Cloud computing is becoming ever-increasingly popular within organisations across the globe. Cloud allows on-demand access to resources, data storage, networks and intelligence.
But what does a career in cloud technology look like and what can offer women in tech?
To tell us more, we’re joined by Emma McGuigan, Global Lead – Enterprise & Industry Technologies, Accenture.
Emma McGuigan leads Accenture Enterprise & Industry Technologies, which helps clients achieve enterprise-wide transformation by bringing Accenture’s deep technology, functional and industry expertise across SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, Workday, Adobe and other leading platforms. Emma oversees Accenture’s relationships, strategy and capabilities globally and across all industries for the Enterprise partners. She is a member of Accenture’s Global Management Committee.
hello everyone thank you for tuning in again I am Kaye bitman the content director at chican code and today we’re
discussing what a career in Cloud technology can offer cloud computing is becoming ever increasingly popular
within organizations across the globe it allows on demand access to resources data storage networks and intelligence
but what does a career in Cloud technology look like and what can it offer women in Tech laily I’m joined by
the amazing Emma migan senior managing director at essenti to dive into this further with me today and we’re also
going to touch upon her work in generative AI a bit too welcome Emma thank you so much for joining us on here
well thank you for having me on here Kaye I’m really excited to join you good thank you we haven’t spoken about this
um I love the fact that we have such a range of topics on this podcast and we haven’t spoken about Cloud for some
reason yet on this podcast so can we kick off though with a bit of background about yourself and your background
please yeah of course so I’m originally from aine in the northeast of Scotland I went to Edinburgh and did a masters of
Masters in engineering uh specializing Electronics I went down that path
because I could spend a year in the French Els doing my project placement and I came out and the thing I knew I
wanted to do was to go and work in Tech and I was lucky enough to start my career with Anderson Consulting as
exenta was back then and I started out as a engineer really cutting code
helping write the solutions would solve the problems our clients were facing and
I’ve spent nearly 29 years here developing that career and really moving
from being very technical into a broader role where I I’m still very much in
technology but also really focused on the business aspects the business cases
the business problems that we’re solving for and doing that I run all of our Global ecosystem for exenter so I work
with our biggest Partners around the world and Cloud underpins all of those solution solution providers today so
this is a topic very close to my heart and I’m very excited to be here talking
about it and Kay I should just also say that I’m happily married and I have
three kids and a dog but slightly less happily married today because the dog ran away while she she was out for a
walk with my husband she came back she went back home it’s
okay oh thank the Lord for that amazing so so um I mean it sounds
like it’s incredibly balanced as well at a cent I mean you you have a well
balanced Family Life a work life you’ve been at cent of 29 years I mean that’s
incredibly loyal they must be doing something right to have kep you for 29 years I mean what what what is it about
a centure that that made you stay I think it’s two things one thing
that’s always is always there’s always something new happening here so there’s a new role there’s new technologies to
get involved with there’s new clients to work with new partners to work with so there’s always something new that keeps
you interested and I love learning I love learning new stuff I love really
exploring how technology is evolving and can help solve new problems but the other thing that’s kept me here are the
people and we work in such a collaborative environment where people are there to support each other and I
have made so many good friends here over the years and I think when you have that sense of belonging and you you can serve
that that that level of curiosity and and um desire that we have to to be
fulfilled then why would you change yes exactly that and I I love the fact that
as well you said you you you knew you wanted to go into Tech and you knew you wanted to be an engineer was it about
tech because we don’t always hear that often we always hear that ladies fall into the tech sector but you had a plan
so what what was it about tech that really attracted you to to the industry
so I think from a really young age I like to understand how things work and I can remember as a 9-year-old being given
a new very secondhand bike uh and taking it all toart and my mother looking at me slightly dubiously as to whether I put
it back together and sure enough I reassembled it all and um that really talks to who I am I like to understand
how things work and I like to make things and um actually being an engineer
with a mindset like that very practical very pragmatic that sort of underpins why I wanted to go into Tech and then of
course it because it was moving so fast it was evolving even all those years ago when I started out and that for me that
whole solving problems um and and and solving problems through practical solutions that you could actually go
build in Tech that for me is really at the core of what what had me wanting to move into a career in technology from an
