Nicola Kilner: Most Replayed Moment: A Guilt-Free Way to Handle Work and Life

Asked what she would tell her children if they wanted to become entrepreneurs, Nicola Kilner says she would probably recommend spending a few years in a large company first. Her own placement years at Boots taught her both the strengths and drawbacks of a big organization. She sees entrepreneurship as especially suited to people who want to change things and find it difficult to influence a large institution. Joining a startup can offer similar energy even when the idea is not your own. This is a practical recommendation drawn from her path, not a claim that university or corporate experience is necessary for every founder.

At Boots, Kilner began as an assistant buyer and became a buying manager. She describes the role as combining relationship-building, collaboration, scouting for new technologies and brands, and helping mostly entrepreneurial suppliers bring products into the company. A three-month trial program let Boots test new products with consumers before deciding whether to list them long term. Kilner calls it “launch and love”: getting a product onto the shelf is only the start; a company also has to help consumers discover and choose it. The work taught her how supply chain, finance, legal review, and consumer demand interact, giving her experience across functions rather than only in product selection.