Presentation
Hello! My name is Louise and I am one of the co- founders of NestandCo.
My role in our company is to support parents throughout their surrogacy journey, from the initial consultation right through to overseeing each aspect of their programme and guiding them until they are back home with their families and all their legal paperwork is completed.
I am originally from the UK but I have been based in Spain for the last 12 years where I live with my husband and our dog. We now live in sunny Valencia where NestandCo is based.
Hobbies
I have quite a few random hobbies; ceramics, furniture restoration, baking, cooking, gardening (I have an allotment), travelling – anything which involves creativity as this helps me disconnect and I get lots of satisfaction from making things myself.
I also enjoy long walks with this guy ↓
Previous experience in general
I never knew what I wanted to do professionally so since leaving university where I studied a language degree, all my jobs have been in different sectors (admin, sales, real estate, cosmetics). The one thing they all have in common is working with people – something which 15 years ago I was very shy about but which is now the aspect I love most about my job.
Experience in this particular field
5 years ago, I was looking for a bit of a career change and stumbled upon a part time offer working for a medical company – luckily for me this turned into something bigger and I found myself in a job I really liked, I was learning a lot and at the same time helping people with their fertility journeys (IVF, Egg donation and surrogacy). The job meant lots of travel which I love and we frequently went to conferences in the UK, Ireland and Australia and of course, we began to create our first connections with Ukraine.
This experience changed everything for me and I honestly can’t imagine not doing this, so when our company closed last summer, my business partner and I knew we had to set up Nest.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
So many things!
-Meeting new people, getting to know them and being able to help them achieve their goals.
Programmes can take the best part of a year so this isn’t a quick transaction, it’s a journey which we are privileged to share and I get to meet some really amazing people and help them achieve something which is going to change their lives and is close to their hearts. Not everyone gets to say that about their jobs!
-I also enjoy keeping abreast of the legal developments in my markets (usually UK, Ireland, Australia, USA) and have close ties to local lawyers to help parents ensure they understand every detail of what a surrogacy journey entails.
-Working with our wonderful team of partners: together we have been able to create a safe path for parents and surrogates, one which we have mapped out ourselves to provide a personalised service to families where they can reach us when they need us and are fully supported in a process where there often isn’t a lot of support. This all happened quickly when we had couples in precarious situations following the closure of our former company so I am so proud of them for this.
-I like that we are not a huge operation, we are a close-knit team and parents are people not just customers or contract numbers. Afterall, we are not managing a process; we have been entrusted with peoples hopes and dreams.
What is/are the most challenging aspects?
On a personal level, the level of involvement we have with every patient means its exceptionally hard when we have to share bad news for things which are beyond our (and anyone’s) control.
From a business owner’s perspective, it’s challenging for us a smaller company with a different way of working to compete with larger companies who push prices down and offer unrealistic options, something we are not prepared to do because we will have built this organisation to offer the best conditions possible (for parents and surrogates) and we won’t compromise the service and care we have worked so hard to implement.
What I like about Kiev
I’m not just saying this, but Kiev is one of my all- time favourite cities! I have travelled quite a lot and it’s getting harder for a place to impress me, but with Kiev it was love at first sight. I think I probably had some preconceptions of what it would be like, and it completely blew me away. Kiev has an amazing vibe, its full of cool, chic people, the architecture is a real contract of modern and outdated and the restaurants….well they are just amazing!
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