early days um and it’s you know you get you find your way into a degree because you were good at things at school and
math and physics were always always came more easily to me oh I see I know so we
always ask on here um you know were you’re that child that took the toaster apart but the fact that you took your
bike apart and at least you could put it back together so tends to be a mindset of certain
children that that go into St subject and now fast forward what what
do you love about your role in the industry now I mean you said that you you know you wanted to build things and
and to to be involved in that take it that nothing has changed there you’re you’re still involved in in being able
to build things and make an impact in the tech sector and actually even as as your role has changed in a centure I
take it you still have a hand in in feeling that way as as you did when you were a child absolutely and and I think
the only thing that changes is your role evolves so if you like I’m now in the earlier discussions with clients really
exploring with them the challenges that they’re facing within their industry within their sector and thinking about
how Tech can help enable that change that transformation that resolution that fix whatever it is that they’re after
but what working with my colleagues who are deep within the industry or deep within the function who really
understand the regulatory requirements or the Nuance of the change that’s being chased and that that is one of the
things that I think exent as an organization is really good at is bringing recognizing those different
capabilities and bringing them together but you’re right in some respects my role hasn’t changed because I’m still solving problems I’m looking it I I work
with all the partners and that has been a great that wasn’t something I did did a few years ago and I’ve been I’ve been
working with the partners for five six years now and really helping work out how Accenture an a Microsoft or an sap
or an oracle can partner together to help unlock the the the value for our clients help solve problems for our
clients and in a way that everybody you know there’s a way forward for everybody I mean that’s a pretty good place to be
in a career right definitely and I think people have this this misconception as
well about what it’s like to work in technology and like you said your your role has has become more and more Broad
and actually you started off in a very technical role I think that’s that’s kind of that’s what people think it’s all it’s going to be you have to be very
techy you come in you have a very techy role and and that’s kind of it but yourself you’ve moved through several
different roles and even to come into the tech industry you don’t have to be technical at all actually do you you
don’t have to start off as you did no not at all and of course you know the thing today Kaye is that that everything
is evolving and you think about the the jobs I did when I started out as a
engineer and an Accenture nearly you know 29 years ago those roles are automated now the products have been
pre-built the way we cut code it’s it’s it’s all be you know so much of it is being automated the way we used to
gather requirements and turn them into documents that we then could code all of that we can automate today but what that
does is it it moves the value to a different place and it changes the skills and the capabilities so today if
you were starting out today for a career in Tech the breadth of opportunity for you to get involved is way broader than
it was 29 years ago because it’s the code is almost is almost of course we still need people who code and I’m not
suggesting we don’t but you go all the way up to geni you go deep into
understanding how Cloud architectures can come together you think about the experience that a customer wants to have
when they’re buying their new online uh item of clothing that’s going to be EMP
powered by how technology can serve that experience for that individual understanding all these different pieces
nobody has all of that so this the the skills that we need are they’re they’re continuing to evolve every day and I
think that’s what makes technology really exciting and that the the most important thing for me if you’re thinking about a career of technology is
being curious you have to be innately curious and Keen to solve problems and
unlock new value yes and I love that you just touched upon um General there and I
wanted to talk to you a little bit about what makes cloud and gen AI great sectors to work in and you just you just
hit the nail on the head there you have to be very curious and you have to you know it’s a great sector to work in
because it’s constantly evolving I take it you would never ever be bored oh no
I’m not very good at being bored and my husband will tell you I’m not very good at sitting
still yeah I mean as you you spoke a little bit there about um skills that
are different now compared to 29 years ago and that’s that’s something that we
struggle with as as a sector isn’t it we sometimes we you know employeers can struggle to keep up with how fast the
sector moves and the skills that are needed and actually you know people that are studying the technology now their
skills might be outdated by the time they get into the industry but that is
everything about that that makes it so interesting to to come into you know cloud and gen um is there anything else
that you think is super exciting about those Industries I’m assuming the salaries are good you know there are
