entrepreneurs 17
Pictures by Angus Thomas
You are also a passionate advocate for green technology and getting girls into technology – is promoting these issues as important to you as your business?
My first love is my business, although it’s not actually about the money, it’s about having a bigger train set to play with and giving life to ideas, but my two great passions are technology and the environment. Humanity is a bit of a blight on the planet and anything we can do to reverse that and minimise our impact is worthy, and technology holds the answer I think to most of it. Getting girls into IT comes back to having a healthy IT industry. Research shows that gender-balanced teams are more effective, so on a purely practical level, to feed that engine of growth, we need more women in technology. Also, on a more personal level, it can get a bit lonely at the top. When I’m at Intellect UK board meetings and there are 20 guys and
four women, which is not unrepresentative of the industry, it’s a little demoralising. Also, I see a number of really good girls who do come into the industry and are put off by how many guys there are and end up leaving, and we really need them.
As a woman in this male-dominated industry, has your gender been a barrier or an advantage?
It was a lot worse when I was very blonde. I’m very aware it’s harder on some of my younger female colleagues, they haven’t got the thick skin I’ve developed. Some of the guys are just plain sexist, it is quite appalling. I would hazard, however, that in my case, overall, because there are so few women in senior IT positions, it has been an advantage. It has helped me gain visibility for myself and for the company. I would say there is definite positive selection for the few women that are in the IT industry, the up and coming companies recognise that the few female technologists are a precious commodity.
You have said that when you were young you wanted two things when you grew up: to be a business woman. You have achieved significant success in business and you underwent a transsexual transition six years ago – how does it feel to have achieved that two-pronged dream, and would you consider that your greatest achievement?
I’m the sort of person that’s never really satisfied, there’s always a higher goal. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and think wow, I’ve got here, but at the same time, when you’re running a business your frame of reference gradually shifts. So although I’m doing very well, I now compare myself to people I meet through my networking, being quite senior in the IT industry now, and I feel like I’ve got a lot further to go. But yes, I do feel very lucky to be living my childhood dream.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – DECEMBER 12/JANUARY 13
Do you think your success in business is in part because you are able to see things from both sides of the gender divide?
Yes, I think it is, but it’s something specific. I’ve always had a female brain, but I was brought up and socialised as a boy, and that I think has given me an advantage in business, because I’m something that you don’t tend to see much of. I’ve got the usual somewhat more feminine skills but I was brought up to be confident and analytical and, whereas my sister was encouraged towards art and literature, I was encouraged towards business and science. Although most parents aren’t trying to, they’re still bringing up their kids in gender stereotyped roles, but what would happen if we actually raised more girls like we raised boys? I think I should be viewed as an interesting social experiment in what can happen if you take the female mind but then socialise it as a male, and give it a traditional male upbringing, and I would hazard that you come out with quite a potent entrepreneur.
As an entrepreneur, do you have more new business ideas in you?
Absolutely. I’m constantly having ideas and being able to breathe life into an idea gives me a huge feeling of satisfaction. That’s one of the biggest drivers behind it. I hope to become a portfolio entrepreneur, using Memset as a base to bootstrap other synergistic services. We’re already starting to do that. We have a personal cloud backup service called SquirelSave, and we’ve got a number of other irons in the fire, so we’re spreading out. But the thing I don’t want to do is sell one business and go and start another. I want to spin off new businesses with the infrastructure and manpower we’ve got and have multiple business units, and then have a portfolio of enterprises. That’s where I see the long-term future for me, and I’m certainly not looking to retire any time soon.
Details:
www.memset.com www.businessmag.co.uk
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