Tech has a talent shortage – and the COVID-19 pandemic, rapid digitalisation, the Great Resignation and mass layoffs have only helped widen the skills gap!
So in times of downturn and uncertainty, how can organisations retain their employees and make sure that they have the skills needed?
To answer this, our guest today is Sarah Gilchriest, President at Circus Street.
Sarah herself has had a very interesting career – graduating from Sunderland University and started in publishing for Centaur. She then moved to events, then sales, before turning to the tech industry in 2016.
Today, Sarah is the President at Circus Street, a digital training provider which has trained over 600,000 people in 150+ countries and works with companies including Sanofi, Nestle, Pfizer, P&G and Coca-Cola.
Sarah joins us to take a look at the importance of upskilling, how companies can support employees looking to upskill, and top skills that will futureproof your career.
hello everyone thank you for tuning in as always I am Katie batesman the content director at chican code and
today we’re discussing the importance of upskilling now we all know the tech industry has a talent shortage and the
pandemic the great resignation and mass layoffs have only helped widen the skills Gap so in times of uncertainty
how can organizations retain their employees and make sure that they have the skills needed to answer this I’ve
got the wonderful Sarah Gilchrist president at Circus street with me today to discuss upskilling welcome Sarah hi
thanks so much for having me it’s absolutely great to be here thank you so much for joining us can we kick off with
a little bit about yourself please set the scene yeah of course you can so as you’ve already said my name is Sarah
Gilchrist I’m the president of Circa Street great job title but what does it
mean um really my job is to manage the p l across our business and to make sure to
do that which means is hitting our Revenue targets make sure that we’re delivering a profit we have to understand the problem we’re solving
which is actually all about digital upskilling going back to your points that you said in the intro and how do we
deliver that for our client base so that our client base is the footsie top 100
brands anyone from these amazing Brands like Coke Nike or the in the
pharmaceutical World sanofi GSK in the alcoholic World Heineken
Diageo so we’ve got a whole breadth of amazing Brands but all they are doing is
upskilling their digital knowledge base because actually they understand that
that is what our future employees and employers need yes and that brings us nicely onto our
discussion today about upskilling it’s a word that’s thrown around a lot we hear it a lot in the industry but what
exactly is it what does it mean well really if we just take it on a base level it’s bettering yourself it’s
giving yourself more ammunition to be able to do tasks that are needed that
you then get paid for so that could be anything that could be further in your reading that could be increasing your
network or it could be doing some of these hard skills of actually understanding what data analysis is or
understanding what PHP or python code is so really upskilling is increasing your
own development and giving yourself access to resources materials events
live discussion podcasts that will allow you to increase your knowledge base but
also to increase your thinking and your thought process yes and uh fine from the discussions on
here actually that um a lot of people that work in Tech that is a thought process that they have
often they tend to be people that are continually learning Tech is very fast paced you know in particular
um if you get Developers for instance you know that we’ve had a few on here they’re always learning they’re always
learning something new is that something that that you’ve heard as well that tends to be a trait of people in Tech
all the time I’m delighted that as president of secretary I actually recruited I was in the interviews for
all of our Tech Team um it was really important for us because it’s not just about that base level it’s also about values and
cultural fit and I think that’s really really important those softer skills are very important when we are working in
teams be that remotely in person and being able to solve these really quite difficult problems but we have it in
every interview what is my Learning and Development what are the resources I can have with me how am I able to to
basically currently and continually progress so I definitely think it’s front and center within engineers and
the developers world and and for us it’s really really important and because we’re part of the workforce learning
Group which includes clouds Academy and QA we’ve got those resources for our
teams to be able to use in safe environments within Labs or live learning that they can go and use but
it’s always been very apparent within our Tech teams of how important that
learning development is for their continuous progression yes and you made that sound like as well that’s something
that candidates are asking you about the role uh instead of you know you you
looking to them thinking you know oh that are you that type of person that tries to continue continually learn it
seems like that actually I mean since the pandemic as well the things that candidates tend to ask for I
