Sacha
Dekker
VP global Go To Market Enablement at HubSpot
"Resilience, mindset and overcoming adversity"
"Resilience, mindset and overcoming adversity"
07 - 5:50 AM EDT/New York (See in local time)
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05//2025 5:50 AM
05//2025 06:10 AM
America/New_York
#WTGC2025
"Resilience, mindset and overcoming adversity"
#WTGC2025
"Resilience, mindset and overcoming adversity"
https://www.womentech.net/ringcentral
https://www.womentech.net/ringcentral
"Resilience, mindset and overcoming adversity"
"Resilience, mindset and overcoming adversity"
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Session: Resilience, mindset and overcoming adversity
In August 2015 ago I woke up paralysed down my left side as the result of an intra-operative bleed, after what was supposed to be a fairly straight forward surgery to cure me of the epileptic seizures that started six years previous. Three weeks later one of my medical team told me it was highly unlikely I'd ever walk, work or live independently again. He handed me a list of nursing homes and said I could still have "quality of life" in there. I told him I'd walk on the Great Wall of China and be back at work within a year. On 5 May 2016 the vocational report from the rehabilitation hospital read that I should accept going back to work full-time and at the level I was used to was highly unlikely. At every step of the way, people told me that it couldn't be done, that the workplace didn't cater to people with disabilities, that I should just accept. There were no role models, there are no C-suite execs with physical disabilities, nobody to show me how it can be done. To the day two years after the bleed that rendered me disabled I walked on the Great Wall of China. I went back to work after eleven months, changed companies and made a promotion 4 months later. On 5 May 2021, to the day 5 years after the vocational report that read I wouldn't go back to work full-time at the level I was used to, I signed the contract to accept the role as global VP with HubSpot. Don't let anyone ever tell you what you are and aren't capable of. Other will try and define you, you have to define yourself first!Key Takeaways
- goalsetting
- Mindset
- DEIB
- resilience
Bio
Born and raised in the Netherlands, moved to Ireland ten years ago. I've been working in my field of passion, commercial L&D/Enablement, for fifteen years now, of which ten years in the tech sector. In August 2015 I was rendered paralysed and am a disability advocate ever since. There are no examples when it comes to senior executives with disabilities so I've decided to set one