Did you enjoy school?
Yes, I loved school but you were only able to study Computer Science/IT if you failed French! Don’t ask me why this was – and unfortunately I passed French so was not able to do IT at school! I was not amazing at school, I’d say I was middle of the road – but as I lived in the countryside there were no children who lived nearby and no social media back then, so going to school was where I got to see my friends and socialise with my peers. Also, from the age of 11 when I wasn’t in school I worked in the family business so school was definitely more fun than working when you’re that age!
What qualifications do you have?
I have a real mixed bag of qualifications. My A levels are in English Literature, History and Art. I then went on to do a BSc Econ in International Relations and studied all about the causes of war, the intricacies of diplomacy and politics. In my final year I looked into the career options I had open to me but I lacked IT skills. So I thought if I’m going to learn more about IT I might as well go for it and learn the whole shebang. So, immediately upon graduation, I went straight into an MSc conversion course to Computer Science.
I love studying and so many years later while I was implementing some IT systems at a college I also completed a PGCE and worked as an analyst programmer part time and a teacher part time.
Has your career path been a smooth transition, a rocky road or a combination of both?
I’d say it’s been an interesting journey. I’ve always worked in IT since I graduated and never had any problem finding work – so that’s a great advantage to this field.
I started out working for a consulting firm and that really suited me because I’m very people oriented. However, I left consultancy because I wanted to start a family and didn’t want to do the travel that was required back then for consulting roles. So while my family was young I worked for web commerce, product based companies and B2B companies and even did some teaching before eventually going back to consultancy. Now I’m back in consultancy and absolutely love it, especially the variety of work, the impact you can have across multiple clients and the opportunity to work on cutting edge technologies.
What is the best career advice you can give to others?
Believe in yourself! You can’t know everything – especially at the pace technology changes – but you shouldn’t see that as a scary or a negative thing. Instead you must embrace opportunities for constant growth and learning. Also, remember that everyone has to start somewhere so don’t compare yourself to others. There’s probably someone else comparing themselves to you!
Think about your strengths and focus on areas that interest you. Then look at diversifying your learning materials, reading blogs, articles, books, watching YouTube videos, listening to podcasts and doing online courses. This reinforces your knowledge and stimulates multiple senses, it’s also great if you’re not sure what your learning style is.
If you had to pick one mentor, that had the biggest influence on you, who would it be?
Dominic Ellis. Dom was one of the first lead engineers that I worked with, and he was great at giving me the space to develop my tech skills, assigning me tasks that stretched me whilst knowing when to support me. I am still in touch with Dom 20 years later!
From where do you draw inspiration?
I am lucky to work with so many inspirational leaders at Made Tech and am able to draw inspiration from them on a regular basis. I’m also a big fan of Ted talks and also follow lots of tech people on their you tube channels.
Some of my favourite YouTube channels include Continuous Delivery by Dave Farley, and everything by Scott Hansleman.
What is the biggest challenge you have faced to date?
It’s still a big challenge being a woman in an engineering role and I still am regularly faced with situations where it’s assumed when I join some initial meetings that I’m in any other role apart from actually engineering (e.g. Business Analysis, Delivery Management, Project Management etc) I’ve had initial comments that I’ve got the role through positive discrimination etc – so I’ve had to prove myself over and over again.
What qualities do you feel makes a good leader?
As a rule I value Servant Leadership qualities, with an emphasis on
- Empathy – taking the time and making the effort to understand your team members and your client.
- Sincerity – always be your true self, be honest with your team. People know if you’re not being honest and that will just lead to mistrust.
- Inclusivity – empowering every member of the team to be a valuable contributor.
From a work viewpoint what has the last 12 months been like?
Very Busy! As a Principal I work across multiple client accounts, contribute to building the data practice in Made Tech and deliver thought leadership externally via activities like webinar sessions and panel discussions. I’m very passionate about what I do though so love the doing part but also love the discussion and wider mentoring that comes with the role.
What would you say are the biggest tech-based challenges we face today?
Oh, there’s quite a few but I think the one that I’m thinking a lot about right now is all about ethics and the bias of AI. AI is being built-in to many different applications now and it’s also making life altering decisions for people – like CV sifting… so it’s really important that those involved in building the AI models and the data they are being trained on are as diverse as possible.
It’s also interesting that the use of tools like ChatGPT are more extensively used by men than women. As these tools can really aid in the time it takes to deliver work related tasks this could be another area where women are not playing on a level playing field.
What can be done to encourage more women into the industry?
Encourage it at school, promote the role of women in engineering roles by inviting them to talk at career fairs etc. I’m a STEM Ambassador and it’s important that girls see what they can be from a young age!
Give us a fact about you that most other people wouldn’t know.
I’m a huge Eurovision fan and Eurovision is as big an event in my house as Christmas or Halloween. We’ve always celebrated it as a family and we go all out every year, with flags and as many foods from as many countries as we can find.
