INTERVIEW
Fast-paced sector is finally changing for women too
After more than two decades in IT, Victoria Critchley, Chief Operations Officer at Chamber patron Cooper Parry IT Solutions, has helped businesses around the world to embrace change by adopting technology. A self-confessed ‘tech geek’, she is passionate about blazing the trail to inspire more women to progress in what is still a traditionally male- dominated sector. She spoke to Business Network Editor Nathan Fearn about changing perceptions.
The technology sector has undergone rapid change in recent years. The advent of smart devices and WiFi, the boom in big
data, the rise of the search engines, the explosion of social media and the game-changing emergence of ecommerce have redefined the global economy to an unrecognisable extent.
Despite technology, on the whole, being an immutable
force for positive change, it still remains a sector that’s yet to achieve a perfect gender balance. Victoria Critchley knows this only too well. She’s spent
more than two decades in the IT industry and has experienced at first hand the challenge of working her way up in what is still a traditionally male-dominated sector. Now, in her current role as Chief Operations Officer for Chamber patron Cooper Parry IT Solutions, she has the opportunity to not just ensure the opportunities are there for women to reach their full potential in her own business, but also open doors across the technology industry in general. “I’ve always been in IT, she said. “I went to university to do
IT – I have always been a bit of a geek! I just like technology, I like it in my personal life so it’s a natural extension in my professional life. If you like change and things to progress quickly then tech is definitely the way to go. “I went travelling when I left university and ended up in a
company in Australia implementing software. The company was American-owned and when I got back they offered me a role, so I ended up working for a flash company in Silicon Valley for a while – a pretty cool place to work. “I stayed there a while, the company changed hands a
few times and then I came here to Cooper Parry, 14 years ago. In terms of my role with Cooper Parry, I co-run its IT business with my husband, Brett. “I predominantly run the commercial side of things and
head up everything with regards to sales and marketing for IT. I am also the operational owner for all of our business applications. “With regards to Cooper Parry as an entity, there are
multiple business lines within the organisation – the majority of what we did previously was mainly around audit and tax, but our consultancy services have really enhanced our offering. “We have corporate finance, a wealth division and IT, so
there are a lot of complementary services which ensure we’re more of a one-stop-shop for our customers.” Although perceptions are changing, technology in
general and IT in particular remain traditionally male- dominated sectors.
46 business network September 2019 At the core of this issue, perhaps, is the lack of clarity
and awareness among students and schoolchildren about the potential career opportunities available to women in the sector, and what they need to do to get a foothold in the industry. Victoria continued: “When I was at university I was the
only woman on my course. When we talk about diversity, the number of women in technology has increased exponentially since I first started out in the industry. “There’s a lot of work being done at ground level with
education in terms of getting girls, in particular, into science and technology but you can see that after twenty- odd years in the industry, it’s starting to make a real impact now. Microsoft runs Women in Technology, which I am a part of. It also promotes a diverse workforce and actively encourages women to go into leadership roles, because at the top end of the sector, it’s still very male-dominated and can be seen as quite ‘stuffy’. “However, it is our job to make sure we’re promoting IT
to children from an early age as a great career option for all demographics and ensuring that those coming to us at the early stages of their careers, be that graduates or school leavers, are fully engaged. “It’s all about promoting a message of understanding
that regardless of who you are and what your background is, you can benefit and excel in an exciting, innovative, inclusive industry.” As a business, Cooper Parry lives by its values. It has created an award-winning culture in which
diversity, inclusion and unity are vital, which has underpinned its rapid growth and has seen it regularly listed as one of the best places to work in the UK. Embracing the broadest cross-section of people has
been key to achieving this. “Our culture is everything that we’re about,” said
Victoria. “It’s the single-biggest differentiator against our competition. It’s not about the products that we sell, it’s about us as a team. “Embracing a diverse and inclusive workforce is not just
the right thing to do and what all businesses should be doing, it also has real, tangible, bottom-line benefits to an organisation. “We’re allowing people to thrive – age, gender, ethnicity
– it doesn’t matter; it’s about the skills and the potential of any individual person. “It’s about having good people in the right roles who are engaged with and contribute to a shared, positive high- performance culture and that’s what we have here at Cooper Parry.
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