For anyone working in, starting out or simply considering a new career within the Technology Sector we asked six senior female leaders to share their own personal journeys and based on their own experiences offer practical advice to their younger less experienced counterparts.
The Female Leaders Roundtable event was hosted in the boardroom of the recently refurbished Custom House and was the ideal backdrop to engage with senior female leaders to help support younger women in tech as they seek to develop their own careers.
Stacey Mallon
Stacy Mallon is the Site Lead for Wolfspeed NI. Wolfspeed is a global semiconductor company leading the transformation from silicon to silicon carbide (SiC) and shaping the future of semiconductor markets: the transition to electric vehicles, the evolution of renewable energy and energy storage, and the advancement of industrial applications. For over 35 years Wolfspeed have focused on designing and supplying the industry's highest-performing silicon carbide materials and devices for high-power applications.
Wolfspeed NI is Wolfspeed’s Global Capability Centre delivering digital capabilities, enterprise shared services and intelligent technical solutions to the Wolfspeed organization. In her role as Site Lead Stacy is responsible for setting the vision and strategy for the Global Capabilities Centre to drive scale and efficiency improvements aligned with business needs. She also plays a global role as part of the Senior IT Leadership team implementing strategic digital transformation initiatives to support Wolfspeed’s technology vision, future growth and global operations. Stacy has experience in a diverse set of roles across several industries. Before joining Wolfspeed to set up and lead the Northern Ireland Operation she was Director, Infrastructure and Security at Vela Trading Technologies for 10 years where she was responsible for infrastructure and security for the company globally.
Fiona Campbell
Fiona Campbell is controller of Youth Audience BBC iPlayer and BBC Three. Having been at the BBC for the past 13 years and previously five years at ITN before that, a journalist by background Fiona spent several years on Panorama and worked extensively in foreign war zones reporting wars.
Around 2013 the BBC made a large investment into mobile news and online news, and Fiona became the controller of online and mobile her first step into working on the product side of things before moving into entertainment where she is now responsible for BBC Three and the home of Drag Race, Glow Up, Normal People and Young Offenders.
Catherine McCourt
Catherine McCourt is the head of engineering at Aflac NI, an American supplemental health care insurance company that established their Technology Centre of Excellence business in Belfast just over 4 years ago.
For the past 2 years Catherine has been responsible for the engineering department for Pega, which is a low code platform employing 35 engineers. Prior to joining Aflac Catherine worked for Citi for 15 years starting off as an application support engineer for a mainframe system, and ultimately becoming responsible for production application support for global custody and direct custody.
Lisa Stevenson
Lisa Stevenson is site lead for APEX FinTech solutions, a global digital assets company establishing the Belfast office four years ago rapidly building to a headcount of 90 people and continues to grow as they expand their engineering and operations departments.
Lisa originally started out working as a software engineer and has worked within several global technology focused businesses including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange across a number of roles developing new products within the FinTech sector.
Lyndsey Shields
Lyndsay Shields is head of data and analytics for Danske Bank in Northern Ireland –Her team is a division of Technology and Digital Development which includes roles ranging from business analysts, software engineers, API and PEGA developers to name a few. Lyndsay’s responsibility cuts across the end-to-end data lifecycle; everything from data engineering right through to analytics and Gen AI. With a long career in Danske Bank, Lyndsay progressed into project and change management and then into senior roles in business transformation and strategic project delivery. Sitting on the Technology Leadership team, Lyndsay now plays a key role in the digital transformation of the Bank. Lyndsay is also an advocate of diversity and Co-Chairs the banks Gender Diversity Committee, and sponsors their Women in Tech initiatives.
Lorna McAdoo
Lorna is a Director with Version 1, a global IT services provider headquartered in Dublin. Lorna joined the organisation 10 years ago to set up, run and build the business in Belfast. The current headcount is around 560 people now and Lorna’s personal aim is to take it to 1,000 before she retires. Lorna is also responsible for the group’s environmental, social and governance strategy delivering a net zero strategy and is heavily involved in diversity, giving back to the community and engaging with schools to create more employability into the tech sector.
Lorna has worked within several well known technology organisations beginning her career with Shorts as a developer before focusing on a successful career as a project manager engaging with customers across account management and delivery management.
Catherine McCourt
Let’s start the conversation and begin with ‘How do you know if you are on the right path’?
