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SheCanCode's Spilling The T
SheCanCode's Spilling The T
From the lab to the boardroom: A chemist’s path to leadership
In this inspiring episode, we sit down with Josie Harries, Group Programme Director at Domino Printing, who shares her remarkable journey from working in the lab as a chemist to navigating her way into the boardroom. Josie opens up about the challenges and triumphs she faced while transitioning from technical roles to leadership positions, offering invaluable advice for women looking to climb the career ladder in STEM industries.
Whether you're an aspiring leader or just starting out, this episode is packed with insights on breaking barriers, developing leadership skills, and charting your own path to success. Tune in to learn how passion, resilience, and continuous learning can take you from the lab to the executive suite!
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Hello everyone, thank you for tuning in again. I am Katie Bateman, the Managing Director Community and Partnerships at she Can Code, and today we are discussing, from the Lab to the Boardroom, a Chemist's Path to Leadership. I've got the wonderful Josie Harris at Domino Printing with me today and she's here to share her challenges and triumphs that she's faced whilst transitioning from technical roles to leadership positions, offering invaluable advice for women looking to climb the career ladder. Welcome, josie. Thank you so much for coming on here and having a chat with us.
Speaker 2:Hi, thank you for having me Looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:It's a pleasure to have you on. Thank you for taking time out of your day to chat with us about your career. I'd love to start off with a little bit of background about you, if that's OK, ria, I'd love to start off with a little bit of background about you, if that's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no problem. So I'm in a current role at Domino Printing Science as a Global Programme Director. So my current role I'm responsible for looking after our portfolio of projects. I look after our project managers, our programme managers and how we do our processes as well. I started off my career as a chemist at Domino, so I did a PhD in chemistry. Wanted to go into industry, so I started off applying for jobs. Ended up at Domino mostly because I really wanted to move to Cambridge. It seems such a beautiful city and nice place to live.
Speaker 2:That's a good excuse to get there, yeah, and then have just progressed through my career through Domino, starting off in the lab, becoming more into management and then going into leadership. So I started off doing R&D bench chemistry, then started leading a team and then started exploring other areas, so did some automated chemistry and then moved into program management and program directorship and then moved into programme management and programme directorship.
Speaker 1:Amazing, and what inspired you to want to have a career in STEM? What was it about that? To take that path? Was there someone from your past, your family school, who inspired you to think STEM is?
Speaker 2:for me, yeah. So I've always been quite curious and quite enjoyed experimenting with stuff and always liked understanding how things worked. I always feel really bad, especially doing kind of a women in STEM discussion but saying like I really loved cosmetics and I really loved cooking and I really liked the science behind those things and so decided that I wanted to study science, particularly chemistry, so that I could perhaps go into a career in one of those topics. Going forward, my chemistry teacher at the time encouraged me to do chemistry and take it further at university. So she made me aware of an opportunity to get a bursary with a local company who did ink and they sponsor students from the area who went to do chemistry at university. And that kind of started my journey in chemistry and in industrial chemistry and I guess sealed the deal for me getting into inks, which is where I started at Domino.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Yeah, it is always someone. There's always somebody that says, oh, I had a family member or a teacher or somebody that inspired them, because it's. It's worrying as well that so many people go through school and they don't have access to somebody like that where they think actually that would be a really good career path.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I was really lucky in having someone who I'm not entirely sure. I always remember having a one of the teacher conferences and her telling my parents I probably wasn't going to do very well in chemistry at A-level and I think she did it just to spur me on to prove her wrong because I think she thought I was probably taking a bit of a lazy path at the time and I definitely me being me and liking to prove people wrong when they say you can't do stuff definitely kind of spurred me on and then she was a real supporter of me after that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing, especially especially, yeah, somebody that can inspire you and encourage you in that area. I there are many people that that can say they they had that at school either.
Speaker 2:I remember, um, going through the the whole careers process at school and then just saying, because you're left-handed, you might want to be a florist really useful, that is not useful although I think I don't know if you did the same thing where they do um, they do some profiling on you and it tells you what career you should go and it had like the thickness of the line was how much you should do it, and my line into research was actually quite thin, so it was definitely not suggesting a career in research, but definitely, uh, didn't, didn't listen to that yeah, when your own way, I don't blame you um, and so you then decided to um move into um management.
