Why mums make good bosses
Nisha Katona has no time for ‘testosterone dripping off walls’ in kitchens
Nisha Katona never bowed to the expectation put on women with children to be riskaverse – with a huge career shift in her forties, saying she felt a duty to show her daughters “there is nothing you cannot be”.
The TV chef and restaurateur, who opened her first Mowgli eatery this time 10 years ago, giving up her 20-year-career as a child protection barrister to do so, says “the noise against which I built this business” was other women saying “you need to be there for your children” – not have ambitions for yourself.
A decade later, she has 21 restaurants across the UK and three more due to open in 2024, alongside a charitable arm, The Mowgli Trust, which has so far donated over £1.6million.
The mum-of-two is a judge on BBC’s Great British Menu, a regular on ITV’s This Morning, picked up an MBE in 2019 and has just released her sixth cookbook, Bold.
In that sense, “Life, for me started in my 40s,” she says. “Within the four corners of motherhood, there is also a duty to demonstrate that there is nothing you cannot be.
“My little, half-brown girls are growing up thinking, ‘she’s on telly as well talking about Italian food’ – that means there’s nothing we cannot attempt at least,” says the 52-year-old, who was born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, to Indian parents.
“Since the dawn of time we [women] have held our heads quite low, we have kept our eyes to the ground, we have been respectful and yielding – the rest of the world could learn from us, really.” But women in their 40s, 50s and beyond have a lot to offer businesses.
“As an older woman particularly, you’ve had your corners knocked off, you know which battles to fight, there’s no pride, you’re not there to flex your muscles and strut, you’re there to make it better for the people around you,” says Katona, who employs 1,000 staff members.
“Particularly if you’ve had children and you’ve been through the warfare of making them happy, you understand diplomacy like no one else, you understand humility and open mindedness like no one else – the business world needs you.
“We are so underrepresented, it’s appalling,” she adds.
Indeed, Katona wanted her maternal side to be a big part of Mowgli. Ten years ago, “what you saw on the television was the brutal nature of kitchens and you still see it to an extent – this military, macho way of running a kitchen”.
“I bring a zero tolerance policy to any shouting, bullying or aggression. Any of that testosterone dripping off the walls, I have no time for you, go find somewhere else to work,” she says.
lBig Flavour Twists to Classic Dishes by Nisha Katona is published by Nourish Books, priced £30. Photography by Martin Poole. Available now.