At forty, I started my first job. Behind me were eighteen years of education and fifteen years devoted to raising a family. Ahead was the career I had wanted for so long, together with responsibilities I had yet to learn how to balance.

Today, I help run Magnesteel, a group of five companies. My main focus is Magnesteel Recruiters Co Ltd, the recruitment agency I created, and our family construction business, Magnesteel Malta Co Ltd. My husband, Etienne, runs the construction company, and I handle the paperwork across the group.

At home, I am the mother of four children: Daria, Valeria, Anastasia and Jordan. Our household includes thirteen dogs, nine cats and two sugar gliders, so switching off is rarely straightforward.

During the school year, my day begins at 6.15 a.m. When all four children were at school, mornings meant preparing lunches, doing the girls’ hair and getting everyone into the car by seven. With several years between the children, there was a period when I had three separate school drop-offs: primary, secondary and sixth form.

After an hour of traffic and competing voices in the car, I would stop at a café for a small ritual of my own: coffee and a crossword.

My children each have their own version of what I do. Daria, twenty-three, is studying for her commercial pilot licence at Flying Academy and holds two part-time jobs. One involves HR and recruitment, so we often discuss work.

Valeria, eighteen, studies dental hygiene at university and hopes to become a dentist. She spent the summer working in my office and has seen recruitment from the inside.

Anastasia, fifteen, tells her friends, “Mum owns a recruitment agency.” She studies economics and accounts and helps me with basic bookkeeping. Jordan, ten, keeps it simple: “My mum works in an office.”

That description makes me smile. At his age, the details of my position matter much less than what it means for his everyday life.

From nine until four, I am at the office. Outside those hours, I am a mother and the family organiser. I do not feel like two entirely different women. The organisation, attention and responsibility follow me from one place to the other. Finding time to relax takes more effort.

My own idea of working life was once very different. I studied management and planned a career in banking and finance. After ten years of school, two years of college and six years of university, I was eager to begin.

Then, just days before graduation, I discovered I was pregnant.

Our honeymoon baby was a blessing. I decided to give myself a few months after the birth before looking for work. Without help caring for the baby, those months became years. Eventually, I was at home with four children, surrounded by homework, household tasks and the daily demands of family life.

By the time Jordan was two and a half, I felt an urgent need to work. I wanted to learn, meet people and have a professional life of my own. The qualification I had earned at twenty-four felt far removed from the working environment I was trying to enter.

Getting there was difficult. My husband strongly opposed my decision, and our disagreements brought our marriage close to divorce. At forty, I finally began working for a large corporate service provider.

I was hungry for knowledge and absorbed everything I could. Yet my responsibilities at home stayed the same. Corporate clients, deadlines and new tasks were added to an already full life.

The strain affected my health. I experienced problems with short-term memory, which were linked to anxiety. I sought help from a psychologist and later a psychiatrist.

Ten years later, I can speak about that period with more perspective. My anxiety is monitored and controlled, our businesses operate steadily, and the children are older. I have become better at deciding what needs my attention first and what can wait.

I have learned to give myself time, too. After my husband began training at the gym, I joined him a year later. I now make time for three sessions a week at our gym. The encouragement of my personal trainer, Natalia Uskova, makes a real difference; exercise has never been something I naturally seek out.

Through all of this, there has been one thing I have refused to sacrifice for my career: my family.

Etienne and I are partners in business and in marriage, and we do not always agree on how things should be done. Our different approaches can lead to arguments. They can lead to productive decisions, too. Working together means accepting that agreement does not always come easily.

That experience of living and working closely with people has a place in my recruitment business. I pay attention to what someone says, how they say it and what they choose to leave unsaid.

My children sometimes assume I have missed something happening in their lives. Often, I have noticed and decided not to intervene. I want them to develop independence and learn to make decisions. I adjust my response to what I see and hear, and I take a similar approach with employees.

In recruitment, every candidate is a person before they are an application.

A conversation about employment can reveal much more than qualifications or work history. Someone may be worried about accommodation, their children, a language barrier or the practical steps involved in settling in Malta. At times, my work extends beyond finding a vacancy.

I have helped pregnant women apply for maternity and child allowances. Through my cousin’s letting agency, Loop Homes, I assist people looking for accommodation. I help candidates from outside the EU with family applications so they can reunite with their children, and I contact schools and the education department when delays with children’s identity documents create difficulties at the start of the school year.

There are health screenings to arrange, insurance matters to follow up and conversations with medical staff when a candidate needs language support. Sometimes I help people communicate with landlords, the Housing Authority or notaries about rental paperwork.

These tasks bring me closer to the realities behind an application. A job is connected to a home, a family and the life someone hopes to build.

Humility makes a strong impression on me. I am often more inclined to help a modest, sincere person than someone who arrives with impressive qualifications and an arrogant attitude.

YOU CAN CAN CONTACT MARINA HERE