Women in Digital: Natalie Cramp

Did you enjoy school?

It had its moments, but overall, yes I did – at times I enjoyed playing netball more than the lessons, but I particularly loved Economics A Level. I find it really interesting to learn about how the world works and I suppose that has played through to my career.

What qualifications do you have?

I have a degree in Economics and Politics from the University of York. 

In terms of industry awards, I was recently named in the Twenty in Data and Technology 2023 and have been recognised multiple times by Data IQ as one of the UK’s top 100 data professionals.

Has your career path been a smooth transition, a rocky road or a combination of both?

I’m fortunate enough to have had quite a fluid career path. I began my career at Deloitte after graduating. After that, I landed a dream job helping to deliver the London 2012 Olympics. Over a four year period, I was part of the team who recruited and managed the 200,000 workforce needed to make the Games happen.

After the Games, I set up the Mayor of London’s Team London initiative. This involved the mobilisation of a million volunteers and 2,000-plus schools, backed by 1,800 charities and 100-plus businesses. It culminated with London beating 10 cities to be named European Volunteering Capital.

I moved on to become COO of The Careers & Enterprise Company, helping it to grow from a £6 million to £30 million-a-year operation. This further sparked my interest in tech and data. I spearheaded the development of a digital user-driven product to support school career assessments, planning and delivery. The Compass tool was adopted by 3,000-plus schools in only nine months. From there, I became CEO of Profusion.

Ultimately, my career to date has been about mobilising movements of people and technology to solve problems – whether for clients or for broader society. Data is the key to solving problems now and in the future, so it seemed like the logical next step, and I particularly enjoy bringing the data and the people sides of transformation together to get impactful results.

What specific challenges do you see women facing in the industry?

A big issue is that women still aren’t really being heard. There’s plenty of talk about diversity, but in many instances the conversation is dominated by men. I know more often than not their intentions are good, but change will only happen if they stop talking for a moment and listen to what women who actually experience the industry say what needs to happen. Outrageously, there is a lot of thinking which needs to be stamped out, for example still some stigma in some circles about hiring women of ‘a certain age’ – I have been questioned as to whether I should as they may want maternity leave.

Offering more flexible working can be very important – women do the majority of the childcare statistically and often don’t move roles because they worry they can’t secure part-time or job share arrangements elsewhere. Offer this from the start and it will set you apart from competitors. It may sound strange, but it is very important to set the standard in what you provide to men as well, we cannot shift the dial on childcare if it is financially more beneficial for women to take parental leave. In my view, every organisation that doesn’t offer enhanced shared parental pay contributes to a wider societal issue.

There’s also a huge amount of gatekeeping in the tech industry. Many hiring decisions are biased towards particular technical qualifications, backgrounds or coding languages. Tech founders should be more open to hiring for transferable skills and teach the tech or data knowledge required. We’ve taken this approach at Profusion and now women make up the majority of our senior team – something that is very rare in the data industry. Role models have had an outsized influence on our ability to recruit more women.

What is the best career advice you can give to others?

Say yes! Take every opportunity. You cannot predict what your route to success is going to be. Five years ago, I would never have guessed I’d be in this role, nor could I have predicted when I was younger that I would have been lucky enough to work at the London 2012 Olympics, where I learnt so much. I have said yes to every opportunity that came my way and proactively sought out ways to broaden my skills, such as by volunteering on company boards.

If you had to pick one mentor that had the biggest influence on you, who would it be?

I think it’s impossible to pick one. There have been different people at different times in my career. I have learnt so much from so many people. Having mentors is so valuable, understanding their lessons of success, learning from the things they have struggled with, and shaping your own style and approach as a result. I would also say that a support network of peers to bounce off is invaluable, they’re the ones who truly understand how it feels to be in your position.

Also, it helps having access to a support network of friends and family who are willing to listen to me rant, give me a hug, get excited for me, read my CV to make sure it’s free of typos and buy me wine when I’ve had a bad day – the list is endless.

From where do you draw inspiration?

So many places. Our clients and potential clients for what services we need to develop, those in the market for frustrations and what’s missing, inspirational people who have broken barriers for resilience and determination, my family and friends to keep me going, my team to keep me learning, other leaders to shape my leadership.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced to date?

2020 was pretty challenging. When I took on the role at Profusion, I was asked to turn potential into real growth in the business. This was a good, but sizeable challenge. No sooner had I started than I was trying to do this from my kitchen table with no human contact for 12 weeks in a global pandemic which was leading to a global recession.