there a wide range of roles that most people probably hadn’t even thought of well a a wide range of roles and also a
really wide range of employers because technology is helping serve every organization in every industry
technology is needed because it doesn’t matter if you think about the level the way we changed through the pandemic we
were accessing we were calling our doctor via a zoom window or a teams
window in a way that we would never have thought possible we were not just buying doing our weekly shopping online we were
buying anything we ever wanted online we were talking to Tradesmen online to understand how we could repair things
and suddenly we realized this was all a lot more convenient and so you think about the level of disruption that has
happened you know we have a disruption index that we use at Accenture and if you go back to pre- pandemic the level
of disruption year on- year was about 4% and when we’re talking about that we’re talking about so socioeconomic
geopolitical anything else that’s facturing into that level of disruption that we face in our lives every day over
the last three years we’re now looking at an annual disruption index of 200% I
mean if you just think about that for a minute and the one of the big triggers around all of this is the way technology
is evolving and but our willingness to adopt and do things differently and so
you think about that and that gives you a clue into that breadth of roles and the breadth of employees employers sorry
and the final thing I just want to say is people worry a bit that the skills that they’re learning today are going to
be redundant before they finish their their education whether that’s secondary or tertiary education and what I would
say to you is actually what our education is good at is a teaching principles and the principles remain
pretty consistent so the language or the adoption or the thought you know the the
the actual capabilities are going to evolve but the principles with which we develop technology the logic systems you
know the the the creativity needed those principles that are founded around that they remain constant so don’t feel
downbeat about any degree choices that people are making any a level choices that you’re making because actually
there’s just a huge opportunity ahead because they’re teaching those you those fundamental principles around solving
problems and that’s what the sector needs yes definitely and I think as well those principles um they they lead into
the importance of soft skills as well and I think that’s always something that is quite overlooked in technology and
everybody thinks I have to have the computer science degree um and I have to learn all of the technical skills and we
have lots of uh career switches um on this podcast and on our webinars um and
they kind of underestimate the fact that some of them have been in work 15 20 20 years already and they switch into the
career sector and don’t realize that they have all these fantastic soft skills and because it’s been drummed
into them to come into Tech you have to have a computer science degree out fresh out of University um and then when they
get into Tech they actually realize actually I’m I’m at quite an advantage of all of these great skills because
I’ve been in the workplace uh already um you know I’m assuming during your time
as well in the tech sector and and even now essentially you’ve come across a wide range of people that have come from
a wide range of backgrounds is is that true you know even at ental that people
that you work with they’re not all fresh out of uni from computer science degrees they come from everywhere absolutely not
all all diversity all sorts of educational backgrounds and what we really want and what we really celebrate
is diversity of thought and diversity of course comes through gender but it also comes through ethnicity it comes through
degrees it comes through your background all these things contribute and what we need in the tech sector is we need
people coming from all sorts of different backgrounds who’ve grown up with a passion in solving problems a
passion in interacting with technology and who doesn’t love their mobile phone especially our teenagers and really
that’s what’s important because if you’re passionate about something you engage in it in a way that’s really meaningful and getting out of bed to go
to work is so much easier and I think we sometimes forget this but if I look at my role today I you know I I look after
all that the ecosystem and I look after those biggest partners for Accenture I have a whole sve of clients I work with
people are we the reason we do all of this is because of the relationships that we build and when we go to work
with a new client the client agrees to work with us because they’re buying the people who they meet it’s just it’s the
same as in every sector you have to be able to build those relationships you have to be able to communicate well you
have to be able to understand the scope of what’s going on and have that ability to really understand that breadth some
people need to go deep in a technology to be able to be but you need this team of people who’ve got all these different
skills you need other people who are really going to understand how that’s going to impact the user how do I help
this user understand they’re going to have to work differently and actually that’s different processes and maybe
maybe this is like somebody who’s done the same role for 20 years and actually we need to help them understand how this