Speaker 1:So, um, how did you adapt those technical skills from your chemistry background to a managerial demands of the boardroom? That's quite a change and quite a decision to take as well to reach that point to think I'm going to move into management and managing people who are very unpredictable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's interesting because, looking back, I'm not sure I ever made that decision. I think it was something that kind of happened as I kind of progressed and spent more time doing things. It was just more of a natural transition. So I never remember thinking I want to be a management, but I really liked leading and I really liked kind of providing direction and giving kind of the vision of where we wanted to get to, which I think is probably how I ended up in a bit more of a leadership position and when I first started I was, in the lab, very much an individual contributor.
Speaker 2:It was me deciding what experiments I was going to do, executing on them and then doing the analysis, the results, and then, as I kind of started going through and starting to manage teams of people, you start then learning some of the skills of how to communicate with others, so how to share that. This is what I want to do and where I would like to get to. How do you think we can do that together? And starting them kind of trying to do their experiments in their way to solve the problems that you collectively want to kind of get into. I really like the idea of being able to convert ideas into product. I think that's why I've always really enjoyed industry. And then having a team of people means you can convert more ideas into more products. So it kind of feels that you're achieving more and really achieving through others.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes such a difference as well to feel that, especially even throughout your year, that you actually achieve something, that you work together as a team and you actually saw it come through to product and and then customers using that and seeing, um, you know everything that you've, you've done for the year and how that benefits customers, makes such a difference mentally to people when they're wanting to stay in a job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, and I think the biggest change I kind of noticed was really kind of how do you deliver results through other people and how do you develop networks to then influence and get other people to kind of come along on a journey with you and be much more accountable for the decisions that are being made. So designing an experiment and it going wrong is one thing, but saying actually this is our strategy and how we're going to do a three-year piece of work and then getting that wrong, you have to own that and have to take that accountability.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that's quite a minefield, isn't it? When? When things do go wrong, that's quite a minefield, isn't it? When things do go wrong, it's quite a culture that you have to build to say it's OK when things go wrong and you don't have to throw each other under the bus, it's fine. And how are we going to get out of this?
Speaker 2:rather than people feeling like, well, that went wrong, somebody claims another person and then that person wants to leave and yeah, yeah, and I think that's where coming from a scientific background can really help with things, because I think you're just taught from a really kind of early stage in your career that you can experiment and you can get it wrong, and getting it wrong is part of the learning journey. So to grow and change and do things differently, you have to experiment and adapt so you quickly learn that what you initially think is going to happen probably isn't where you actually end up, but it's a piece of the path on the journey to get to the answer.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that. Yes, it is ingrained in you to experiment. So you're right, things go wrong and you try them again. We do that a lot at she Can Code. Last year year, we launched our community platform and we found that was the year of testing, and it was testing what works and what doesn't work, and it was having to break that down to make sure that every week we could test and see what's working and what isn't. And it was quite a shift in mindset as well as a team, to make sure that when things don't work, it's fine, we'll change it, we'll keep moving. But it brought us closer as a team because we could learn from mistakes. Um, but that culture is not something that just magically appears.
Speaker 2:It took us a good year to get into that yeah, definitely, I've got um one of my team, uh, team members, lucy Hewitt. She's got a really nice saying of like just test and learn, test and learn um. So it's kind of become kind of ingrained in, um, in kind of our psyche, uh, in the team yeah, yeah, I love that, uh, that saying that's, that's brilliant, um.
Speaker 1:So, on that note then, what skills have you developed as you progressed in your career and um? Are there any resources or experiences that you found particularly valuable?
Speaker 2:yeah. So I think, um, the royal society of chemistry has got a really interesting article on why you should study chemistry and how it's really transferable to other things. So problem solving, data skills, uh, influence, all of those kind of things it says. It teaches you, um, to have as a subject, um, and I've definitely, as I've progressed through my career, kind of really embraced those, really embraced that experimentation, trying new things, learning new things, being curious and really using data to solve problems as well, I think and then being able to stitch those into kind of bigger and bigger kind of views has been really really nice. And so it's really interesting stuff that you learn when you're quite young, how you just take it through your career and really sort of help move things forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that you mentioned curious and data in the same sentence, because a lot of ladies who haven't moved into tech yet think that data is incredibly dry and boring, and we speak to lots of data scientists on here to try and bust that myth as well yeah it's not a boring I work in data that what you can do with data and how curious you can remain when working with data, um actually is something that really um can enhance your, your career, and so I'm pleased that you said the same thing then using data and remaining curious?
