It was a rainy Tuesday in Leeds, and I was stuck at my desk while the hospital kept calling with updates about my mother, who was dying. When I told my boss, Sterling, that I needed to leave, he coldly replied, “She’s 82. Do the work, or you’re fired.”
I didn’t argue. I walked out and went to the hospital. She passed away that night, peacefully, while I held her hand. Losing the job didn’t matter — being there with her did.
Three days later, I returned to the office to collect my things, expecting to be officially terminated. Instead, HR called me in. The director explained that someone had recorded Sterling telling me to choose work over my dying mother and sent it to the Board. The company’s main shareholder was furious.
Then came the real shock: my mother had secretly been a founding investor in the company. Through a private trust, she held a controlling interest — and upon her death, those shares passed to me.
I wasn’t being fired. I was now Sterling’s boss.
The Board asked me to handle his dismissal. I calmly handed him his coat and told him my 82-year-old mother was a better leader than he’d ever be.
In the months that followed, I restructured the company with a strict family-first policy. No one would ever have to choose between work and a loved one again.
My mother’s final gift wasn’t just shares — it was the power to lead with humanity.