Welcome to In Her Words, New York Festivals Lady Liberty’s monthly interview series celebrating women innovators across the industry. As part of the Lady Liberty Leadership Program, the series offers audiences an opportunity to connect with the voices, ideas, and experiences shaping today’s creative landscape through thoughtful conversations, personal reflections, and an evolving monthly focus.

Meet Batool-e-Azra.

Batool-e-Azra is the Chief Operating Officer at IAL Saatchi & Saatchi in Pakistan. She focuses on building teams that deliver and fostering client relationships that last. Recognized on Campaign Asia’s Women to Watch 2024 list and the 40 Under 40 for 2026, she was also featured by Branding in Asia for International Women’s Day 2026.

Batool serves as a jury member for the New York Festivals and Dragons of Asia. She operates on the principle that true leadership requires trust, transparency, and doing the work. Her journey exemplifies how resilience and dedication can shape the industry, inspire others, and redefine what’s possible.

Lady Liberty: Was there a moment in your career when you realized your perspective or leadership style did not need to mirror anyone else’s to be effective?

Batool-e-Azra: There wasn’t one dramatic moment. It was a slow, earned realization.

I stepped into the Chief Operating Officer role at a young age. Back then, I didn’t have a playbook or a model I was trying to copy. All I knew was how to lead by example. Be the first one in. Take responsibility when things went wrong. Do the work alongside the team if that’s what it took to get it across the line.

For a while, I thought that was enough. But as the business grew, and as I started leading larger, more complex teams, I realized leadership couldn’t just be about outworking everyone. It had to be about thinking further ahead, caring more deeply, and building for the long term.

The turning point came when I realized that leading by example isn't just about showing people how to work, it’s about showing them how to grow. That’s when I stopped asking “What should a COO sound like?” and started asking “What does this team need from me?” What they needed was clarity in chaos, consistency in standards, and empathy without compromise. My style turned out to be a blend of rigor and care - holding the bar extremely high for the work, while making sure people felt seen, safe, and trusted to do their best work.

I also learned that seriousness doesn’t have to mean severity. I could be direct, I could be demanding, and I could still bring warmth and humor into the room. I didn’t need to mirror a more traditional, louder version of leadership to be effective. Effectiveness doesn’t come from fitting a mold. It comes from defining your own.

Because at the end of the day, leadership is about how you make people feel while you’re building something great together.

That’s the leadership I’m proud to keep building on today.

Lady Liberty: As your career has evolved, how have you learned to balance ambition, confidence, and authenticity in professional spaces?

Batool-e-Azra:For a long time, I treated them like trade-offs. I thought if I was ambitious, I had to push people. If I was confident, I couldn’t ask questions. If I was authentic, I had to soften the edge. That didn’t last. It doesn’t build anything real.

What really changed for me was how I defined each one.

Ambition stopped being about the next title and became about the standard. The standard of work, the standard of how we treat people, and the standard of what we’re willing to build. It’s no longer about, “What can I get?” It’s about, “What are we responsible for?”

Confidence stopped being about having every answer in the room. It became the willingness to say, “Here’s what we know, here’s what we don’t - let’s decide and own it.” It is also about putting people in positions where they’ll eventually outgrow me.

Authenticity is the part that keeps both of those honest. It’s showing up direct and demanding because I respect the work and the people doing it. It is also about showing up with warmth, because that’s how trust actually gets built.

I don’t try to balance them. I use them to check each other. Ambition sets the bar. Confidence gets us over it. And authenticity makes sure we stay true to who we are on the other side.

Lady Liberty: In an industry shaped by constant visibility, personal branding, and a rapidly changing industry, how can leaders build influence while still maintaining a genuine voice and point of view?

Batool-e-Azra: Influence in this industry gets mistaken for being everywhere. It’s not. For me, influence comes from doing the work in public. That means making calls, explaining the "why" behind them, and then living with the result. If people can see how you think and how you operate when things are messy, they start to trust what you say when things are calm.

I don’t try to be on every platform or weigh in on everything. I pick the places where I actually have something useful to add. Usually, that’s around building teams, setting standards, and making hard decisions without hiding behind language.

A point of view isn’t a tagline. It’s what you repeat when no one’s watching. It’s what you’re willing to defend, and what you’re willing to change when you get new information.

If you do that long enough, people start to turn to you. Not because you were loud, but because you were consistent. That’s the only influence worth having.