For me it’s about fulfilment which comes down to understanding your own interests, passions and purpose. In a previous role we used a Venn diagram style tool, which I recently found out was based on a Japanese philosophy called Ikigai. It asked; ‘What do I like doing?’, ‘What am I good at doing?’, and ‘What use is it to anybody else?’ Whatever falls in all of those three categories is the sweet spot that sums it up for me - if you’re getting something out of it and somebody else is getting something out of you, then surely that’s the right path.
Lorna McAdoo
For me, I’ve never questioned whether I’m on the right path. I’ve always got up in the morning and thought, I love what I do. The sense of fulfilment has always been there. The pay raises and promotions and new challenges that come along have all helped that, but I’ve never questioned the path I’ve been on.
Lyndsey Shields
I’ve been fortunate too that for the majority of my roles, I’ve felt that sense of purpose and ability to create impact which is my north star. It’s important to remind people early in their careers that paths are not linear, there are so many options to reskill, move sideways, try other things – so our “paths” are very unpredictable.
Stacey Mallon
That is a great point. I see lots of placement students and graduates who think they must take a role in software development role when they graduate because that’s what most of the focus is on during their degree course. The reality is very different and when they come to work at Wolfspeed, we are always quick to show them that there are lots of other options open to them, from problem management and change management to infrastructure and security roles.
I think the main thing is to make sure you are happy and you are challenging yourself to learn new things. Something I’ve talked a lot about recently is the importance of understanding your ‘why’. In the first six months of my current role, I found myself completely overwhelmed with everything that was going on. I realised I had to pause to take some time to reflect. I ended up spending an entire weekend thinking about my why trying to understand what my purpose was and why I was doing what I was doing. This understanding gave me a sense of clarity and purpose to know that I was on the right path. It’s important though to acknowledge that your ‘why’ is probably going to change at different stages of your career as you grow and evolve.
Lyndsey Shields
I think in technology and data there are so many options available to people but there is a perception that these roles are coding-centric, when the reality is it’s actually a broad spectrum of roles. Internally, we’ve been showcasing this and the range of skills that are important – technical skill is certainly important in some roles, but there are other valuable skills like problem solving, presentation skills and solution design. We want to attract future talent from other parts of the Bank so it’s important to dispel any myths and make sure people don’t get put off by the ‘techie’ image to ensure a more inclusive appeal.
Catherine McCourt
Some of those roles are really not visible to students. Certainly when I was at university, we weren’t really aware that those IT service delivery and support roles are a real spectrum. It wasn’t until we got started that we saw all the different options available.
Fiona Campbell
I try to encourage the younger people and the apprentices that I sponsor at the BBC to go for lots of jobs. This is because in the process of applying for the jobs and going through the interviews, you get to know what your natural tendencies are, which really helps you to identify your path. Plus it all adds to your experience.
I used to have a rule that I never stayed in a job for more than two years. And it stood me in really good stead, because I worked in a lot of places and gained a lot of different skills very quickly in my 30s and early 40s. Sometimes people can be reluctant to leave a good seat, but early in your career I think you have to push yourself to keep moving.
Lorna McAdoo
I think the trick is to embrace any challenge that comes along. You need to put yourself out of your comfort zone to get experience and develop skills quickly. Our responsibility as leaders is to be able to show young people the opportunities that are out there.
I completely agree with Fiona’s point about going for interviews, and I’ll add that when it comes to interviews, I think we have a tendency to ask the wrong questions. We ask; ‘Am I good enough for that job?’ when actually we should be saying ‘Is this role good for me? Is it something that I’m going to grow and develop in?’
Stacey Mallon
And I think if you were coming to an interview with that attitude, you would come across much better to the person who is conducting the interview. The advice that I always give to anyone that I interview is to interview us as much as we interview you.
Catherine McCourt
I agree that showing genuine curiosity for the company and the role and how things are done is much more appealing to an interviewer than someone who's come with a templated response that they're hoping to give to everybody.
Lyndsey Shields
Yes and in early careers I think academies and apprenticeships are fantastic. We offer a range of different apprenticeships such as our Danske Futures program where you can study for a fully funded degree while working. Other internal academies and what we call ‘squiggly shadowing’ also give people insights into different roles and help build careers and explore the many opportunities on offer.