think they’ve changed dramatically significantly I totally agree I mean we would have heard a bit about remote
working before but not as much now and actually it’s really interesting about that particular question around saying
you might think remote is the answer for you but actually is it especially if you’re quite introverted and you can go
into yourself is that healthy for you to be fully like that we at Circle Street definitely take the approach of
flexibility and then being able to bring our groups and our cultures together to be able to benefit and to understand our
kind of one purpose that we’ve all got as one team but going back to your original Point around actually is that
what Engineers are asking absolutely they are definitely them saying what are
you providing me as an employer how can I continually improve I think the big thing about engineers is you’re always
in a moving environment it’s always progressing it’s never stagnating so
it’s quite normal to feel that that learning development progression is always there I think the interesting
um expansion on that since the pandemic is it’s in bigger and wider and different subjects so it’s not just the
language it’s also the data skills it’s also the the softer skills it’s also let
me understand digital skills from a bigger more commercial perspective so I can understand my value in the problem
that I need to solve yes I completely agree or the conversation is has changed
uh so much and um I I have a question though about if people are thinking about upskilling
can that also mean just just basically retraining or reskilling or is there a
difference between upskilling and re-skilling yeah it’s a funny one isn’t it like it’s almost these common words
and then everyone’s like is there a difference because actually both of them are continuous development for me the
term re-skilling is actually you’re changing direction um you are actually going to a different
career and there’s so much of that that is needed within our Tech world of people maybe who’ve done jobs before
we’re all very aware of the impact of AI maybe in some customer service roles or
some some other customer facing whereas actually we’re saying we might not need those anymore especially in large scale
businesses and if you can reskill use a new language understand some new
different techniques that you could then get a new career path upskilling is more
that continuous development but really they merge it’s all about lifelong learning it’s all about equipping
yourself with skills to make you more valuable and it’s also always about employers giving you these skills to
manage and facilitate the needs that they have now but also in the future because we’ve got so many millions of
individuals that are employed and we need to face them in the right direction get them organized and get them
productive into doing the things we want them to do we’ve got these amazing humans and re-skilling or upskilling
them will allow us to make sure that we’re making the best use and the best value for them within our business
and I suppose especially in today’s climate as well there have been a lot of layoffs recently in the tech industry
um if you’re if you have expanded your skills in some way um that would be you know a tremendous
advantage to you to be able to say I can move to a different career path
um I’ve already done the work I’ve already put in the work and you know I could I could either continue in the way
that I’m going or just you know completely try something something new I mean I was going to ask you about the
benefits to upskilling but actually you know it means that it just opens your your options up so much wider that if
you want to try something new you can well I think that’s so true and if you
think of the position of especially Engineers of what they were maybe five years ago you know it was hot currency
anyone could ask for anything they wanted and you know for example a company like circus Street we’re
competing with the likes of Facebook and Google to get our engineers and your point of difference it can’t always be
salary it has to be what you’re working on and obviously there’s so many people
who want a Greenfield site but actually there’s quite a lot of balls of mud out there that need solving and that we need
to go right how do we solve this problem and and understand the business benefits around it so you know that was very hot
popsy and I think there must have been quite a shock with so many of these Tech layers and from my perspective if there
is anybody who’s affected and listening to that reach out to us at Circus Street look at the training we can provide you
know we’ll put my email on the end of this so we can make sure that we can help and support because it’s a really important thing that we do help and
support our people and we encourage our networks to support our people you know
anyone going through this however I think there is also a rebalance of
people saying this isn’t that you’re just the very rare gold that everybody
wants a piece of it’s more of these skills I need did throughout industry
across the country across the world and how do we make sure that they are
constantly updated and giving us these amazing new technologies
that we can use we were talking only yesterday um in a meeting with one of our clients
about how AI is going to completely change the way we work on just the base level of using things like Microsoft
