Did you enjoy school?
I did enjoy much of my time at school. I liked learning and understanding how things worked, which pushed me toward STEM. However, the best thing about it was meeting friends whom I still see regularly. As one of the few Asian children in the school in those days, I was acutely aware of ‘difference’. I think this has stayed with me in my DEI roles now.
What qualifications do you have?
I studied Engineering and have a BA and M.Eng, which I’m proud of, as my university days weren’t my best academically! However, they were probably the best from a social perspective.
I also have a ChMC CMI – chartered management consultant.
Has your career path been a smooth transition, a rocky road or a combination of both?
I always say I had a squiggly career – unintentionally so. I put my engineering to the test and worked for a big textile manufacturer on their international programme, which meant living abroad in various countries – moving up the ladder and moving country at the same time. My last role there was managing director of a zip factory in Lisbon. I had lots of great experiences, some scary moments and a real rollercoaster ride, which has definitely made me resilient!
During that time, I worked on the implementation of a new ERP system and I realised that this kind of project work was something I really enjoyed. For those reasons and personal ones, I decided to go back to the UK and into consulting.
From there, I worked with a few different consultancies and got into the digital space right at the beginning, before GDS existed! After trying out various consultancies, I decided with two colleagues to set up something different. We wanted to start something that was more diverse, with people with experience across sectors and other worlds, and focused on values and social impact. This journey lasted a good few years until we sold the company to Transform UK in 2024.
What is the best career advice you can give to others?
I usually say the most important thing is to be true to your values and what you enjoy – and keep an eye on that. If you stop enjoying what you are doing or the work starts clashing with your values, that’s not going to work. And don’t be afraid to try something new if that is what feels right.
If you had to pick one mentor, that had the biggest influence on you, who would it be?
This is a difficult question. I have had many informal mentors through my journey. At the start of the digital journey in the public sector, I worked with a number of senior government officials, and great colleagues who helped me navigate my first steps in working with the public sector, and my business partner was instrumental in demonstrating how to run complex programmes well. Some of the best advice still comes from my old university and school friends, who help me view things from a different perspective. More recently, I’ve sought coaching to help navigate different steps in my own journey, and am a member of a number of networks for women in tech, and women in business, which provide support from those who know!
From where do you draw inspiration?
I have an obsession with making an impact socially, lifting barriers, promoting inclusion and enabling diverse voices to be heard. To that end, I seek out those inspirational people who face massive challenges and yet turn them into positive action. I am truly inspired by clients from the public sector who, every day, try to make that difference. I have a list of great places to be inspired – events like the Think Digital conferences where you can have really pertinent conversations about challenges and innovation, the Anthropy conference, which brings together public, private and civil society to make positive change, and the networks I belong to, such as Sue Black’s Women in Tech Power Network. And in my various charity trustee roles, I see amazing young people all the time, who have been through incredibly difficult times and have come out with resilience and energy to make something of their lives.
I try to widen my network as far as I can, as you never know where you will find something that changes your life.
What is the biggest challenge you have faced to date?
Running a business, and growing it, and planning the future is a 24/7 job – although a hugely rewarding one, especially with the desire we had as founders to create something different, focusing on values and culture. My biggest challenge through this was caring for my husband, who died of a brain tumour, whilst also managing a parent with Alzheimer’s. It was the biggest privilege of my life to care for my husband at home, and I could only do this as my fellow founders and our employee owners kept things going and supported me through this time.
Challenges come in different forms, but I believe that the personal challenges people face whilst trying to build their careers are the most difficult to deal with, and the effect of support is life changing.
What qualities do you feel makes a good leader?
As we know, we have to adapt leadership styles depending on situations, but I think the key things you need from a leader are a vision to believe in, and then the ability to get on with what you need to do. I think a leader needs to lead by example, live and breathe the culture, and listen to and support people to achieve their goals and gain their trust. Communication is everything, and a leader must be able to communicate good things and ‘not so good’ things in a way that is honest and authentic.
However, leadership can be lonely, and it’s important to have a network that can support you as a leader.
From a work viewpoint what has the last 12 months been like?
The last 12 months have been mad, but in a good way. We sold our business to Transform in 2024. Bringing together the teams, we reconstructed our Transform vision, values, and operating model to really embrace the possibilities that the acquisition offered. Our CEO has been instrumental in making this happen and is a true example of a good leader. All transitions are difficult, but this one has really been positive, and we are now working in a new way and delivering great work. The most important thing that has made this possible is cultural alignment – everyone in Transform wants to make an impact for our clients, and that shows in the behaviours that people demonstrate. I have taken on the role of strategic engagement director and have been forging links across the public sector, our consulting associations and organisations like Think Digital. I am also spending a lot of time trying to keep up with all that is happening in our fast-moving technology environment and make sure we are responding at pace.
What would you say are the biggest tech-based challenges we face today?
I sit in the intersection of technology and inclusion, so my primary focus is on how technology is changing the way we are going to work and the skills we need to develop as a nation. We need to embrace new technology in a safe, sustainable and ethical way. And we also need to make sure we try and address the exclusion problem intentionally.
In addition to this, we face external challenges, and supporting our SMEs and scale-ups in the face of the competition and ensuring we understand all sovereignty issues.
This comes with the need to ensure both the public and private sectors are able to deal with legacy systems, make sure data foundations are set up to use new technologies and ensure we provide skills and learning for our workforces.
And we still need to be sure we are delivering the basics – to understand the problem we are trying to solve, and build human-centred accessible services which are joined up and easy to use.
What can be done to encourage more women into the industry?
I believe that we need to start from the beginning here. We need to be encouraging girls in schools to see what careers in technology look like and opening the conversation far earlier. As an industry, we in tech can always be doing more to engage with schools and influence government policy.
In our tech businesses and in the public sector, we need to make sure we have policies that encourage women to stay in the industry and ensure they get the support they need throughout their employee journey. We know that the biggest drop off in the industry is between 5 and 10 years in the industry – this can correspond with caring responsibilities, but many women don’t come back into the industry after this.
As a female founder, I know there are not many of us about, but I can see how difficult the start-up journey can be – from looking for investment, to asking for support and help. There are networks and support available, but it can still be tough to access – we can do more here too!
Give us a fact about you that most other people wouldn’t know.
I’m a bit of a musical theatre person on the side and have been involved in amateur productions for the last 10 years – either on the stage or, more recently, on the production side doing choreography and movement. I have a production coming up in November if anyone is interested…
