Moving from a career in HR to founding a tech business has been the most unexpected, and rewarding, journey of my life.
I spent nearly two decades as a Chief People Officer, helping organisations navigate leadership, culture, and employee experience. Then, in 2019,(shortly after the birth of my third baby) I launched FabricShift™, a behavioural science consultancy driving lasting culture change, out of a belief that there was a better way to measure and influence workplace culture.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned? I’ve had to adjust my communication style to async first and minimal standing meetings, and I’ve learnt so much from it. My tech team is brutally straightforward: they don’t want small talk, they don’t want emotional check-ins, and they certainly don’t want me to waste time on ideas that won’t work. Early on, my team would tell me, “Johanna, you don’t need to ask how I am, just tell me what you need.” They would push back openly: “Johanna, that’s a bad idea. Don’t spend your time on it.” At first, it felt shocking, HR had trained me to be careful, diplomatic, and tactful, but over time, I realised how refreshing and productive this honesty was.
Tech teams value clarity, brevity, and efficiency. They want precise instructions, defined priorities, and respect for their time. They communicate on their own terms, not on yours. So, if they’re heads-down coding, now is not the time for an email check-in. Slack messages should be concise. Meetings should have clear agendas. Understanding this has fundamentally changed how I work across the business. I’ve learned to communicate directly, respect focus time, and trust my team’s expertise, which has strengthened both our culture and outcomes.
This clarity and efficiency have been critical in helping FabricShift grow. We’ve developed a sophisticated SaaS platform, scaled global projects, and delivered results that have left even large multinational organisations amazed. Many of our clients often comment that they’ve never seen a team of this size operate with such speed and impact and it all comes down to the culture we’ve built. Every person knows their role, the company’s mission, and how their contribution matters. We prioritise habits and behaviours that make collaboration seamless.
Moving into tech from another sector also requires humility and adaptability. You must be prepared to learn a new language, challenge assumptions, and embrace a different approach to problem-solving. You can’t rely solely on your prior expertise. You need to listen, observe, and adjust.
For me, this meant blending my knowledge of people and psychology with the precision, logic, and scalability demanded by tech. Humour has helped, too. There have been countless moments when I’ve realised just how different my previous world is from my team’s and from growing a start-up too. I’ve learned to laugh at misunderstandings, embrace the awkwardness of translating HR-speak into code-friendly terms, and celebrate small victories together.
Of course, moving into tech comes with challenges beyond communication. Building a SaaS platform from scratch, competing with larger, well-funded competitors, and navigating a male-dominated tech and investor landscape has tested my resilience. Add a global crisis (our tech team was based in Ukraine when the war broke out)and it became clear that flexibility, empathy, and trust are just as important as strategy or skill.
For women considering a move into tech, my advice is simple: you don’t need a perfect product to start, and you don’t need a traditional tech background. What matters is identifying a real, specific problem, building a solution, and refining as you go. Embrace the differences in language and culture, listen more than you speak, and don’t be afraid to be direct. And importantly, bring your own expertise. My perspective on people, leadership, and culture is just as valuable in tech as it was anywhere else.
Today, FabricShift combines technology, behavioural science, and global cultural insight to help organisations embed new behaviours, drive performance, and measure culture change at scale. And as I reflect on my journey, the most surprising lesson has been this: sometimes, the key to success in tech isn’t the code or the platform, it’s learning how to speak the language, respect the rhythm, and build a culture that makes small teams achieve big things.