 As a leader, you feel very responsible for everyone in the business – their mortgage payments, their wellbeing, while being realistic and reassuring at the same time. I’m very proud of what we as a team achieved that year – producing significant profitable revenue growth despite the circumstances, landing our largest ever business deal, supporting our clients through a challenging period and showing innovation to keep the culture and the team together.

What qualities do you feel makes a good leader?

First, being able to understand and get on with people – so much of business is about relationships. Second, being comfortable in uncomfortable situations: there are so many things I don’t know how to do, but I have learnt that a calm, logical approach will help me find a way out of most challenges.

Third, the ability to make the best decisions you can with the information you have at the time and move forward. Taking a decision and moving forward is the best thing you can do; you can fix it later, but taking no decision is far worse. I have always been quite decisive but in my time at London 2012 this was when I really learned this, and I have stuck by it ever since. There is nothing like having a ticking clock over everything you do to force you to act. There were often voices in the room saying, “none of these options will work, because they haven’t worked before”, e.g. in Sydney or Athens. But at that point you’d be left with no options, so you found the best path forward, progressed positively, and fixed around the edges as you went. I think this really stood me in good stead as a leader, particularly when Covid hit and I had to protect the business and support our team, and taking rapid decisions really enabled us to thrive.

From a work viewpoint, what has the last 12 months been like?

Busy. Economic uncertainty and the mainstream understanding of Generative AI have seen more businesses pivot to data as a powerful tool for overcoming the biggest challenges. If 2023 has taught us anything, it is that data and analytics are not a “nice-to-have”. They are a critical requirement. If a company hopes to build resilience and stay competitive, it needs to use data to understand its customers and itself. With technology and skills improving rapidly, the cost of data science is coming down while its effectiveness is growing. This economic reality pretty much makes it a no-brainer for organisations to use. The result is that we have certainly been kept on our toes and continue to expand and invest in our team.

Alongside this we recently launched the Good Data Guide, together with Pinsent Masons LLP. The free Guide, which was made in consultation with representatives from London Stock Exchange Group, Oscar O’Connor & Co and others, provides one of the most practical frameworks to date for how organisations of any size can use data ethically. This launched at a time when Generative AI was becoming public parlance, and we’re therefore proud that it serves as a useful support to organisations navigating this very crucial area.

I have also spearheaded the formation of Women in Data’s Healthcare Steering Group to conduct research into how data can be better used to improve medical care for women. As Chair of the Group, I have appointed members, created its strategy and am now leading the development of its initial research projects to try and bridge the enormous gender gap in healthcare. This has included a big awareness-raising piece, running data workshops with women’s networks across private and public sector companies to crowdsource the priority challenges to tackle, and bringing on key partners to prove the power of data in this space.

What would you say are the biggest tech-based challenges we face today?

Ethics and AI – how do we ensure models don’t reinforce bias, and in what context are they safe to use? These are issues which have been further compounded by the latest breakthroughs in Generative AI. Unfortunately, though, the UK government is still struggling to create a coherent approach to regulation. What’s even more concerning is that the current policy debate fails to consider the idea of building an ethical framework around using AI.

The US and EU are already debating their own legislation and the UK really needs to speed up or it could severely inhibit the development of AI in the UK. The risk is that if AI starts getting used in very undesirable ways the public will lose confidence in it and the Government will be forced to overcorrect. This will severely inhibit the development of AI in the UK and prevent us all from reaping its benefits.

At the same, the data fluency gap remains far too high across the population and the need to educate and empower every individual in an organisation with a basic understanding of data, its potential and pitfalls, is critical as organisations look to drive ROI from data. We will be ramping up our training programmes to businesses for C-suite to HR teams to grads and apprentices and, as always, using this support to give to charities and young people the same data literacy education.

What can be done to encourage more women into the industry?

Stop obsessing with STEM backgrounds, recognise that a good data industry brings people from diverse backgrounds. If you look at social sciences courses, you will find a far greater representation of women!

Give us a fact about you that most other people wouldn’t know.

Somewhat unusually, I recently had my name on a building in Bradford. In my previous role as the COO of the Careers & Enterprise Company, I was asked to open the ‘Opportunity Centre’ which was in the centre of Bradford, supporting hundreds of learners to take steps into employment.