teams that they’ll be able to align what your learning is and what your diary says in your calendar so let’s say
you’ve got a negotiation meeting coming up the next day that they could then go search for the training on negotiation
put that in your plan to give you 20 minutes to watch it so we want these Technologies to help us be
more productive and we want our people to solve these different problems and in a way it’s an amazing time to be in this
industry um but I also think we also have to take personal responsibility for our
continued learning and actually we should take a lot of pride in that as well because it’s a lot of effort we put
in but you know it’s to better ourselves which is exciting yes because I wanted to ask you you know there’s a lot of
we’ve spoken um on here you know about uh individuals learning and and making
sure that they you know and take hold of their career path but is the owners is it on the employer or is it on the
individual uh I think it’s a bit of both to be fair yeah I totally agree and it’s really
interesting isn’t it it depends on what level you are and where you are but the truth is it has to be both and you know
anyone listening to this podcast first of all well done that you fitted a podcast into your life you know thank
you for making the time of it we’re all squeezing things no one’s got time for anything we’ve all got 101 things to do
on our to-do list the emails are going out of control everyone’s diary is really full so how’d you squeeze in that
time but it has to be both you know and and learning’s changed for example at
Circus Street we do bite-sized training so a module is half an hour I don’t think it’s always possible to say I’m
going on a five-day course and unfortunately to go and uh in Mexico for
me to go and Learn Python it hasn’t come down to that yet but I I think it’s more to do with how do you do that continuous
learning and also maybe be a bit kind to yourself you know you might have learned something by reading an article in the
Ft which might have been something that you not picked up before and you thought I’m just going to have a look at that
and then I’m going to investigate it a bit further you might have learned something by going to a networking event and that’s something you didn’t know and
you’ve reached out and contacted them on LinkedIn and you’ve got them in your feed and you’re experiencing something
new you might have done it by going and doing a formal course where you’ve got a qualification and you’re really proud of
that so it’s a mixture and the whole point is we’re never going to be static
so why not help yourself take control of it and not only do the formalized stuff
maybe through your employer but also do your personal stuff that you can add and Learn and Grow for that continuous
development yeah I I mean I wanted to ask you a little bit about you know in terms of
age or you know how how long somebody’s been in a career and you know when
you’re young you’re just so excited about getting your first job you’re probably not thinking about upskilling
is it you know we’ve had some ladies on here that have uh had career Transitions and they’ve reskilled but we do get
questions on our live webinars about is it too late um is it too late in life to learn a new skill or to transition into
a career and what what do you think about that I think it’s all about attitude so my backgrounds is that I did
20 years in publishing and where I came from a sales background and then I ran
the p l and I ran magazines and conferences and created websites you
know if you wanted to you could kind of label that some of it as Tech but let’s be you know it was more commercial much more sales and I came to a startup when
circus Street had 20 people in it and we had a small office on the Charing course Road and now we’ve you know
gone five times about on our heads count we’ve got offices in New York Sydney
we’ve had ones in Singapore we’ve got Global clients and actually that’s because we’ve had to create and drive a
tech team we’ve had to create the product strategy we’ve had to learn and actually these last seven years have
been amazing and I have upskilled and re-skilled as part of that journey and
that’s all about attitudes I really believe it so I don’t think it’s an age thing I think it’s an attitude thing and
I think whatever stage of your life you are having humility having empathy and
also knowing that the onus is on you you can do this like if you don’t have
to moan about work all day you’ve got a choice you don’t have to act or react in
a certain way you have a choice and you know like even the stuff about talking about is it in the employer or the
employee’s job to get training if you analyze that with the commercial aspects and go look if I learn X Y and Z I’m
going to be so much more valuable valuable to you in the company and then be able to present that argument
that’s again attitude and perspective so it’s giving yourself these skills there is no barriers we’re very good at
putting our own barriers in but we just need to be in the right path and we need to have the right Network
and we need to reach out and that’s why those things are really important and when I say right Network I’m a real
believer you you know I was never born a network I’m really proud that I was born in Luton in the 70s which not many