Lisa Stevenson
I always like to make sure that the young people I’m mentoring are able to receive feedback with a mindset that’s open to changes and opportunities. This is especially relevant in tech, as we are eternal students who must keep on learning, to keep on being curious, and to keep on asking for opportunities to grow. My mentees will come to me and ask how they should approach a conversation about opportunities with their manager, and it’s important that young people feel they have the safe space to do that.
Catherine McCourt
I think people can sometimes fear having that kind of conversation to ask about different opportunities because it might seem like they’re letting you down in some way.
It should be about supporting people with what they want to achieve, because they supported the team and they've done their job well. I suppose it's not like that in every company but anywhere that I've worked with a supportive atmosphere, you want your employees to do well, regardless of whether they're in your team or whether they happen to move to someone else's team as they go around that journey of gaining different skills.
Lyndsey Shields
It's important for leaders in technology to be comfortable with that and encourage it. Because the pace of change is fast in tech, there is continual skills development and people do tend to move a bit more than they do perhaps in other industries. So it’s crucial we encourage this and also look at how we develop pipelines of future talent.
Catherine McCourt
You always want people to have a good experience working with you and then to be an ambassador for the company even though they don’t work there any more.
Stacey Mallon
One of the most rewarding parts of my role is when you see people who leave for a different team or sometimes a different company but for a better opportunity for that individual. It's so nice to see that, there is nothing more rewarding than to see people develop.
Lorna McAdoo
I think as women we need to look at how we can continue to support females when they leave, and encourage them in their new role and in their new job. I've found over the years in the tech sector that the men were always very good at staying friends and continuing the network and the friendships when they left companies. I’d love to see a bit more of that sort of support on the female side in the new tech sector going forward.
Fiona Campbell
Speaking of support, I was once at a women’s round table event where Tessa Jowel came in to speak to us all about her career path. She talked about a challenging period of her life when she was an MP with two small children at a time when the House of Commons was not a child friendly place. One day she was preparing to give a very important speech when she got a call to say her son was really, really sick. And Alistair Darling said to her, I’ll give the speech in your name, go and be with your son. And the lesson there was to build your network of friends and supporters as wide as possible and maintain it because that is what will carry you through your tougher moments.
My own network has allowed me to work across so many types of television because I get to hear what is about to expand, what’s about to be invested in and where the opportunities are. It’s not a transactional thing, it’s about building a genuine group of people who try and help each other.
Catherine McCourt
In my career I’ve built a reputation of being able to fix things that are broken. Some people would shy away from those situations, but I’ve always liked being able to improve a situation. So I feel like I’ve built my network by helping people out and perhaps they may feel inclined to help me in future. You don't do it in a transactional way, it’s just the result of doing a good job and making an impression on people.
I have often felt quite reluctant to move on from a job, because I’ve always felt a strong sense of responsibility to the people that were around me. I worried about how everybody would get on without me, or that I might be letting somebody down. It took going off on maternity leave for me to realise that I had been able to leave a legacy as such that everyone coped without me. And then that break was a perfect segue for me to look for the next project. I think sometimes people worry about taking maternity breaks, in that it might slow you down, but for me it was just a good clean break to go and try something new. It definitely helped me stop being afraid to move on.
Lisa Stevenson
‘Let's talk about resetting if you're on the wrong path’
I did this when I was a software engineer before I realised my strengths lay more in projects, delivery and organisation. I moved from a senior position running a network team to starting in a junior role at the bottom of project management. I had to take a pay cut and take courses to make up for my skills gaps, but having a good network definitely helped accelerate things for me. It all felt right because I knew that was ultimately where my strengths definitely lay.
I found that self-assessment is really important for checking that you’re on the right track. If you’re working in software engineering and you’re doing retrospectives, I would say do a retrospective on yourself. Ask what you’ve learned and what skills you’ve gained. Ask if you’re moving forward in the way you want to.
Lyndsey Shields
Yes I think that self- reflection is really important. Asking yourself – am I stretched in this role or is it comfortable. I never like to get too comfortable. I’d also recommend seeking feedback; for example where do others see your future potential? If you need to reset, don’t wait. I would say go ahead and explore your options. I think it's quicker now than it ever has been before to change your path.
Having some short term goals in mind is a good idea for young people - do they see their career in leadership and technology or in a senior technical kind of role? It’s useful to have a sense of what that might be. If they're not sure, they can try out both and see what they connect with.
Catherine McCourt
I'm interested to hear if others had a plan. Were you shooting for something in particular? I always just wanted to enjoy myself and impress people!
