the U.S., which is very common. I'm sure you know it as well. It's ALICIA. So it's spelled.

 | 05:24 | It's pronounced exactly like this, but I have different letters that only exist in the Turkish alphabet. That's why they give us there. Well, I think your mom was very smart, very feisty, but also to me, you look like an Alicia. It's a beautiful name and you're a beautiful woman, so that just makes good for your mom. Thank you. So let's move over then to talking about career.

 | 05:52 | And when you were growing up, what were you thinking you wanted to do when you grew up? I actually was a kid and a teenager who had a lot of different interests. So when I look back, I remember that there were a times where I wanted to become a singer. There were times where I wanted to become an actor at doctor and architect at diplomat.

 | 06:25 | But finally, I never dreamt of becoming a lawyer. Which is quite ironic because I ended up one. Are you actually someone who can sing? Yeah. I would like to think so. Okay. Because I would be a little here. I would never ask someone to sing on the spot. So at what point did you think about becoming a lawyer?

 | 06:57 | So at the end of high school, I set the university exam, which is a multiple choice central, very big central exam in turkey. So you only have to sit this exam and then the GPA during the high school also has an impact on where you would be in the uni. So that grade of this central university exam, which is only for three hours, you have to sit it.

 | 07:23 | It determines basically which bachelor degree you can choose to study. So the higher the market is obviously the better degree and you need to select from. And I had a not a bad outcome of this exam. So my grade was pretty high. And I was just checking schools, which I can get into. And a lot of good law faculties were among the ones that I could select.

 | 07:55 | So I just decided to go for one of these. Okay. Yeah. And so you went to uni, we call it university, but you call it uni. So you went to uni and you became a lawyer, did you think you were going to practice in Istanbul in turkey? What was the plan? I actually started working even before I graduated law school.

 | 08:27 | I always did summer internships in big law firms in Istanbul when I was studying, but also I did a part time I worked part time in a large law firm in my last year of the university as well. And then I just decided to stay there. They offered me a position and then I did my training contract there, and then I became qualified, got admitted to the bar. And then I continued as a lawyer with them.

 | 08:55 | And I even became a senior associate, and then left to do my master's in London. So I was there forever. It was my one and only workplace. And I always thought I would maybe consider moving out of turkey at some point. But the reason why postpone my master's was obviously always the workload. I had post one for so many years.

 | 09:23 | And by the time I got to it, I was already 29 years old. Finally, I needed to London to do my master's, but I was more considering it as a gap year, to be honest, because I had a really busy two years before that at work. So I just wanted a break. And I thought, you know, I've been postponing this for so long. Why not just get it done now? So that I can turn myself for a year and travel in Europe. That's how I came to London.

 | 09:52 | And I always have I always thought I would go back, but during the year I spent in London, things have changed for me. And then I seriously started thinking, well, maybe I should give it a try here. And stay. Okay. What kind of law did you practice in Istanbul when you were with that big law firm? I was a commercial litigation, actually. Also got involved in a lot of corporate and M&A deals as well. Okay. So that made sense.

 | 10:23 | So you thought, I'll get my master's, and I'll get it in the UK. So what I wanted to ask you about in this, this is as good a time as any, is where your language skills throughout this process, when did you learn English? I started learning English at school. When I was ten, 11 years old, I think. The first year was quite extensive.

 | 10:51 | It was like 25 years, 25 hours of language teaching only. It was the prep class. And then it wasn't as many hours in the following years, but I continuously learned English. But I think when my English at the time, my English really improved, I would say, was when I worked in the law firm, I worked for in Istanbul because almost 1995% of my clientele were based in abroad, including London, the UK, because of the department that I worked for and the type of work that I did.

 | 11:28 | Okay. Yeah. Was it brave of you to be able to work in English or was it just fun to work in English? I just can't imagine the challenge law position is complex in any language. So what did that feel like? Exciting, interesting, scary. What did that feel like? It's not easy.