Speaker 1:um, so is that? Is that something that you hear a lot as well? When you say data, people think, oh, that's going to be. You know, your job must be quite dry and quite, um, you know, kind of you probably, um, don't have a lot of variety in your role, but you might.
Speaker 2:You must do with your, with your role yeah, I think it's having that data to actually help you make the decisions, and so you never have you can interpret the same data in different ways, um, and kind of build different arguments, and that's really exciting. Um, and I think the the dry bit I think always comes when you start talking about data quality and data integrity, um, and which is so important, um into things, and that's the bit you have to really convince people, isn't the boring part, because if you and that's the bit you have to really convince people isn't the boring part, because if you get that good data, you can get some really glitzy visualizations to kind of put forward quite a compelling story, and I think when you start seeing that, you start seeing where the power of it comes through.
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely You're right, and we do try and, as I said, bust that myth on here that a lot of the ladies that we speak to say they love working in data and that it is a really good part of their career.
Speaker 2:In terms of experiences that changed me, I think doing my PhD was probably the pivotal moment for me where I really noticed a difference in myself and how I approach things. Obviously, I did a PhD in chemistry, so it taught me an in-depth knowledge of chemistry and applying that to some problems, but it also taught me to be an independent researcher and to be brave and to kind of trust my own ideas and work hard to get the results as well. So going into my PhD and coming out of it, I felt I was a really different person and I've talked to other people who've done PhDs and they don't quite have that same experience and it always makes me feel a bit sad because that was such a life-changing moment for me where you kind of come out being a lot more confident in yourself and your own abilities, knowing that you can be an expert and you can present at conferences and people are interested and want to hear what you're saying about stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that being brave, yeah, and that's not something as well that you're. You probably would pick up from work, but it would take you a very long time and you would have to work through different career stages before you gain that level of experience. So it kind of fast tracked you to. Yeah, definitely, yeah, I love that um, you mentioned, uh a teacher, obviously, who inspired you, um, but did you have any uh mentors or role models along the way who influenced your journey?
Speaker 2:yeah, I was. I always find this a really difficult question, um, in kind of role models and mentors, because I feel like it's such a big kind of accolade to give uh, to give people. But there are definitely people who've kind of really heavily influenced me on my my journey, um. So I think the first and it's probably quite cliched was kind of my mum um with uh with things. So I probably didn't realize until it was a bit too late that she created this environment for me where, um, I could explore different things, um, and could get that pick something up, have a go didn't work, never mind, let's try something else. And she really valued academic pursuits with things. So she pushed me quite hard when I was in school and kind of made me value learning. Probably wasn't that appreciative when I was 15, but yeah, she kind of really instilled some of the principles that I've got in me today, which is work hard, be tenacious, but also try new things and try and grow and expand things. She also kind of created an environment where I never felt that being female was ever like a problem or an issue or something like that. So it was just you would be successful because you worked hard and you did well and I've definitely taken that through my life.
Speaker 2:And then I think, doing my PhD, my supervisor, ben Coe, and a postdoc, naomi Karate, really shaped who I became during my PhD.
Speaker 2:So they're both kind of role models of working hard and, whilst having fun, how to put together and articulate your ideas to solve the big questions you're exploring. And then also giving support when I needed it to kind of help me learn and grow and challenge me to broaden my experience and my understanding. And then also giving support when I needed it to kind of help me learn and grow and challenge me to broaden my experience and my understanding. And then I think finally we've got our current CTO at Domino. Andrew Clifton has really been pivotal and integral to my career at Domino and my success in industry. So he started just before me at the company and he's always supported and championed me in kind of my career pursuits and what I'm doing and created an environment for me quite early on where I could really explore and develop my skills, both in the lab and with people management and leadership as well. So I was really lucky to have him as a supporter within within the company.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, and you, you're so right when you mention there, like I never know what to say when, when people ask about role models because you're right, you take different, different things from different times in your lives and people always think they have to say you know some big female CEO of some company and say, oh, you know, she was so inspiring, or she gives inspirational talks and a lot of the time I don't know if you know she was so inspiring, or she gives inspirational talks and a lot of the time. I don't know if you've felt this, but I've been at Women in Tech events and conferences and I thought, as amazing as that lady is, you can't relate to what she's saying. So actually she doesn't become somebody that I can relate to. That's a good role model that has moved me through my career journey because she's so far removed from what I want to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, you just can't relate to that. So you're right, it does tend to come down to those that are closest to you family members, um people along the way and if you're lucky enough, like yourself, to have somebody, um very senior at your company that you can actually relate to and think that's a really good role model. Um, then they tend to be the people and actually they're the people that you think years later. I didn't realize you were a good role model for me and I hadn't noticed actually that I was. I've now, you know, 15 years later, thinking actually I'm trying to bring that into my leadership style from something that somebody did many moons ago in your job and you you don't realize at the time what you take forward, um, with you yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:Now I always, I completely agree around that having this kind of, um almost mythical person, that kind of exists, um and they're never presenting.