Stacey Mallon
I feel like I had a plan, but where I am now wasn’t part of the original plan! What I have learned throughout my career is that you can have a plan but it's okay if it doesn't work out. You have to have the resilience necessary to adapt and change in case things don’t go the way you planned.
When I first graduated, I went to work for First Derivatives and was thrown in at the deep end in my first week, being sent to London on my own with the name and phone number of a person that I had to meet. It was a very daunting experience for me, but it taught me to put myself out there and be strong. I think sometimes nowadays young people seem like they need a lot of support but sometimes as leaders, you just have to step back and let them figure it out, and even let them fail. It’s all about finding the balance.
Lorna McAdoo
I definitely didn't have a plan. I still don't. And I've never felt like I was on the wrong path. I have reset in the past by moving to another organisation, purely because I wanted a bit of variety or because I didn't feel valued where I was. When you wake up in the morning and feel valued, it’s very hard to leave somewhere behind. However, I've been very lucky because lots of my bosses and managers have seen opportunities coming up and encouraged me to take them, but I’ve never had a plan.
Lyndsey Shields
I think it is really important for us as leaders to create those stretch opportunities and projects that are going to help people to step outside their comfort zone, to tackle difficult things and learn that it's okay to make a mistake.
Catherine McCourt
When you talk about resilience, sometimes I wonder if it’s a fear of failure, or a worry of the consequences that holds people back from trying new things. It's important to create a culture where people know that it’s okay to find things hard, and even to fail. And of course that could end up with somebody inexperienced deleting a database or shutting down a production server - but we try to keep our mistakes to a minimum and work hard to not make the same mistake twice.When you're challenged, that's when you learn, so as leaders we have to allow people to put themselves out there.
Fiona Campbell
I'm an apprenticeship evangelist. A lot of my current team come through the apprenticeship programme, which is incredible. It's very transparent, they get a really broad experience in the organisation, and in my experience, they all get retained.
On the other side of that, I have my leadership team who are in their 30s. Some of them have just recently become parents, and it’s interesting trying to encourage them to push themselves where they want to go. Some of them are hitting that classic wall where they find it really lonely in leadership. So I just try to support them and make them not feel alone. I have to say, yes, it is hard, but you do have to step forward and own what we're trying to do, and just keep going.
Lisa Stevenson
Do you have any advice for anyone who wants to have a career change?
Fiona Campbell
I am a big advocate of having a career coach. I've had a leadership coach for eight years now and I find it’s a great sounding board.
Internally, we have coaches that people can draw on to talk through what they're frightened of, how to position themselves to go for roles, how to have greater ambition, or how to speak up for themselves more. Often I think somebody who's more neutral and is not involved in the politics of the organisation can get your head up and above the daily struggle, and give you a greater resilience to go for things or to hang on in there rather than just feeling throttled by everything that's going on. I think they are a really worthwhile investment of time.
Stacey Mallon
Whenever I first met with a coach, I thought they were just going to tell me what to do, but then I realised that they ask you questions so you can figure out for yourself what you're going to do. Looking at things from a different perspective was the most valuable part for me.
Lisa Stevenson
For me, it was being completely honest and probably a bit vulnerable, to allow myself to say to someone, this is where I’m good, here is where my weaknesses are and asking how to overcome that.
Fiona Campbell
I think it’s worth noting that very often coaches will see somebody for free for the first session.And some people who are training as coaches need people to practise on to get their qualifications, so that would be free too.
Lisa Stevenson
I've had women reach out to me on LinkedIn and ask if I’d mind giving half an hour of my time, and we’ll just do that over coffee. And I've loved doing that. It feels a bit like giving back to the community because there were no female leaders there for me when I was going through the tech departments at the start of my career.
Catherine McCourt
There is something really powerful in the coaching approach. Whether it's from a formal coach that you're paying, or someone else that you know, the questioning really allows you to develop clarity on your own thinking. When you say it out loud it puts a different perspective on it. It’s not something I always enjoy, but you can see the power and the value of it.
Stacey Mallon
That point makes me think about mentors that I have had in my career and how important they have been and still are to me. I have had people ask me, so how do I get a mentor? And I have always found that it’s a hard question to answer because often relationships with mentors come about quite organically. What steps would you say someone has to take to find a mentor?
Catherine McCourt
Well, first there are some formal mentoring programs that you can enrol in.