 | 11:58 | I can tell you that because obviously things take longer as it's not your native tongue, so you may read things and then reread things to understand. So if somebody's mother tongue is English, they may be reading and understanding things like in two minutes, whereas you may need three minutes, four minutes, or maybe reread things to understand them. So it wasn't easy, but I think the more I practice, the better it got.

 | 12:30 | And I was never intimidated. I saw it as a challenge that is good for me you know. A growing opportunity to maximize my potential, to get better, I wasn't scared. There were times where you know I felt a little frustrated maybe. But I didn't give up. So yeah. Okay. A lot of law firms have a billable hour. Were you on a billable hour when you were in law firm?

 | 12:59 | I lost. I was, unfortunately, I had those terrible hours as well. 80 hour work weeks, I had in the past. Not anymore, luckily. No. So how did you cope with 80 hour work weeks? Because this is one of the things I find fascinating about people that choose law. Because I don't know before you get into it, if you realize that you are going to be working 80 hour work weeks.

 | 13:29 | So how did you cope with that? Really good question. I'm not sure if I call it really well, to be honest, because I had a lot of health issues during those years where I worked really hard. I was diagnosed with back hernia because of not obviously moving properly and neglecting exercise. And then I had stomach ulcers. At a very young age, stress related, obviously.

 | 14:00 | But I always thought you know this is this is just the period of time in my life and I need to do this. And I need to gain as much experience as I can. I need to grow as much as I can. And then eventually things will get easier for me. And I really liked what I did, I think, which helped. Although there were times when I found it really frustrating, I essentially I was really enjoying what I was doing. So that probably really helped me.

 | 14:29 | I think that makes such a difference if you're at least committed to it and interested in it. And so that would have been maybe one of the reasons that you decided to get your master's and sort of do a jig. So I think that's very interesting. So in your working life, since in your working life since you've been in the UK, how have you had to be resilient? I think first challenge for me was to make this decision to stay in the UK.

 | 15:03 | And to continue my professional life in the UK. Because that meant that I needed to get out of my comfort zone and leave everything behind. I had a really great job. I was working in one of the largest international law firms in Istanbul. And I was in partner track when I left. Wow. So I knew that if I had gone back, I would have made partner at a very young age, probably one of the youngest, so that the firm has ever seen.

 | 15:34 | But I just decided, I think political situation in the UK these years, which is 2020, the 2013, 2014. After the big demonstrations of gezi park, and you know how the country started changing, and it was obvious that you know our daily lives were really impacted by the changes that were happening. I got encouraged by that, I think.

 | 16:03 | I found I found the courage in me to just make a change and leave everything behind. And just give it a go. I knew that you know if it hadn't worked, I would have always had the opportunity to go back. Yeah. I just wanted to try it and see if I can make it. So you mean daily life was changing in turkey from what you were seeing? Yeah. Yes. Also, I was, I don't know, I'm a very sensitive person, so I can't really, you know, shut my ears and close my eyes to what's happening around me.

 | 16:36 | And I was always reading the papers, obviously, following politics and what's going on in the country. Obviously, part of it comes with the profession as well, but I was always interested in politics as a human being. So there were a lot of things that were really bothering me. And I just, I think, had enough of waking up to terrible news in the country. I was really upset by what was going on. Yeah. So did you study Atatürk and the things that he brought to the country?

 | 17:06 | Yeah, the time when I studied turkey was very secular. Not only paper secular, but also in practice secular. Yeah. Changing, obviously, after. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So tell me about your day to today work now. What do you do and how many hours do you work?

 | 17:33 | With less than 80, even if it's 79, Alicia, I hope it's less than 80. No, it is less than 80. Luckily, I have a rather good work life balance here compared to my private practice days in law firms. So I do work as an in-house counsel in the implant chocolate, which is a venture builder venture capitalist, actually, but it doesn't like to call itself a venture capitalist because it's not your typical venture calculus.

 | 18:05 | The difference between what we are and the typical venture capitalists is because we're not only investing in the businesses, we are building the businesses. So we have quite a few businesses, small to mid-sized startups in the portfolio. Which obviously then that don't have their legal functions because they can't afford it. So I am part of the central team.