people would say in Life or in your podcast and but you know like I wasn’t but it was the first for us
yeah my mum came from India uh back in the 60s my dad was a train driver my mum
was an office worker you know and and my background is that my parents will still say and you’re lucky to have a job Sarah
you know and and I that’s my kind of value base and I do feel very lucky to
have a job and I definitely feel lucky to have a job where I’m valued but humility and in empathy are important
factors to that and um also the fact that you can be really proud that you’ve
got your strengths but also that you’ve got your weaknesses and that you’re okay with that I think those are really key
issues for me because I think sometimes we all strive to be perfect in an age of social media where you think
everything’s great and they’ve all got it all over there it’s just not true so humility and surrounding yourself with
good people is um really important yes I I completely agree with uh I love
everything that you just said there um and I I think as well it’s instead of
getting to the end of the year and feeling like oh my employer didn’t offer me anything I my employer didn’t offer
me any online courses this year I haven’t moved forward and I completely agree it’s you know looking at things
differently and looking at the things that you’ve learned you know that you could have done yourself we’ve all had
those colleagues I think that that can complain about their their jobs that
they’re not excited about their job or what they’re doing they feel they’re completely backed into a corner but will
never make an effort to upskill or reskill to learn something new and it
can be very draining for the team you know so even upskilling is is even a
good thing for the rest of your team to hear that you’re excited about something attitude and everyone like an
understanding and also you know like your own it’s your own brand your
personal brand that is the thing that you are in charge of that is your earning potential I do this same hours I
did as a starter but my salary is not the same as I started because you know
you’re you know your objective is how do I get the best value out of my asset which is me and how do I do it in a way
that allows me to shine and it’s not focusing on my weaknesses and how can I have that in an honest and trustful
relationship where I’m continually prepared to understand that I need to get better at stuff understand that
everybody isn’t perfect and work hard and try my best and I think those things are just on a base human level really
important and then you build everything onto that because then if you’re saying someone I really want to learn about
python it’s really important for me to understand about the digital Marketplace if I’m in retail I need to understand
about the digital shelf so I can understand what’s happening in that environment for retailers or I need to
know more about e-commerce you are considered more of a rounded business professional that someone would want to
invest in because they go okay that’s interesting and nobody’s in a box like
you know our own view that people are in a box you’re an engineer you can’t go and do that you don’t do anything it’s
completely up to you and so many people have portfolio careers they change their career we’re in such an amazing
environment now that those restrictions are definitely off so you know back
yourself and back yourself every day yes I’m a big believer as well that like
attracts like in everything in your life and if you are that person
um that is trying to improve yourself I just think more opportunities open up to you naturally anyway people tend to
gravitate towards that type of energy um and it’s not just on the dating side
of things it’s obviously the career side too I love that oh yeah I’m a massive
believer in fate I’m a massive believer exactly like you said light requires light and your energy does that I mean I
always think I mean especially to say it but when people come in first to the workplace you know everyone’s not owing
you a favor the reason why you have a job is to be added to a team that has a
task to do create more value do more stuff people go I’m so glad we’ve got
Haley on our team that’s brilliant what we need is another 10K leads but that’s the reputation you want to create no no
one’s ever said that I don’t believe it
yeah well we need to work that out we’ll work as a branding yes yes for me it’s
that it’s like understand it from the people who are running the business of what they want they don’t necessarily
want to be in every day going on what mood are they in today and we’ve we’ve got a happy Sarah or a sad Sarah ramoni
Sarah or a non-productive they want consistency they want people who care they want people who use their brain and
they want people who are motivated and it’s interesting especially like I said on that progression of where Tech has
been especially in the last five years of people not having to consider that as much because maybe they were much more
of the Golden Goose and had five or six opportunities to choose from and I don’t necessarily I know there’s been lots of
layers but I don’t necessarily think those days are totally gone yet you know Tech Talent is so needed in this country
globally it’s it fuels so much that we do but Tech Talent who’s got a