is going to help them in their job whereas actually their reaction is to be resistant and so you think about that
think about just pause for a second that huge range of skills so now I think the
the misconception that the tech sector is limited is not the right one and if I
may tell you I have a story of my favorite switch rooll ever and I was um
I was at a I was a guest speaker with a at a woman in Tech event with one of our
financial services clients and I slept over to uh Canary water their offices
and I went in and I met this lady who was their head of security and I was oh wow this is amazing head of cyber
security and this is quite a long time ago it’s probably about 15 years ago and I was like so how did you get into this
how long have you been working in cyber because cyber was still whilst it was very important it wasn’t it wasn’t on
the scale of an employment that it is today and she said well I’ve only been working in cyber for maybe three or five
years it was a relatively short period And I said well what did you do beforehand to get here to have such a senior role and she said I transfer from
doing physical security so she had spent the first 15 years of her career doing
physical building security and she was approached by an organization to say
look we we need more people and we can’t hire enough people with the right skills in cyber and what we really need is we
need people who can systematically understand how you keep people out and if you do building security you
understand how to keep people out but let the right people in and so she said it was really interesting because she took all of those principles that she’
she built her career on and had to flip them essentially into a virtual world now of course cyber careers we’ve got
lots of deep techn deep Engineers deep technologists but we also have people who have to understand systematically
the problem that you’re trying to solve whether you’re keeping people out whether you’re letting people in you know where the data needs to be held etc
etc if you think about all of that virtual Security in a physical way a it
helps us understand but you can see like that was how she’s transitioned so my one of my favorite transition stories
yeah that yeah I think that’s one of the best ones I’ve heard because you’re right people come from all walks of life
and they kind of forget that you know all of those skills that they learned in the previous job are so important and
perfect example there that all of those years that lady had spent and all of those wonderful skills that she had
soaked up along the way she probably she probably didn’t even make the connection until somebody came to her amazing and
and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about those skills um and what skills are important for a creating Cloud um
and generative AI we’ve spoken a little bit about soft skills um obviously you talk about communication and lots of
other things are there any other skills that you think are important or that our listeners should be you know very aware
of if they’re thinking about a career in those areas so I think they’re quite different so if we maybe start with the
the cloud and if you think about when we think about the cloud it’s everything from the infrastructure piece which is
relatively tech technical it’s more at the engineering level all the way up into how we think about the data sets
that we’re holding how we want to provide access and then thinking about the applications the software as a
service applications that are sitting on there and how we can then maintain you know there’s no maintenance cycle on
those sorts of applications so thinking about how you can unlock the value that sits there is very much at the business
or the customer end of things so if I put that into a tell a story in some plain English if you think about what
that looks like we have people when you log on to your favorite shopping app
you’re using an app that’s running on cloud so it’s an application running on the cloud your the people who design
that they need to understand the user experience they’re not technical in the way that you that that the person who’s
running the infrastructure end what they understand they understand how people
interact how people want to see what this item of clothing might look like on them or what this food might taste like
they look to the they want to get the description not just the picture but if you haven’t got the picture they’re never going to click on the description
it’s that really understanding how people buy and that’s a be that’s all about Behavioral Science it’s it’s
understanding recute patterns it’s understanding the data that allows all of that to happen just in that one role
I’ve covered two or three disciplines yeah at the other end on the
infrastructure end you’ve got people who really need to understand between public
Cloud which can be accessed it’s a it’s a common space where you you can have
other data sets and applications running and then we put we put build security
around it so it’s public Cloud but it’s secured all the way through to private Cloud that that where it’s just for your
own organization your own data set you need security you need to understand the
engineering of how the data gets held you need to make sure that you’re following all the rules around the data
privacy to make sure nothing is being oversteep like there is a long list some of those are deep engineering
capabilities some of them sit more in the legal space understanding data jurisdiction is a legal expertise and
that’s so so just in that one space around Cloud many many different types