 | 18:31 | Which supports businesses for their all kinds of kinds of needs from legal, to recruitment, from tax advice, to investments, anything around that. So I am working with all these little ventures who don't have their own legal counsels. So it's almost like I have 30 different clients from different sectors, which are very, very different businesses.

 | 19:01 | So it's not your typical in-house legal counsel. Yeah. It's a very different position that I am filling now. It is great because that's a lot of exposure in different sectors with different businesses. But it can be very demanding, obviously. At times, but I guess it's very rewarding in the long run. What a great model.

 | 19:29 | So it isn't just a venture capitalist. It's an organization that stays involved. Yeah. It walks with the ventures from the start till the end of that, basically. I wanted to switch over to talking a little bit about turkey and your early life there. And just in mentioning that, I think that you and I would be remiss not to mention what turkey is currently going through with the earthquake and the aftermath of the huge earthquake that has occurred there.

 | 20:06 | And you know honoring what people have been dealing with in that situation, which is so horrific for those people that were affected, so dramatically. But you would be affected too. So from being far away, how has that been for you? It has been very difficult.

 | 20:33 | From many aspects, to be honest, I constantly feared for my loved ones. And their loved ones, I luckily didn't have any immediate family who were affected. Badly. But I had extended family members who were living in the area who were affected. And also friends and their families as well.

 | 21:01 | I think being abroad at times like this makes you feel really helpless. Yeah. It's almost like you want to you feel like you know if you were there, you could have done something, but you probably know deep down that there was only so much you can do, even if you were there. But I think being close to home and being there is different than being abroad. Yeah. It was very difficult to follow the news.

 | 21:28 | I was very, very draining both mentally and physically. Yeah. It would be. And frustrating in terms of the quality of the buildings and being aware of that yeah. Unfortunately, it's very sad. Turkey, it is turkey's reality. Turkey is a country that is on a few plates. There are a lot of fault lines and turkey is an earthquake zone.

 | 21:59 | So we have to live with that. And we experience really major earthquakes in the past. So that is what is making people really upset and probably outraged because we don't seem to have learned our lessons from previous experiences. In 1999, we have a really big earthquake. Which affected the area around Istanbul and also Istanbul as well. Official numbers were saying there were more than 17,000 casualties in that earthquake.

 | 22:32 | But obviously, it was higher than this. It's always higher than the government likes to you know downplay the numbers in instances like this. So we knew that there were more. There were more casualties. And after this earthquake, there was a tax introduced specifically to prepare for an instance in the future like this, and to strengthen our buildings, to get ready for a big disaster.

 | 23:05 | Well, obviously, people have been asking you know, we've been paying all these taxes with every single utility bill that we've been paying for so many years. And every single item we purchase that there was a there was a percentage that is added on the bill we paid. What happens at this money is you know, where these money is used for. So people feel really outraged, obviously. Yeah. Yeah.

 | 23:32 | It seems like Alicia, every time these things happen, there's this dealing with the situation. And then we're going to do things differently. And then something happens. And things aren't done differently. And it's hard not to be outraged when that was a deal. That was the decision. That's what we all committed to. Yeah, it is very sad. And it's going to repeat itself.

 | 24:03 | It will. It's not it's not a matter of you know what if it's going to be there will be another one. It's a matter of when. So there are now expecting a big earthquake in Istanbul that they've been expecting for a while now. So everyone who lives in a Star Wars really scared at the moment. They don't know what they're going to do. And those people on houses, they have properties, they don't have any other properties elsewhere. So they have to live in these houses.

 | 24:34 | They don't even have any idea how strong these houses are. Yeah. So it's really, yeah. Because it does it make you feel at all like you should be there. Yeah. That is a difficult question. I think there are fundamental changes that are required in turkey.

 | 25:03 | Individual attempts are very valuable, obviously. But turkey is a country now. There are no checks and balances. Law is not really happening in turkey. Because there are no checks and balances. Everybody's doing whatever they feel like. And there's no authority to check them and penalize them. That is why all these buildings have been built in the first place.