commercial lens he’s got great soft skills who understands about people who cares about the project they’re working
on not just from uh what’s my purpose but what does the product want and what’s the commercial features around it
and how do we make this better they’re the people you really want on your team yes yeah absolutely they’re
the the the uh uh the person that you’re looking for on those short lists as well
um and and there should be a lot floating around at the moment there should be a lot of talent at the minute that is out there um up for grabs so in
terms of uh sponsorship um of training should should I get my company to sponsor my upskinning or pay
for my learning or is that something I really shouldn’t ask for no I think I
think you should always have the conversation that goes back to being understanding that you’re a you’re an asset to the business and what will that
training deliver so and I think that’s a really important thing especially for women about having confidence to have
these conversations to know their own value to be prepared to go and have a negotiation to be able to prepare to go
and write out what the difference is and realize that it doesn’t have to be a motive or that they’re desperate and
everyone’s helping them that they can go and talk about that and go look I’ve been looking at this stuff again there
might be the answer but then people saying to them actually you’re a self-funded organization we just can’t
prioritize that at the minute and then you know that’s okay because I’m going to do one two three and four to go and
learn about this subject we’ve got so many resources got this amazing thing called the internet which worryingly
wasn’t about when I started but let’s not talk about that too right and and
you know like we’ve got these amazing things that we can go and learn there’s podcasts you know and many not always
great quality let’s mention that unlike this fun um but yeah thank you yeah and but I
think you can go and help yourself and show that it’s something you’re genuinely interested in and can deliver
value and if someone sees that and they go that’s interesting maybe we should do that actually maybe we should invest
there because in a business all of your um investment decisions and what I mean
by investment decisions is paying people’s salary increasing to their salary what facilities you put for there
what benefits you give for them what training you send them on it’s all a priority and you make some up higher and
you put some down lower so if you can put a commercial value on it so we have
Global groups of thousands hundreds of thousands of people going through old
programs at Circus street because business wise it makes sense to increase
the base and raise the floor of digital knowledge across the entire Enterprise
business so at Circus street we have Learners across Logistics sales commercial Tech
operations leadership because they all need to understand digital as a common
language and once they understand what that language is they’ll be able to trade in it
so it’s important and a big part of our role at Circus street is talking to these business businesses is their
understanding the commercial value and how that will put their entire Global Workforce is ready and be able to use
the tools that are already in place from the tech teams and they’ll be able to use the systems and also maximize the
environment so if you my point around that is if you understand that this is a commercial decisions and businesses are
there to make the most of their assets and make money yes I think especially on the commercial
side as well I think sometimes managers might have in their mind what they they
need you to do or what they need their team to do and what direction they need you to move in
um have you found though that you know a manager really needs to listen if they step forward and say I’d like to help
you in some way and send you on a training course I suppose they really have to be quite empathetic towards that
person I was sent I I was sent on a course uh when I was young and it was for public
speaking and I was not ready for public speaking and my manager knew I didn’t want to do it and so he said to someone
else with me so I didn’t do a runner at lunch because they paid for the course oh and I just was not ready for it I was
far too young and I just wasn’t confident enough and as I was so grateful that they had considered me but
they were trying to upskill me in a way that perhaps I just wasn’t ready I suppose it’s just listening isn’t it to
your team not always going with the the commercial side but you know making sure that they don’t make that the right
asset in the right place the right individual in the right place and you know we’re all so human and that’s
what’s brilliant about us because we’ll solve problems differently that’s why having a diverse team it’s so important
having women men different backgrounds different cultures it’s so important
because we look at things and we’ve experienced things and we have knowledge of things differently so having that
amazing Melting Pot of different views and experiences and and life stages
allows us to go right okay what are the gaps and where we need to do it but again like you said someone was
investing in you and wanted you to have the faith and it is sometimes a leap of face isn’t it when we’re doing trading
