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What led you to a career in technology and transformation?
Necessity. I am a chartered surveyor by trade, and after the 2008 crash, I managed to avoid five rounds of redundancies. It was brutal. However, I was seconded into the public sector in Aberdeen for two years. While I didn’t enjoy it, it taught me a lot about managing property portfolios and projects, and I was trained in PRINCE2 and other methodologies.
After two years there, I resigned, did a PRINCE2 qualification, and within eight weeks, I started as a risk analyst at RBS. RBS was running one of the largest programmes I had participated in – a network transformation with 1,800 locations. I joined the PMO office as a risk analyst, and within a year and a half, I was running it. As Winston Churchill said, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” I wasn’t going to stay as a risk analyst. I was ambitious and leaned into challenges.
Did you face any challenges stepping into more senior roles in tech transformation?
Absolutely, everyone faces challenges in these situations. If someone tells you they haven’t, they’re either very lucky or not being entirely truthful. Life is full of challenges, and it’s all about how you approach them. I worked as a contractor for 10 years, and there is a different mentality in that type of role. Quite rightly, leadership roles tend to go to permanent staff because contractors, by nature, leave after a few years, and it’s not practical to invest management training in someone who will depart, taking all that knowledge with them. When I stepped up into my first permanent directorship, I had a lot to learn.
But someone saw potential in me. That was a turning point – my boss believed in me, coached me, and mentored me. Without that support and the support of the wider management team, I’m not sure I would have succeeded.
Have you noticed an imbalance in women holding senior leadership roles, particularly in your experience working on projects and engaging with different teams across organisations?
Without question. While the industry has made strides in getting women into director roles, the glass ceiling is still very much present at board level. How many female CFOs or CEOs do you know? How many women are on boards? That’s where the challenge lies. My current organisation is better than many and puts diversity at the heart of what we do, but breaking through to board level or the Executive Leadership Team is still tough.
How can we push past the barriers and get more women into senior leadership positions to create change at a faster pace?
My outlook on this has evolved over the past few years. I have always worked in male-dominated industries like property, construction, and tech. When I was younger, I was adamant that I didn’t want positive discrimination. I thought, “I’ll get there on my own.” But as you get older, you realise that no matter how hard you work, sometimes it’s simply not enough.
To make real progress, I believe we need two things; legislation that requires a certain percentage of women on boards and societal change to support those women. Without regulation, change won’t happen fast enough, or it will stall. Look at the modelling industry – despite progress towards diversity, due to a lack of regulation the trend has cycled back to unhealthy, unrealistic body standards.
The workplace needs to change to recognise the challenges women face just getting to the workplace. PepsiCo has introduced things like nursing rooms in some of its plants to support new mothers returning to the workforce and phased return to work and flexibility to support caring duties – we need more of this type of support at all levels.
What advice would you give to younger women who want to move into male-dominated fields, especially those who are ambitious and want to progress in their careers?
Get really good at networking – at all levels. Build a strong support network, not just with senior people but also with your peers and juniors. Start from day one because you never know when someone in your network might help you down the line. Networking is a skill that you need to develop over time. It’s also important to never burn bridges. Always remember that the world is small, and you never know when you might encounter someone again in a different context.
Another key point is to be pleasant to work with. It seems obvious, but people want to work with nice people. You don’t always need to be the hardest worker or put in the longest hours—being easy to work with is what will get you ahead. Of course, frustrations occur, but think of the long game. Karma matters, and being polite and pleasant, even when difficult, will pay off in the end.
How do you manage work-life balance, especially given the demands of working on projects with fluctuating workloads?
I’ll be honest: I haven’t had children, which has made it easier for me to manage my career. I think the idea that we have been sold, especially to my generation, that you can have it all – a successful career, children, a fantastic relationship, and everything else – is unrealistic. You may have all those things, but you’re likely going to feel exhausted and anxious and not excel at any of them. Many of my friends in senior positions tell me they feel like they’re failing in multiple areas of their lives because they’re trying to do everything. Something has to give.
I also think that women need to be careful with the partners that they pick. In my generation, women still do 80% of the childcare. I have never had a male colleague tell me they need to leave early to pick up their child, yet women face this expectation regularly. 