 | 25:30 | And all these builders have the guts to build these buildings like they build. So I think I can't see myself going back to turkey permanently, anytime soon. But I always would have my heart there, obviously, and I would always wish there is one day that things change. And then I would comfortably be going back to turkey and maybe even starting living there again.

 | 25:59 | Yeah. I think you've made some good decisions, though, and decisions that aren't always easy. So I think that's one of the unexpected consequences of making the kind of move that you made. Because it's adventurous, it's great. It starts a new life, but part of you is still always in that old life. So it takes courage.

 | 26:29 | I really miss it. Really missed it. I tried to do it as often as I can. It's not like living there obviously, but I really miss it yeah. But then after ten days, I started getting annoyed by things and I realize how good of a decision that I made when I exactly. You really did. And I'm sure your parents are incredibly proud of you for making that decision. They are happy for me. Of course. Of course.

 | 26:58 | Now, you grew up in a beautiful, ancient town, and I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about that town. First of all, I wanted to tell you that I grew up in a very old town. And we were founded in 1749, which compared to your growing up is like yesterday. So were you aware growing up of the incredible history of your town, which is what was it it's pronounced what?

 | 27:29 | It's called Marmaris. Most of turkey is a beautiful city. Very pretty. Yeah. Actually, that is a very good point. Everywhere in turkey has a lot of history because of the location of turkey and it's kind of where it civilizations met and they live there for centuries and various civilizations, not only one or two.

 | 27:55 | But I think it was amazing. I was very lucky to have grown up there. And I'm a summer girl also. I don't know what I'm doing in London. Don't ask me because that is still a mystery to me as well. Why I ended up in London. But yeah, I am a summer girl. I really loved absolutely everything about summer and growing up at a place like murmurs.

 | 28:23 | I was very lucky, I think. I was talking we were talking RBKs in our school bags and going to the beach after school. So I mean, we weren't aware of how privileged we were, but now I remember those days, and I'm thinking of how an easy life and amazing life we had there as kids and teenagers who were very lucky. Yeah. It is amazing to have that opportunity and to appreciate it too.

 | 28:52 | So that's great. I wanted to switch over to the questions that I always ask. And that is, first of all, what has been the best career advice you have received? Oh.

 | 29:14 | My former boss didn't directly say to me, but at a meeting at an office wide meeting, he once said about a court case where there were allegations of corruption by other parties and roles in the court case, not our firm, not the side that we were representing, but the counterparty, and he once said, no win is worth your integrity, which really stuck with me.

 | 29:49 | I think that was very, very important. And it's a good advice that you can give to people who are practicing who are trying to practice law. In corrupt countries, I guess. Yes. Yeah. Oh, that's a great one. And I can think of actually another one. Which was, when I was really stressed, my partner, who was an amazing woman, very inspiring.

 | 30:18 | She told me that jobs come and go. But experience and friendships and learnings remain. So don't think don't take it super seriously. It's not really worth it. This is just a job. And you will find another one. But yeah, just try and learn as much as you can from people. Professionally and also at a personal level.

 | 30:48 | And gain as much experience as you can. Yeah. I think that's a good one too. So secondly, is there a book that you've read, a podcast you've listened to, or even something that you've streamed wherever you stream things that you found was helpful or influenced you in some way? I think it's not really particularly influential or inspiring, but I really enjoyed watching the TV series called the suits.

 | 31:22 | I am sure you know. Oh, yes. Yeah. I love how that depicted a typical American lawyer's life, which is very far from the reality, by the way. The stuff that was happening in the show, and not a really true. It doesn't happen on a daily basis. At least not that many of them. But it was great. I just absolutely loved the acting and the show itself. I really enjoyed watching that.

 | 31:50 | You know what? I really enjoyed about suits, but that show. Was the clothes? Oh, yeah. Amazing. Oh my gosh. They're a favorite character. Did you have a favorite character? Oh, it was the partner that led the firm. Jessica. Jessica. Yeah. And she was a very strong figure, I think. Strong figure. Phenomenal clothes. Like phenomenal.