of capabilities and all of them are good entry points for careers in Cloud taking what you learn building one app to to
learn to move it on to another understanding the Behavioral Science that has me click onto this image but
not this other image and understanding what that does being able to make sure our data is is safe and secure so that
it doesn’t get leaked and used on the black net all of these things are so important and but huge range of skills
and I think that’s what makes that whole space that’s a little bit better known by some of the listeners if you go to
gen the secret to gen is all around the data seter it’s around those large language models
or those image libraries and if we stick with large language models today you
look at the E the sort of explosion of excitement over chat GPT this year and
as it really reached the level of maturity and the fact that it can help provide all sorts of access to how you
might think about things how you might Harvest data and pull it together the secret to all of that is the harvesting
of the data and then understanding how to query that data these are really
different types of skills because this is really about understanding language it’s understanding collection it’s
understanding how the querying happens so if I query on this word what’s that going to give me you’ve got this notion
of prompt Engineers who are but you know you can see how the prompt engineer is the person who writes the prompts these
roles are going to evolve really really quickly but nobody knew what a prompt engineer was two years ago you know what I mean it’s like yeah so you can see how
in that gen space and that’s the mechanism of how it works if you then go
to the use case what’s the so what it’s great that I’ve got an essay I need to
write and I can type in the title and gen I will give me some ideas about how I might write my
essay but think about the use cases think about the use cases that say I’m
this patient and I’ve got these issues what might I expect My outcome to be
being able to enter all that data query against a large Healthcare database and come back with predictions which may or
may not tally with the experience of the GP you’re talking to I mean this is going to disrupt our lives really
significantly over the next few years and that’s what makes this whole Space so exciting but you can see again the
depth of skills now those data sets have to sit on cloud infrastructure they have
to be accessed in a way that makes sense so you need your you still need your behavioral scientists you still need
your engineers and that’s how it all sort of comes together but that just gives you a little bit of a flavor of
all those different skills that we need in this space and how exciting it is for people thinking about what their next
career move might be yeah and and I suppose as well the you know our listeners in particular but anybody
that’s interested in going into those roles should not feel intimidated by the
tech industry and going into you know even looking into um a career in either
of those two areas I I think that’s from from you know our guests on here and people that I’ve heard that are
interested in coming into Tech they’re always intimidated by is there a place for me you know is it going to be highly
technical but actually as you said you know even talking about cloud and uh and and a food app as an example jobs you
don’t have to be highly Technical and sometimes just dipping your toe in the water and seeing you know what what is
good for you and whether or not you move around from there the tech industry is really good for that as well isn’t it once you’re in it is you are free to
move around and and try um different things and to to um transition even your
skills over from One technical discipline to another I don’t think many Industries are like that do you it’s
it’s we’re quite I think it’s a good I think it’s a really good point you made and and actually because it’s evolving
so fast it’s one of the fastest evolving spaces these roles are continuing to grow and open all the time and we need
we need the diversity because if we don’t get the diversity we’re gonna continue to train bias into our AI
agents and you know that’s not a place any of us want to be and and we all have bias so it’s naive of us to think we
don’t so you need a diverse diversity of talent coming in so that we can end up
with the best results possible and you know we have more stories we could spend
the rest of the next two hours talking about all the stories and where that go to life right but I think that’s really
really important that we just people are not scared that they’re confid about what they know and they’re confident
about their curiosity and their desire to be a part of something that’s that’s going to shape the next 10 15 20 years
of Our Lives yes and you mentioned there a little bit about um diversity you mentioned a little bit before about um
diversity of thought um which is something you very much have uh at of centure as a whole do you feel the
technology sector is inclusive well there’s a great question
I think that’s a loaded question Emma it really is it really is I think the I
think when you asked the question about does technology have enough
inclusivity the answer is always that it could do better if you look statistically we’re nowhere near a
gender parity in terms of numbers so you look at it from a race perspective and
we don’t have any you know we’re not near to what we should be and so the answer has to be we’re not there yet do