we’re a bit like wait a minute is that a weakness does someone calling it out and we’ve always got to see any training any
investment in ourselves as a positive I think your experience Kaylee that’s again about speaking up being honest
about something it’s great that your manager said that but yeah you’re totally right it’s a two-way
conversation you know we know very much at secretary you shouldn’t make training mandatory you know it’s not okay you
have to do it or if it’s like you’ve got to be able to sell it in it’s got to be positive and you’ve got to allow the
time for people to do it so it’s not additionally to all of their job they’ve got to have time to take it in learn
upskill because you’ve got to understand what the benefits are to the business and these are really important things we
need to upskill our people we need to reskill our people we don’t have enough people to do the jobs of the future so
this is a priority now and if it’s forced they’re you know they’re really not going to take in the skills what’s
the point of forcing somebody to do to do um training we are almost out of time
so I’m going to ask you one last question you just mentioned there about um future proofing um uh about future skills and what do
you think of the top skills that will future proof our listeners careers well I think data is massive at the
minute everyone’s realizing that data and actually the insights from data is
what we need to do but being able to extract Big Data being able to understand it and be able to make database decisions so I think that’s
really important I think um e-commerce if you’re in those particular roles and understanding
actually the different business models about it how we’re all doing kind of quick payment now I mean who would have
thought that everything is on our phone so quickly I mean I was definitely one of those people going well this is
ridiculous not putting a PIN number in I’m definitely not going to use it and if if anyone asks me for one now I’d be
like this is ridiculous this is taking at least a minute out of my life so you know the speed of how we as humans
interact and and what we do so I think that that’s a really important you know part of it understanding the influences
of social media around it and how and how that works I also think the softer skills you know being a being able to
listen and being able to speak and present clearly and concisely
um I think those things are really really important and also I think I really do believe those future skills of
being a human that can go in and listen collect that data and be able to present
that back in a clear and concise way is useful for everybody especially when we like said we’re solving difficult
problems we’re helping companies be better what they’re doing we’re being better humans and individuals and
delivering against a purpose you know humans are amazing things and then however much we say will upskill and
reskill you know there’s a really important thing in making the best of us as we are so
um maybe time management is the big one for the future yeah you’re absolutely right I think um
a lot of those skills as well have changed so much with the way that we have you know a lot of us have gone
remote or hybrid and you know even you saying they’re about being able to present and make sure that you’re clear
in the way that communicate you might not have had the opportunity to present if you were previously in an office or
you know all the other way around or or um you know I always wonder about graduates coming in now and and how they
feel and how the skills are so different having to start your new job on zoom and
not knowing all of your team um until you’ve all met you know you might be in once a month or something as
finally you meet your team and I always think about the different skills that that they are picking up compared to
when when we started I totally agree and actually I think very I mean it’s such a
rage isn’t it of what people had to do we definitely have people who started in the pandemic and yeah we did actually
see them for like a year and they were like and definitely circus Street once you’re in you’re in so it’s like you
know a day is you know it’s like dog years you know like we we just had our new starter breakfast and I was like but
it feels like you’ve been here forever and you’ve been here for two and a half months you know because that’s also
about how people are ingrained and we we bring them into our culture and there’s a lot of trust here and we work in a
real you know in an autonomous way but um I think it’s really different and
actually I think the biggest thing and I’ve always felt this about new generations is actually just being
comfortable with change this whole thing of I need to be perfect why aren’t I
perfect I mean there was definitely a generation that got affected a lot more by social media and that were very much
like but everybody else is having everything great everyone else is being promoted and they’re running the marathon and they’re in an amazing
relationship and they’re a great cook you know and you’re like Jesus that’s a lot and you know and they won Garden of
the year yeah
where do these people have this time I mean the reality I think the reality may
be um getting older or if people want to call it wisdom I’m not sure is you just
