Maddy Irwin, Growth Associate

7:00 a.m. (GMT)

My alarm goes off and I’m swiftly up and out of bed to make peanut butter and banana on toast and brew my Bialetti – the ideal breakfast to fuel my morning workout.

7:45 a.m.

Feeling slightly more awake, I head out the door for my morning run. I’m currently training for the Stockholm Marathon, although anyone who knows me well will know that I’m always training for something. I’ve recently relocated to Lisbon, Portugal, where the steep streets provide the perfect preparation for Stockholm’s rolling hills. While Lisbon’s weather is unbeatable, I do miss the many green parks that surrounded my old home in London.

10:00 a.m.

Time for more food and coffee. I’ve recently discovered that the coffee shop across the street is 2 euros for a delicious flat white, so my daily trip there is a no-brainer! However, my language skills when ordering could definitely use some improvement. Working remotely for an American company means I’m blessed with a more relaxed morning than most.

Aware that many of my colleagues are fast asleep, I’m at my desk catching up on email and Slack messages that came in after I went to bed. Spanning multiple time zones can be challenging, often resulting in late-night meetings and a bit of calendar Tetris to align tight schedules. However, in some cases, it’s the Healthcare team’s secret weapon, enabling us to pass the baton of work across time zones like a relay race, which is a real advantage when deadlines are tight.

10.30 a.m.

I get to work on some background research for one of the new healthcare ideas we’re exploring at Red Cell. We recently welcomed a new Healthcare President, Dr. Timothy Ferris, who brings a fresh wave of innovative ideas for future new-start healthcare companies. On days without late meetings, I take advantage of this uninterrupted time to focus on these types of projects.

1:00 p.m.

Patience is not my strongest trait, so by the time lunch rolls around I want something that is healthy and quick. At this point, I’m about to enter the EST workday, so I try to take some time to myself before I’m knuckling down for the next few hours. This usually means a quick stroll, or maybe even a short gym session.

2:30 p.m. 

Morning, America! It’s time for our daily Healthcare Practice sync. Our meeting cadence is currently set to longer syncs on Mondays and Fridays, and shorter stand-ups the rest of the week. The stand-up is a quick round of updates on everyone’s priorities for the day, as well as an opportunity to discuss any blockers or items that need today’s attention. Our team has grown in the year since I started Red Cell, so checking in with everyone helps us stay aligned and informed about what’s happening across the Healthcare incubations.

3:30 p.m.

I check in with my manager, Borislava Marcheva. We work closely across the Growth and Healthcare teams, and I am ever impressed by the invaluable insights, deep healthcare knowledge, and strategic thinking that she brings to every meeting. We touch base several times a week, using this time to debrief after meetings, review action items, and set priorities.

4:30 p.m.

I join the Growth team Pipeline Review where, today, we dive into discussions about the sales funnel for one of Red Cell’s new defense startups as well as its current progress and areas where it may need additional support. The Growth team, led by Chief Growth Officer Naimish Patel, is a new department within Red Cell that works across the firm’s three practice areas of healthcare, defense, and cyber security to help incubations gain commercial traction. My involvement on this team provides a great opportunity to get more visibility into the incubations across the other two Red Cell verticals where I don’t typically focus.

My afternoons vary but are often a blur of back-to-back meetings. In between, I reply to messages as they come through and squeeze in some ad hoc tasks. Today, I exchange Slack messages with my colleague Chiara Salvati about our upcoming in-person Healthcare Practice strategy week. We decide it would be more efficient to chat, so we hop onto a Slack “huddle.”

6.30 p.m.

My last meeting for the day is our weekly Ops Sync, another round-robin-style check-in that brings together the entire Red Cell Operations team to share cross-functional learnings among practices and to discuss platform and office updates. Today, we talk about the company’s upcoming All Hands in May, which will take place at our McLean, VA office.

8:00 p.m.

With meetings behind me, I step out to sample one of my local Lisbon restaurants. Lisbon’s food scene is amazing and my want-to-go-to list is never-ending!

9.30 p.m.

I’m back online to tie together loose ends or catch up on anything that happened while I was at dinner. Any urgent work or scheduled meetings will determine how much longer I stay online. I also use this time to loosely plan for tomorrow: Is there priority work that needs to get done early? What does my day look like?

Each day at Red Cell brings something new, and although balancing work and personal life is slightly more challenging while working from Europe, Red Cell’s dynamic workdays and flexibility make it easier to juggle both.