I think there’s opportunity for everybody yes I do think there is and I think we need to continue to push we
need to encourage our younger women especially our younger women to really
understand the opportunities that can be ahead for them and then we need to encourage everybody to stay and to
continue to push the envelope and I think we we until you get to a critical
mass that becomes a difficult a difficult thing and I think we just have to keep working working working we need
to keep spreading the message of how great and diverse and um enduring careers in technology are
and how much fun you can have because you know at the end of the day I do podcasts like this because I’ve had a
great career I kind of want to share it with everybody and I want to encourage other people to kind of take that opportunity yes and I love the fact that
you mentioned actually there are kind of two problems for trying to solve not just encouraging people in but
encouraging people to stay um is is a whole other all Park um I completely
agree uh with what what you said and what what more do you think could be done to improve diversity and remove
biys in the industry so I think there’s some simple things organizations need to do they
need to set metrics and they need to measure themselves to those metricks and I I have no excuses on this I think
there’s no excuse for this and I think organizations get lazy honestly I think we just organizations as a sweeping
generalization get lazy so they the good on set metrics the really good ones hold themselves to those metrics and the
really good ones hold themselves and then make them public and so and I think those things are really really important and I think it’s important you measure
entry you measure that retention piece and you also measure progression um
because without progression we’re not going to change the game and I think I think those things are really important um and and I we shouldn’t we
we should be Beyond debate about whether it’s fair if we promote a woman over a
man because of a Target that we’ve set ourselves um because we’re
rebalancing the network the behaviors the the behaviors that we have all got used to rewarding and if we don’t set
these targets we just we’re never going to change so I I can talk to that point for for hours but I think that’s really
important yeah so the metric piece and living to the metric is really important I think the the third thing is we just
also need to hold ourselves to be continuous to think about the language that we’re using and the behaviors that
we show um and they are they’re different they are related but they are different
and we need to be aware of some of the language that we use that that is steeped
in paternal or military Legacy and most
business organizations are have adopted over many
decades a military org structure and they use military language and that well
a it was designed for a different purpose because you wanted people to always follow
unquestionably follow an instruction and it was it’s not where we are with our
businesses today where we want we want voice from the most Junior to the most senior people we want everybody to have voice and share opinion because that’s
how that’s how organizations Thrive that’s a that’s somewhat in Conflict to a traditional hierarchy we also need to
watch language because you know we say we talk about about we use language
that’s associated with with Warfare all the time we don’t even realize it you know
you talk about go I was in the trenches with my team we had our sleeves rolled up we were in there getting dirty and
you and then but we it’s all right because we hiked out and we made it out the other side and you’re like oh my God oh my God if you think about that that’s
not really you know and actually if you if you look at the English language same most languages there’s a whole load of
language in there that’s quite which has quite a heap of bias against it which can push some of your diverse people
back and out so I think language is important and I think the third thing is
that we just need to give people space to speak out and we’ve all had those
moments in our career where somebody has made a decision on our behalf because
they thought they knew best for us and um I I was coming returning from
maternity leave for the second time I have three kids and um the leader for
the B part of the business I was in had changed while I’ve been away and I was going to go back straight back into
client work after I think i’ had about seven months U maternity leave and uh the leader said no no no Emma shouldn’t
go back to client work it’s she’s just back from eternity leave she should do internal work and make it easy for her
and the guy I was working for said do you know Emma he went I to ask Emma and he
exactly and he went at the very least we should ask Emma I have asked Emma and he went no no no you need to ask her again
she’s just saying that and of course I did exactly want to go back and do client work and it’s that thing that we don’t presume and I’ve heard stories of
like well we had two candidates but it’s about living away from home Monday to Friday away from the kids so we sent the
man well maybe the man didn’t really want to go either because he didn’t really want to be away from his kids and did we ask woman did we ask the man what
they wanted and I think we just we need to hold ourselves to account that we’re
not doing making those same behaviors that we have witnessed because people jump to a bias that they thought was in
the interest of the individual and they hadn’t actually asked the person so I think there’s a thing there for us all to do and call it out if it happens to