Speaker 2:I think all the people that I've talked about are people that I've kind of seen and then they're never presenting. I think all the people that I've talked about are people that I've kind of seen do something, so you see them doing it and it becomes real and it's not a polished version of what they've done. When you give a talk on stuff, it's always this very oh, it was this easy kind of pathway for me, or I'm going to tell you this this story of how I got to where I got it doesn't really go through the trials and tribulations of when you're having all that self-doubt and things like that, whereas I saw that in lots of the people that I've mentioned and then saw how they overcame it and then took that forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah and kept going. Yes, you're right, the polished version of somebody that can stand up and talk about their journey and we see a lot of that polished version all the time on social media as well and it is not a true reflection of how actually people are moving through their careers and the challenges and the ups and downs. And it is so much better when people do share the challenges and not just seeing them obviously day to day in your role. But that is far more inspiring for other people who are thinking about moving into leadership roles, for example, um, and that you have those moments of self-doubt like what am I doing? Is everybody else feeling this this way?
Speaker 2:yeah, definitely, and I think there's a lot of talk about being kind of your authentic self um with things, and I always have funny conversations with people at work where I'll talk about how nervous I was or how uncomfortable I was doing something, and they're always amazed because they'll say, oh, you never came across like that. I was like, yeah, because you've psyched yourself up so much to be this version of yourself that that's presenting and being the polished version that they haven't heard that in a, in a monologue, that you've had to keep quiet.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly. And how many times you've practised to get to that polished version? Yes, on that note. Then, how did you build the confidence to take on leadership roles, especially in male-dominated environments? You mentioned that your PhD really helped with some of that confidence and kind of fast-tracked that. But how did you build on that confidence to take on leadership roles?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I've been really lucky that I've been provided quite a safe space to explore my leadership style and my leadership methods and have really been supported by people as I've taken on new roles.
Speaker 2:So any new challenge that's come its way has felt quite exciting rather than daunting, which I think has been really important, knowing that if you do make a mistake you're not going to be kind of held to account for the mistake, if you kind of learn and grow from it.
Speaker 2:I think I've always felt that I've been quite fortunate that I haven't felt I've been working in particularly male-dominated environments. I obviously have, but I've never really noticed it, if that that makes sense, um, because, um, I kind of feel that I've always been respected, um for what I'm bringing to the discussions, um, and felt that um kind of the expertise that I'm bringing and the knowledge that I had and the style that I take is really valued by people. Um, so I've never kind of really noticed that um kind of difference in a male dominated environment, um, but I would say I've also had some really good allies along the way that I've been able to turn to for advice, support and help if situations are challenging, and so, as well as helping me when I've had any issues, they're also there really to advocate for me as a female leader, but also for women in general within the organisation, which is always great to see for women in general within the organisation, which is always great to see.
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely, I agree with that. Having some great allies and some great sponsors along the way, who can they say the right things about you when you're not in the room, can really help with your career. And I think sometimes that's being at the right company with the right company culture and you don't always get that at every company that's just being at the right company with the right company culture, and you don't always get that at. You know every company that's out there and you do find that good people move on if they don't find there is that sponsorship there, for example. Yeah, definitely In the bigger companies. Um, what about your leadership style? How would you describe your leadership style and has it evolved over time? I'm assuming by this conversation it has evolved over time, but how would you describe it now and how it evolved?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean I'd like to think and I'd like to think that people would say, uh about my style that it's one that fosters a safe but challenging environment, um, that encourages people within the team to grow, innovate and also be really open about how they're feeling and how they're doing and any challenges that they might have with things.
Speaker 2:I really like to think that I create an environment that really empowers people in the team to kind of really embrace their unique strengths and their styles and not everyone's the same, and so you can't have this one one approach kind of uh fit and so try and understand who they are as people and then try and coach them and guide them towards the collective goal but also help them with their individual goals, um, as well.