Lisa Stevenson
We installed one in our company just after I joined and it was great. Because we are part of a larger group you might end up having a mentor in a different industry which is fantastic because you just get this totally different perspective.
Lyndsey Shields
We have a brilliant company wide program too that means everyone in the organisation has access to a mentor if they choose. Structured programs work really well, I also think it’s important to work out what you need from a mentor and where you can find the best match. When I first started my role in technology and data and I felt I needed support from a senior female leader in tech given the unique challenges we face. I reached out externally, organised a coffee which was a bit like a blind date, and formed an informal mentoring relationship that was so impactful at that juncture in my career.
Catherine McCourt
I think about my mentors as most of my old bosses, and most of my peers today. We peer mentor each other often. Whenever I'm dwelling on an issue that's really hard and I can't quite see the way out of it, I just say it out loud to somebody who may or may not have a parallel challenge and they'll offer their perspective.
Lorna McAdoo
The question ‘Who was your biggest mentor?’ always comes up, and I’d always thought that I’d never had one. I had loads of people that I would go to for advice, because they were either more senior or a peer that I had a lot of respect for, but I wouldn’t have called them a mentor as such. I think the closest I ever came to a mentor was when I started out in Version 1 and had to grow the team in Belfast. Between recruitment and branding an organisation that no one has even heard of, I didn’t know where to start.
Then one weekend I was going through LinkedIn and I saw that Patricia O'Hagan had won Woman of the Year in the Women in Business awards. I thought to myself, she started her own organisation, and I messaged her out of the blue asking for a coffee and some advice. She was able to tell me straight away what associations and organisations to hook up with to really get in there and start networking. That was 10 years ago and Patricia has been there for me ever since. So I think that's actually what a mentor is all about.
I would say have a look on LinkedIn, see what's happening in Northern Ireland, look at the people you aspire to be like and message them because the chances are they will meet you for a cup of coffee and give you whatever advice they can.
Stacey Mallon
I agree with the need to keep in touch. Lorna, you mentioned that maybe as females we probably don't tend to keep in touch with others for whatever reason. However, I do believe that a lot opportunities for mentorship come from the relationships that we build and maintain over time so if you're working with someone that you feel you have a good relationship with, keep in touch with them and build that network.
Lyndsey Shields
And just be bold about asking people! What I have found is that they usually are happy to help.
Stacey Mallon
Yes, don't be scared. Most likely the person isn't going to say no. When people have reached out to me I am always more than happy to meet for a coffee and chat and pass on what I’ve learned to someone else. I often find that I also get something out of the chat; we should all be open to learning from each other.
Lisa Stevenson
Do you think there is a formal strategy required to set goals and achieve targets?
Lorna McAdoo
I used to do an annual plan which I used as a way of getting commitment to what I wanted to do. It wasn't about hard rules, it was my way of positioning exactly what we wanted to achieve that next year, and it did work. I did that for about three or four years until I was eventually allowed to go off and do my own thing, but having that formal strategy did help.
Lisa Stevenson
I like a checklist to be ticked off. One of the things that I ask my team is what new skills they are going to learn this year and what they want to gain deeper satisfaction in. Then I realised that I hadn’t learned any new skills this year myself. I felt really bad that I have spent so much time nurturing others that I didn’t take the time to invest in myself, so that's definitely at the top of my list for this year.
I think it's good to have a vision. The strategy could be something like a vision board or a checklist or something, just to keep me on track and maintain focus throughout the year.
Catherine McCourt
Something like that would certainly help you to hone your decision making as you go through the year. Whether or not you go back and double check that you hit every bullet or not, at least you started out with some direction in mind. I think it always helps when you know roughly what you’re shooting for.
Lorna McAdoo
As leaders, we have to convince everybody else in the team that we know what we're doing and the direction that we want to take the team. Having a strategy is a great way of being able to communicate that really clearly.
Catherine McCourt
When we talked all about purpose and your ‘why’ - if your teams don't know the purpose, then it's hard for them to have motivation and commitment.
Fiona Campbell
We have a process called My Conversation, which is a twice yearly career development meeting. It formalises the opportunity for every line manager to listen to employees’ needs with regard to their career development and the opportunities they might be looking for. I think it's working really well, because a lot of people weren't getting that time to talk about their own role, and now you can see those conversations happening. I think this culture change really helps to retain people.
