Sarah (Lawlor) Bernard

A Day In The Life
Program: London
Intake: August 2008
Current Role: Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer at Inclusively www.inclusively.com alongside friend and fellow alumna, Charlotte (Kohlmann) Dales (see Entrepreneur article below). Sarah had over 7 year experience in different roles (primarily account management), for Forrester, before joining forces with Charlotte Dales to Co-found Inclusively, a platform that helps employers accommodate candidates with disabilities at scale.
My Alarm Goes off… Usually at 5am to get prepared for the day. Coffee, work-out, a few work emails sent in the peace and quiet, shower….then the party gets started by getting my 4 kids up and out of the house for school by 8am!
I’m Responsible For…Inclusively’s operations and market expansion. I usually get thrown into whatever fire needs to be put out, at any given time of the day, across every team!
I Got The Job…while visiting Charlotte in London right after she had her first daughter. I left the weekend getaway so excited about the possibilities that I knew could unfold and motivated to materialize her vision of transforming the recruitment industry.
My Typical Day… Is there such a thing as a typical day in a start up?! I am very hands on with my team. My day usually consists of one-on-one meetings with colleagues across product, marketing, talent, sales, and customer success. Between those calls, I spend a lot of time on the phone with Charlotte, brainstorming how to put our vision into reality and doing it as quickly as possible.
The Culture Of My Workplace… I’d describe our culture as kind, passionate, driven, mission-oriented, extremely hard working, yet light-hearted. There is quite a bit of banter shared and close relationships forged, even though we are a remote team and the majority of us have never even met in person!
My Most Memorable Work Moment…Landing our first corporate partnership with Microsoft when we didn’t even have our platform set up. We learned a lot in those couple of months and were able to secure other Fortune 500 clients with their support and endorsement.
The Most Challenging Part of My Job…With our company growing so quickly, the most challenging part is making sure that every person and every team keeps moving and evolving at the same pace.
The Best Part of My Job…Working alongside such brilliant minds every day and making an impact on the world for the largest underrepresented community – the disability community.
After Work…When I’m away from my desk, you can find me spending time with my kids, all ages 7 and under. They keep me busy when Inclusively does not!
Plan B: If I wasn’t doing this, I would… This is a hard question to answer. This company has brought tremendous fulfilment to my life, I can’t quite imagine a world where this opportunity wasn’t part of it. But I think I would have still found a path where I was involved with work that had social impact.