Speaker 2:So how can they really lean into what they're uniquely good at and how can they leverage that to be successful themselves?
Speaker 2:I think the one thing that I always think kind of characterizes how I approach stuff is I really love ambiguity and I really love an opportunity to learn, and so I see leadership as an opportunity to be creative and adaptable and then learn how to do different things within businesses, and then I try and do that as much as I can and try and do things in a different and creative way to solve what could be seen as quite mundane problems within an organization. I think the change over time that I've seen is probably one where I've grown my focus on people a bit more. So when I first started it was all about results, data delivery, all of those things, whereas now it's much more about trying to get other people to deliver against their plans. So I've really tried to work with people to kind of help get that people focus and then really try to role model the behaviours that I'd like to see in the team and things that I value within people.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that and, yeah, allowing people to be unique and and always do their own thing, obviously within the, within the, what you need them to do, within your team, basically.
Speaker 1:But if you're building a diverse team, sometimes you you need people to have a certain amount of flexibility and to bring their own skills and to really flourish um within your team.
Speaker 1:Um, I love the fact that you shifted gears as well and made sure that people could focus on their plans. Um, we have a corporate ambassador who told me that they set goals for um, personal goals for what their employees would like to achieve, and then they pay out bonuses on whether or not they meet their own goals, not the company goals, and that just kind of shifted the mindset to are you achieving what you would like to achieve, not just what we would like to achieve as a business, to make sure that they retain their people and so to have a leader that is mindful of? Have you actually achieved what you would like to achieve this year rather than did? We as a team must really make a difference on retention and just making sure that people are happy, I suppose, in their everyday job. Yeah, definitely. What about? You mentioned innovation a little bit there, making sure that your team remains innovative, but as a leader, what steps do you take to foster innovation and inclusivity within your own team?
Speaker 2:So I think, having that environment where people feel that they can challenge people respectfully, so you can have a disagreement and you can not agree with someone else's point of view, but you do it in a really respectful way, so you're not kind of criticizing the person, you're criticizing the problem that's being discussed and really try and encourage people to see each other's perspectives and opinions and value those and understand why someone might have a completely different point of view to you. And actually, do you need to perhaps shift your mindset? Because you hadn't considered that as a potential thing and I think that kind of really leans into that part on having diversity and a diverse set of experiences and viewpoints. And I think if you don't have that, it's really difficult to expand your own personal perspective. And if you can't expand your own personal perspective, it's really difficult to be innovative, because you're always just doing the same thing and so you're not kind of changing how you're, I guess, innovating your mindset, so to speak.
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely, and you're right. Yeah, being respectful sometimes when you need to challenge someone or if someone, if you're having challenging times and being able to communicate that to your team can be so hard for some team members to do. So, yeah, it's, and you're right that that isn't fostered overnight either. That's something that you would work out on day to day and as and when challenges arrive. But, again, good companies can keep good staff because that is ingrained in their culture. Um, but uh, I agree sometimes that that can be incredibly difficult in in a team. Um, what about advice for women? Are um thinking about moving from technical roles? Um, who aspire to move into leadership positions? Do you have any advice for those ladies? You yourself moved from a technical role into a leadership position. Is there anything that you wish somebody had told you before you went?
Speaker 2:so I think the the main bit of advice I'd give would be step into opportunities that are available to you. So if you see something, say yes and don't worry about if it feels a bit daunting. Just go for it, because you'll probably regret the things you haven't done more than you regret the things that you have done. Most of the time, things will go well and you'll come out of it in a very positive position, and if not, it's a learning experience so you can change and grow and do things differently in the future.
Speaker 2:The thing that I really wish two things I really wish people had told me one, which is promote yourself more. So I think I fall into the trap, like many women, that I expect. If you work hard and you deliver stuff, people will notice it. I think I've come to the realization that that's not always true. I think people value it, but they don't necessarily reward you for it. So you really need to talk about what you're doing, what you like doing and the strengths that you bring to some of the things that you might want to do. And then the second point would be create a strong network around yourself and make sure that you've got people who are advocating for you and supporting you, and you said it earlier, you need to be on people's lips, like your name is on their lips when opportunities are arising, and so you need to make sure that you've got the support within an organisation or outside of an organisation to be being put forward and having people supporting you and doing that.