For me, post COVID it was all about trying to stabilise the team, to reshape the budgets, the headcount and the workflows. Now that we're nearly there, I think it’s time as a leader to start thinking about what I want to do. Previously I've just been busy trying to get the new leadership in place and do a bit of pipeline planning, but now it's time to think about myself as well.
Stacey Mallon
As leaders, if we’re not having these conversations with people in our company, then they don't have an opportunity to understand that there might be another role in another team that actually might be a better fit for them.
As a person, I am process-oriented so I like to have more of a formal strategy with goals in place. I believe in objectives because I think they allow the person to understand what the company expects of them and how they can be successful. Having a structure for goals and objectives helps inform end-of-year performance reviews and helps everyone to understand what they are doing well and where they should focus improvement efforts. You can be flexible with the process, however actually having a process and structure for this helps set expectations.
Lyndsey Shields
Our way of managing development and performance goals is called My Journey. Performance and behavioural goals are set for the team at the start of the year and it’s distilled down the team. During the year we have regular reviews of the plan, career conversations, reviews of development plans, frequent check ins and one to one conversations. This ensures continuous improvement and focus – without it, the day to day could take over and performance and development wouldn’t get the focus it needs.
Catherine McCourt
I think that anyone who doesn’t have this should absolutely ask for it. I don't know how you would know if you're being successful if you don't have some kind of structure in place to assess it and get regular feedback.
Lorna McAdoo
If you don't have that kind of structure, then you have no way of assessing or talking to people about your next move. Or all those questions we need to ask regularly, like ‘How well am I doing?’, ‘What am I good at?’, ‘What do I need to improve on?’. We have these conversations in Version 1 on a quarterly basis and I think that if anyone were to stop having these conversations, that’s when they might start thinking that no one is interested, that no one is listening or that nobody cares about them or their career. And that's when the question of leaving might creep in. I think we have to be constantly listening to our staff and our people.
Lorna McAdoo
Previously I think that the attitude was very much ‘You are being paid to do a job’, but now it's very much, ‘What kind of environment can we give you to be the best you can possibly be’.
You only need to go on to LinkedIn to see how differently companies talk about what they offer nowadays. It’s much less about what they are doing as a company and much more about what their employees are doing, the social events, the sense of community and giving something back. It's a softer approach and I do think we are definitely moving towards a working life that is very different to what we had, particularly as parents bringing up kids.
Lyndsey Shields
That change needed to happen. My mum put her career on hold to raise four daughters. Today’s generation grapples with the challenge of maintaining a career while raising a family - complicated by expensive childcare and increased reliance on grandparents, who are still working themselves. As a parent of a four year old and my partner and I working full time – it’s absolutely non-stop with both of us choosing to work full time. There’s a constant feeling of guilt - guilty that I need to leave work at 4 o’clock, but I don’t want her to be the last child sitting in childcare and feeling awful those days I’m running late to collect her. It’s crucial for companies to recognise that if working parents are to succeed, then there needs to be real flexibility. The flexibility I have in my role is truly what fuels my work life balance and makes the juggle possible!
Lorna McAdoo
I have total empathy for any young working mum. My kids are in their 20s now, but they always knew they were always going to be the last kid to be lifted in the evening! I realised that's not actually how I want to be remembered as a parent. But what they took away from it was that I was hard working, and I can see they have a similar work ethos now themselves. So in a way, it was inspirational for them, but at the same time you don't want to be that last parent coming to lift your child.
Catherine McCourt
I think having a really frank conversation at home about the splitting of duties is really important. Sometimes there's an unspoken allocation of household duties without intention, but that is something that really needs a conversation. It becomes pretty easy to navigate once you say, we're in this together; your job’s hard and my job is hard and we support each other.
Lyndsey Shields
This is so important - it is hard work bringing up a young child, and that work needs divided equally, especially for parents choosing to work full time.
Catherine McCourt
I think that the things that you can plan for are fine but it's the things that you can't plan for where you need other people to be able to help you.
Lorna McAdoo
I think we have to be very careful not to set the impression that you have to have this perfect balance in your life to be able to have your career and your family. For example, you can take your career breaks. We've had really successful women coming back into Version 1 after up to 20 year career breaks, and because of their sheer passion they are able to have their moment and it’s their time to really shine. It's a personal choice. You can go about your career in whatever way suits you as an individual.
Catherine McCourt
As we said before, there is no right or wrong, you make your own path.
