I began my tech recruitment career in 2008. I was fresh out of University and from a working class town in Wigan.
I was completely clueless to diversity at this point, but I had deep values or fairness and equality. As the rise of the women in tech movement grew, I began to grow with it.
It wasn’t until further in to my career that I truly began to see the challenges faced by women in the workplace, particularly 8 years ago when I had my first child. At this point, my unborn child was referred to as the “elephant in the room”, my male colleague was paid my commission whilst on maternity leave, and when I returned from maternity – my clients had been moved to other colleagues and my earnings halved. This hit hard – and I knew right then just how important women in business – and particularly fields such as tech – needed representation and people fighting for them.
From that point, I began actively volunteering and driving ID&E agendas and initiatives in my day job. I began leading Female leadership workshops, and I was blown away by some of the women I met. I signed my then company up to the tech talent charter and began actively researching ways to improve diversity in the tech sector.
Fast forward those 8 years, and I am now Global Talent Acquisition & Diversity Manager for CAVU. I am responsible not only for TA, but for our Global ID&E Affinity Group. Together with my team, I have driven talent attraction strategies to improve female representation in CAVU from 23% female leaders to now nearly 40% female leaders, and in FY25 our total female hires was 52%. However, I am aware that it doesn’t stop at attraction. Retention of diverse talent is instrumental to addressing the issue of diversity in tech – therefore, I am actively working with our ID&E team on retention strategies – be it as simple as our multi purpose room in the office, which can be used for breastfeeding mothers, to actively driving inclusion events such as Juneteenth and our hybrid working policies as part of our EVP.
My ultimate goal isn’t just to ensure CAVU is an inclusive workplace, but to ensure I make a difference for the young female talent of tomorrow.