Speaker 1:Yes, I completely agree. Women in general do not advocate for themselves, and having people that are around and a good network that will help you with that when you need because you are right, there is a fine balance between promoting yourself, expecting people to just notice that you've been working away for several years and you don't get that promotion and you didn't even put yourself forward for that promotion. And I think somebody told me a few years ago that's something that stayed with me your manager isn't a mind reader and you do just work away and work away and think that people are just going to say, oh yes, we should definitely put that person forward for a promotion. How did they even know that you wanted to move into that role or that you were even interested in stepping up? So, yes, you are absolutely right and I think as well, remembering to do that for other people is so important as well. When you do find yourself in a position where you can advocate for other ladies along the way as well, can make such a difference to somebody and speaking up for them if they're not in the room, definitely.
Speaker 1:What about being a woman in tech? What changes do you hope to see for women in STEM leadership over the next five to 10 years. Leadership over the next five to ten years. I mean you did mention you've never really seen yourself as a woman in tech because you've been very lucky um where you have worked. But do you hope for any advancements in in the the women in STEM um industry over the next five to ten?
Speaker 2:years, definitely.
Speaker 2:So I really um, one thing I really really hope will change is that recognition and acknowledgement of diverse leadership styles to start off with, and then the value that female leadership and women's leadership can bring to things.
Speaker 2:So, if you're being kind of stereotypical about things, women are much better at things like collaboration and innovation and creating a people-focused environment.
Speaker 2:That's got to be a benefit for organizations, but that's not the only way of doing it.
Speaker 2:It needs to be kind of complemented with other ways, um as well.
Speaker 2:So really getting that diversity uh in and do, of course, hope there'll be broader representation of, um kind of women in stem leadership positions, um, and I'd also like to hope that the people that make it into those positions are then also making sure that the door's kept open behind them and doing that, advocating for people and facilitating an environment where there's continued female success within STEM leadership, because you don't want to kind of get there and then just shut the door behind you.
Speaker 2:You really want to kind of promote and create that environment that others could be successful to. Then, in 10 years time, I really hope that it's normal and not the exception, where you've got more gender balanced leadership in place and the narrative that we're having around. Diversity is different and continues to evolve in a positive trajectory. I do think that the conversations changed in tone over the past years. I remember starting my career and it felt that like being female was a disadvantage. Now it feels like it's being talked about as it's a real advantage for things and it's such a healthy change in kind of narrative and conversation on why women should be successful.
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely I agree with you on how that narrative has slowly changed. It's changed at a glacial pace, but it has changed very slowly. And I definitely agree on the recognition side of things. Chikanco, we launched an awards last year and the reason why we launched that was to ensure that we had a list of ladies that people haven't really heard of as well, because there are some brilliant lists out there with very senior women on and that's absolutely great.
Speaker 1:But a lot of those ladies we've all heard of they're on a lot of the lists and we've already seen them before, and we wanted to shine a light especially on a lot of our community members that we know are doing amazing things but they don't advocate for themselves, they haven't self-nominated.
Speaker 1:We ask people to nominate um for them and just to make sure that the industry knows that those ladies are out there and doing great things. And when people say, where are all the women in tech, you can say, well, here's a list of ladies that you might not have heard of before, but you know they've already, they're already in tech, they're in their first or second jobs and they're doing amazing things. Um, so you are, you're absolutely right there and I I agree, I hope more ladies receive the recognition that they um deserve in the next five to ten years. Definitely, um, josey, we were already out of time. I can keep talking to you um for uh, another half hour, or actually four hours, on this topic, um, but thank you so much for taking the time um to come and have a chat with us today.
Speaker 2:It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you lovely, I know it's been great to talk about some of these things and also a really nice opportunity to kind of reflect on my journey as well, which quite often you don't make time in your day to do, um which it's been a really nice experience yes, you are so right on that.
Speaker 1:On that, we don't, even at the end of the year, you don't sit down and think what did I actually do, what have I even done since I started in the world of work, and we don't have that opportunity sometimes to sit down and think what have I done and what would I like to do moving forward which actually is great advice for anybody listening, especially coming into the new year, um, to sometimes take a step back and just reflect on how far you've actually come, um and your journey into leadership, uh and and uh moving forward from there. So we'd love to have you back at some point to hear more about your journey and and where you go next would be lovely lovely happy to thank you for everybody listening, as always.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining us and we hope to see you again next time.