you yes I love that and and just being mindful as you said just you know not making those decisions I think being
mindful about so many other things um as well and and even what what we do and
what we put out in the industry you mentioned cyber um security earlier and um we’ve even noticed at CH can code
when we go to write stories about cyber crime all of the pictures are hackers of men and and always you see that in the
news it’s always a man with his hood up and that kind of doesn’t doesn’t make you think that women would want to come
into the industry is always a Mal hacker which is not always the case but just to
be more mindful um and you said about language I had a discussion with a lady recently who kept saying um that a space
station was manned and and she kept changing it and she said no I want to say crude she said it was crude by you
know a team she said but the language that we use and you just kind of get used to it was manned by this
team man power yes exactly it’s something we say every day but as you
said once I think people um realize that and you know that you hold the mirror up to somebody and say you know could you
just be mindful of something um it tends to to to seep in and and um people
usually acquire open um do you have any advice for women looking to get into the
industry yes it’s to it’s to get involved so it’s a bit like any it’s a
bit like any um anybody I would be telling saying to get back involved and I was I was talking to a colleague of
mine who’s taken quite an extended career break with having children and it’s like go back and get involved there
are lots of amazing networking opportunities um from younger girls who
are looking to be in the Tech space entrepreneurs organizations like stemx
go join those go meet other people who are on that same point in their Journey because if you and it doesn’t matter
whether you’re starting out the first time or if you’re a maternity Turner I think Su black Tech moms is a fantastic
organization you can turn up at the BCS or the the there the worshipable company
of it people these people they’re amazing communities that you can go and be a part of and you can start to build
your network you can understand what other people are doing what was their journey in listen to podcasts like this
find out you know just hear other people’s stories because it will help you unlock the path the right path for
you and don’t be scared and I think as soon as you start putting yourself out there at some of these networks you
start to realize there’s so many people who are a little bit like you maybe not quite like you but the little bit like
you is all you need and then they will start they’ll they’ll have connections get on LinkedIn join some of the
communities on LinkedIn get to know people but also go meet people as well I think it’s really important because then
we build a support network around ourselves and I think that support network is invaluable yes definitely you
mentioned um Tech moms and stemat um super fans of both of brilliant uh
networks and as you said just getting in and hearing other people feel the same as you um we hold hackathons throughout
the year and we held one last week about women returners and career transitioners and there were three ladies there that
were nurses they were transitioning into Tech and just to come together and hear other people are feeling exactly the
same way as them lots of ladies that attended had never been to a hackathon and it was a confidence boost for them
and but you’re right just get involved and just something yes um we could talk
for another four hours actually not another two hours but we’re nearly out of time and I just wanted to ask you one
last thing um you’ve obviously been in tech for some time so we want to know could you share us the most valuable
thing you’ve learned during your career that’s easy it’s to ask for help
yeah and I think we can worry that if we ask for help people will think we don’t
know anything or if we ask for help they’ll think we’re somehow inferior or
we’ll show any number of negative things my view is asking for help is a great
way of building a new relationship it’s a great well of cementing an existing relationship and it’s a great well way
of pulling people in and remember every time you ask somebody for help they feel
like you’ve made them feel good about themselves because they must have something to offer you so they feel a
little bit better so if you do nothing else you’ve at least made them feel better and you might learn you might you
might learn the thing that’s going to help you with the problem that you’ve got so my most important thing is never
be shy at asking for help U because I just think it’s we all need to help each other and we all need help every day yes
I love that you know what so many times on this podcasts I’ve heard ladies say
they’ve stepped into a leadership position and they’ve they thought everybody on their team expected them to
know everything because they stepped into a leadership position and it’s not like suddenly you know overnight
everything that’s what your team is there for to reach out and ask and even outside of your team just asking
externally um as well uh can can also help um so lovely advice to end it on
thank you so much em it’s been an absolute pleasure having you on here today so thank you so much for for joining us well thank you for having me
Kaye really good thank you to everybody listening as always thank you so much for joining us and we hope to see you
again next time