settle a bit with the fact of it’s I’ve got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable we’re definitely in a
phase at Circus Street where we’re going through Rapid expansion my email box is out of control I have no time to do
anything we’re all really busy and I was talking to a very dear colleague today and she was just like you know what
we’re just in it Sarah and we’re gonna get comfortable again with uncomfortable and you know just saying it out loud and
talking about it and I’m like I’m not a person who feels uncomfortable with 156
unread emails I don’t like that but I need to prioritize other things I need
to be getting you know other ways of working and that will come down so I
think having human interaction is really important to remember we’re all not
superheroes and we shouldn’t be and I also think generation changes we all
just need to realize that actually change is constant and I feel like once you learn that and understand and
understand that you can keep Reinventing yourself going back to this upskilling and reskilling it’s quite a powerful
thing really it’s quite a it’s quite a refreshingly amazing thing rather than
it being seen as a threat and a concern and I’m always behind the curve it feels
a bit like what are you gonna throw at me next let’s go and it’s quite exciting and
motivating because it empowers you you’re empowered to learn you’re empowered to change you’re empowered to
do the roles you want to do there is no blocker you just got to meet the right people be in the right team and that’s
you’ve got the power to do that you know we talk often or I talk often about are
you a fountain or a drain and you know it’s your approach isn’t it and um you
just gotta feel confidence in yourself and go okay why am I any different to anyone else
what what else are we gonna do let’s go for it yeah but that is a lovely note to
end on a lovely positive note thank you so much Sarah is flown by it’s been an
absolute pleasure having you on the podcast today oh I really appreciate it and thank you again for your time I said
to Kaylee that I was going to ask you questions so I’m going to ask you a question okay can you give us your best
bit of career advice anyone’s ever given you today oh I miss a bit of career advice
um I had some great advice when I first started about um not being afraid to say no I think
speaking earlier about I had a wonderful manager who did push me into areas that
perhaps I thought I wasn’t ready for at that point I was feeling like it was okay to say no I have to like you said
about just feeling comfortable with yourself I perhaps didn’t feel at that point in my career I was very young that
I had anything to say and let alone say in front of lots of people um and you know I just had to get
comfortable with with saying you know no it’s it’s okay I think from your point
there we look at social media and we think everybody’s doing everything and they’re so wonderful and I have to say
yes to everything and I have to stand up and be that lady that’s talking about you know
um women in Tech I’d look at these cios and ctOS and I think oh you know I have
to stand up and do that and and I always found that I couldn’t because I wasn’t a CIO and a CTO in a big corporate company
so why am I trying to be somebody that I’m not um and I think when once I was
told it’s okay to sometimes say no and to be yourself I think that was some of
the the best um career advice that I had heard because it just made me feel a bit more
it’s okay to be me and to find my own story instead of trying to be somebody else do you know what that is the best
into this podcast because it is brilliant for you and that’s what you’ve got so go with it you know and be proud
of it and let it Thrive and let it shine and that’s what this is all about isn’t it and it should all be about giving
each other confidence and backing each other and realizing if we’ve done something a little bit wrong or and also
really realizing if we’ve done something really right but I think you’re totally right back in yourself saying yes and no
to the right things um and believe it in yourself they’re just fundamental aren’t they yes which
can be hard to navigate at some points especially if you’re still quite young you think is it okay that I’ve said no
to an opportunity you know you think I’ve shot myself in the foot um but yeah it’s it’s a learning curve
but um yeah at least we’re in an industry that allows you to be flexible and to try new things and I think on
that point also you know we’re here and we’ve got Decades of experience behind us and we still don’t have the answers
and I think that’s really really important you know I’m like oh my God how am I going to handle this I’m
recording a podcast today what have I revised you know what do I know and
you’ve got to just sometimes have faith in yourself and have faith with the people you work with Kaylee and realize
that people are doing it and want to get the best out of you want to help you so I think there’s lessons in that that everyone doesn’t have everything down I
don’t have amazing cooking skills my garden isn’t perfect and often you know
I might be wearing Odd Socks it’s it’s like looking in the mirror Sarah I can’t do those things either apart from
that literally life is perfect [Laughter]
Sarah um and so anyway everybody listening as always thank you so much for joining us and we hope to see you again next time