Lorna McAdoo
I think it's also really important that women know that if you have taken time out to bring up your family or to care for your parents, then you can still have your career when you're ready for it, it'll still be there for you. This helps get women back into the workplace, and then we can then benefit from all the amazing skills they have developed during their time working in this different way.
Fiona Campbell
I would also like to emphasise the importance of stepping out from whatever situation you’re in and taking the opportunity to attend meetups like Women in Tech, or Women in Film and TV, to hear the conversations, to find support and to ground yourself in the bigger story. It does take time, but it pays off. Even if you go to just one of these things a month, it builds up over many years. But you really need to go there or you might find yourself a bit directionless, not knowing what is going on or what opportunities there may be out there for you.
Lorna McAdoo
There are so many support networks out there, whether you're in full time employment or not. Don’t let anything stop you from going along and listening to everybody else's experiences. You’ll find very quickly that you're not on your own.
Lisa Stevenson
It's just taking the time out, like an hour or so to go.
Stacey Mallon
And it could be that you're not very comfortable in those situations, but push yourself to go.
Fiona Campbell
There is an organisation called Speakers for Schools where they send people into schools to open the next generation’s minds about the many different types of jobs that are available in tech. When I was at school, nobody talked about the kind of job I've ended up in, so it’s great to be able to tell young people ‘I came from school like you, you can do this’. This is really important, because before long those 12-year-olds will be 20-year-olds.
Lyndsey Shields
Absolutely, talking to children about roles in technology is vital for shaping future tech talent. We're proud to be a founding partner of the SistersIN initiative. If you're not already involved, it's something I’d definitely put on your radar. The program pairs you with a 16 or 17-year-old mentee and gives them a first-hand look into your role. It’s an incredibly meaningful way to demonstrate to young women what it looks like to be a senior female leader in technology and share the invaluable skills we gain along the way.
Lorna McAdoo
We are involved with Speakers for Schools and SistersIN as well. When we started Version 1 in Belfast, we set up an engagement group for the new graduates who had joined the company, and asked them to volunteer to go out to schools and talk to pupils. It was a fantastic form of personal development for them because not only did they feel like they were adding value to the company, but they were giving back to schools and learning a lot of amazing soft skills like how to talk to young people, how to do presentations and how to start developing that mentoring-type skill set.
Once, we had a guy who sat behind his laptop and never talked to anybody. He loved coding and did that day in, day out. He was asked to go out to one of the schools to do a presentation and he reluctantly agreed. He pulled a presentation together, went to the school and stood up to talk to those 200 kids and he was a totally different person after that. You could see how he suddenly just realised, I can do anything now. So we always encourage young people to get involved in this sort of thing because it really builds confidence and ability.
Lyndsey Shields
I see this too when developers take the stage and showcase their work – it has such impact.
Lorna McAdoo
They suddenly become a consultant. But they keep their authentic side, because they're talking about themselves. You just see a total difference in them.
Catherine McCourt
There’s something very special about being able to show you understand your subject matter so deeply that you can translate it in a way that’s suitable for a different age group to understand. There’s something really nice about that, as well as showing adaptability in the way that you communicate.
At Aflac we have a culture of continuous learning. It’s a fundamental part of our identity as a company and its so important for all our staff. It keeps them current and sharp but it also brings increased motivation and job satisfaction. We really invest in the personal development of our staff and incentivize everyone to learn a new skill each year. My advice to anyone starting out in their career would be to really embrace learning and personal development as a fundamental part of your role, set personal targets and take on stretch opportunities. Don’t forget that learning comes in many forms too and try to identify activities under each of the 3 Es: Education, Exposure and Experience.
Lisa Stevenson
Do we have any other networking tips?
I always advise any team member going to one of these groups or events for the first time to really think about how they are going to introduce themselves. We encourage them to think about how they want to come across, what they want to say and how they want to be remembered. As leaders we do it all the time - we are always thinking about how we are putting ourselves, our company and our brand across well. But young people need to spend a little bit of time thinking about this and even practising what they are going to say. They have to learn their elevator pitch.
Stacey Mallon
That is a great idea! In Northern Ireland in particular, we are quite humble and we tend to talk ourselves down a little, so I think it is a fantastic idea to take time to think about how we can pitch ourselves.
This article appears in the skills, education and tech careers edition of Sync NI magazine. To receive a free copy click here.