 | 32:20 | And I love seeing a woman in that role. What about you? I think my favorite character was Donna. Oh really? Yeah, I really liked Donna. I thought it was a distant. Yeah, Donna was the assistant. You know, witty, super smart, very capable of everything really. I love her. I thought she was a fantastic character.

 | 32:47 | You saw that after you were a lawyer, it didn't inspire you to become a lawyer. So that's good. Yeah. He would have been very surprised. I think I wasn't really inspired to become a lawyer when I was growing up. But if you ask my mom, she will have a different opinion about that because you know there were times, obviously there were many times where I felt really frustrated. And I was asking myself, well, why did I even become a lawyer you know? This is too hard. I could have done better with my life.

 | 33:16 | I could have become something else where life would have been easier for me. And my mother told me one day that I was always meant to be a lawyer because she reminded me that I drafted my first legal contract when I was 12 years old, so. That was also an interesting fact. I didn't remember about it, but after she told me, I vaguely remembered why I did it and when I did it. It was to be signed between me and my dad. Because I was working in summer.

 | 33:45 | I was working at my dad's shop. And I wanted to drop the contract. Which set forth my working hours, my CSR hours, my pay. And I even found two witnesses to sign the contract with us. So that was a funny, funny story. Just on that, that's very interesting and very you know ahead of your time there. And of course, as a human resources person, I'm just so delighted to hear that.

 | 34:17 | But what were your siesta hours? Oh, because you know in summer towns in Greece and Spain in Italy, there are also CS hours. My CSRs were between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., usually. So those are the hours that the weather is, the peak of summer, you have obviously very hot weather and where I'm from.

 | 34:45 | And the tourists usually spend those hours on the beach by the pool. So you wouldn't make a lot of sales. So you'd rather just close the shop and get some rest so that you would be going back for the evening. Nice. Pausing the shop until it's pretty much midnight. Okay. Yeah. Good way to live. And my third question is, what are you most proud of related to your career?

 | 35:18 | I think overall, how I changed my life at the very later stage you know where I just got out of my comfort zone and made the decision to stay in the UK and start over. I think I'm pretty proud of that. Also, when you're a commercial lawyer, there isn't much impact you think that you're making.

 | 35:45 | On a personal level, because you're obviously, if you're not considering financial gain or the amazing results out of a negotiation, financial results that you are managing to get yeah. Then you know it doesn't give you a lot of satisfaction as a person. So doing impactful things every now and then, I think, is very good for commercial lawyers.

 | 36:09 | And I have volunteered during the post demonstration process. Because there weren't enough lawyers and there were a lot of detainees and people getting arrested on a daily basis. Most of them were really young people, universities students, people that below 30 years old and the attorneys, the bar was assigning them, were not enough in number.

 | 36:43 | So I had to volunteer, but I was protesting during the day. And not getting any sleep. I'm going to the police stations and public prosecutor office. To attend to be present during their interrogations there as a volunteer attorney. And then I was going back home. Showering and changing and going back to the law firm during the day, where I was a commercial lawyer. So that's something that I'm proud of.

 | 37:14 | I was proud of being a part of it. I'm also helping people out. It makes me feel satisfied on a different level, I think. That's pretty impressive. That's incredibly impressive. And a way for you to contribute. Yeah. Good for you. Okay. Those are all my questions. Is there anything that you wanted to add or share anything that you wanted to mention in particular that maybe I haven't brought out?

 | 37:46 | No, actually. I can't think of anything, but it was great. Talking to you. It was wonderful, chatting to finally meeting you virtually. Finally meeting. So to our viewers and listeners, thanks so much for joining Alicia and I today to have this great conversation with this incredible woman. You know, I don't think we realize in the day to day of life, how brave we have to be.

 | 38:15 | And then to sort of take that a whole other step and move to another country and work in another language, just think it shows incredible resilience of people and women and this woman in particular. So thanks for joining us today. And until we meet again, thanks.