Sopra Steria’s Sue-Ellen Wright: How do you get more women into tech? Start at school

We sit down with IT and security company Sopra Steria’s managing director of aerospace, defence and security, Sue-Ellen Wright. As part of our International Women’s Day coverage we focus on improving women’s access to tech through STEM awareness at school, role modeling and more. Read on, or listen to the interview in the footer of the article.

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Jon Kennard: As a woman in a senior leadership position in technology, what career challenges have you faced, and how did you overcome these?

Sue-Ellen Wright: To be honest, I used to struggle to answer questions like this, which may sound bizarre, but actually, I think the answer is me, myself. My own imposter syndrome was probably the largest challenge and inhibitor I’ve actually faced to my career progressing.

I’ve been hugely lucky to have some fantastic sponsors who encouraged me, and recommended me for more senior roles, including the one I’m in right now. I used to seeing myself as predominantly a senior leader supporting role, so not at the forefront, and my dreaded question was, where do you see yourself in five years time; that was mainly because I didn’t really resonate with the job descriptions for the next level.

So I felt I had about 80% of what I was being asked for; words like ‘confident’ and ‘professional’ put me off from wanting to advance my own career. I absolutely saw myself as strategic, as authentic, as resilient. And through my military background I knew I had leadership and complex problem solving. But ‘professional’ to me was some eloquent possibly posh chap in a three-piece suit. And I was this Aussie girl with wild curly hair, all the rest of it.

So it didn’t really gel, I was sometimes a bit loud, sometimes a bit giggly. And I think that’s why I really thrive here where I am actually. It’s not necessary because working for an organization regardless if it’s tech or not – but it absolutely applies to tech – which actively encourages you to be authentic and bring your whole self to work, I think really does help overcome one of the biggest barriers, which is our own imposter syndrome. So, I certainly haven’t cracked that problem. I don’t think I’ve solved it or overcome it. But I’m definitely learning to understand it more, and what I need to do to to manage it.

JK: I mean, imposter syndrome, we could do an entire podcast episode about that, I think. Now, we’ve covered it on UNLEASH before but I’m wondering what you think about why diversity in the tech industry is so critical for for success? What’s your perspective on that?

S-EW: Well, I think technology now is about focusing on outcomes for real people’s lives, and we can see it through negative examples. There’s been talk in the press recently about the exposure of ethnic and gender bias in some facial recognition software. I think that in the ‘Invisible Women’ book, it talked about some of the real significant challenges with PPE and safety kit. But I think, more and more, we see this blurred line between transformation, digital tech and business.

So I think it’s hugely important, probably for three major reasons. And first is that the problems and the challenges and the opportunities that we’re trying to address are becoming more complex.

And to solve really complex problems we need the most diverse teams that we can possibly get, so that we’ve got all of these different perspectives, and we can ask questions along the way to refine solutions. So I think that’s the first.

The second is that I’m really pleased that the technical roles themselves are changing. Back in the day, you really had to want to be a programmer, you needed to get under the hood of technology to be involved in a tech role. I don’t think that’s the case anymore with low code, no code. It’s as much about the business outcomes as it is about the technology. So I think that’s changing the landscape.

And finally, and I know it sounds really simple, and it’s probably what you have covered before, but of course, females make up at least half of the population. So designing a business solution that doesn’t suit at least half of the population that it’s trying to address is not going to be ideal, no matter how good it is. So I think you know, there are the three key reasons; complex problems, the fact that actually technology roles are more closely aligned to business, and females are 50% of end users.

JK: I couldn’t agree more. I think we have made a lot of progress. But there’s plenty more to do. It’s good in a way to not be satisfied rest on your laurels and always try to improve the situation. And so despite the progress that we have made, what do you think the barriers are that are still in place for women working in tech to reach those heights or get where they want to be?

S-EW: There definitely are barriers, aren’t there? I think one of the recent articles I read said about 26% of all tech roles are taken by females, so we’ve definitely got some work to do.

I think the fact that there are insufficient female role models is probably one of the one of the key points, so the dominant culture within an organization can turn women off. I think it’s really about seeing people like me, when I’m applying for roles or looking for role models or thinking about what I’d really like to do as my career. And I think we absolutely should be able to do it, because if we look backwards in history, the first software programmer was Ada Lovelace, a female, who became an amazingly competent, capable role model, who sadly, was only on the planet for 36 years but what a phenomenal legacy she left.

You think of all of those fantastic females working at Bletchley Park during the war, in and around the Enigma programs, so many of them that were phenomenal maths and stem brains, they could talk to people and role model and say, ‘come and join our organization’. And even Dame Stephanie Shirley, or Steve, as we call her, who founded the FI group, which is became part of the Sopra Steria family. She was a pioneer, she had females who had small children, an entire female organization, delivering software and programming, and they collectively developed the black box for the Concorde. So they were doing significant things.

I just think we need to make sure that these fantastic tech-savvy female role models are in the media and in the press are front and foremost, and like we were saying before, because there are so many business related and business focused roles across technology, you don’t need to say I want to be an architect, you don’t need to say I want to be a gamer, you can absolutely say, I just want to be involved in digital transformation and what we do in the future and be a bit passionate about it in order to have a phenomenal career in tech.

JK: Yeah, definitely. So, some advice for companies out there who are looking to improve that gender equality and make more of the progress that they’ve already made. So what can companies do to encourage more women into tech? And how important – you’ve mentioned a few already – are role models in encouraging women into this industry?

S-EW: That’s absolutely right, the role models part. I think it’s 5% of the leadership roles in tech are held by females. So how do we make sure that at least that 5% have got as much visibility as possible? I think it’s also a complex challenge, isn’t it, so addressing this starts with STEM and it starts with school, but we can’t as a company sit back and say, we can’t influence that, that’s up to the government, or that’s up to the principles and executive leadership in schools.

So I think we do have to take an interest and see how we can encourage more females, even at that level. So, for instance, we do quite a bit of work with the Cheltenham Science Festival, where we’re actively out there trying to show and encourage schoolchildren to be involved in STEM. We’ve got programs through Tech for Good were were helping school students learn presentation skills and confidence skills to get them exposed to all aspects of technology.

So I think it’s how you actively take an interest in those younger school aged children, females in particular. That’s the first one. And I think the second is absolutely making sure that we are being as open as possible and attracting as many females to apply for roles as possible.

So one of the things we’ve done recently is apply some AI. I think I mentioned earlier I didn’t really like words like ‘confident’ and ‘professional’ in job descriptions. And actually it turns out, I’m not the only female that doesn’t like those. If I give you an example, I can absolutely confidently sing along to any song when I’m in the car by myself, it doesn’t mean I have any competence whatsoever. And so I would actively describe myself as a calm, a confident singer with no competence. But I’m a competent business person with possibly less confidence. And that’s why I think the use of language is so important.

So since we’ve used AI in our job descriptions, we’ve seen a 14% increase in the number of females applying to roles. That’s just fantastic – a really simple, not expensive change that we could all make. And I think some of it is word of mouth. I don’t ever respond when reached out via LinkedIn, I don’t know who you are, it’s not how I’d want my next role. I always respond to, networks and people encouraging me. So the way we recruit, I also think is, is really, really important.

And then finally, it’s not just about attracting the right female talent into the organization; it’s about nurturing, engaging, and growing them while they’re there. So the difference between being invited to the disco if you like, and being asked to dance, you can have them in the organization. But if they’re not contributing in valuable roles, and being encouraged to progress and to contribute, then actually, we haven’t really achieved what we wanted to. So I think it’s all of the things within the organization once you get them in there.

So making sure they’ve got mentors and sponsors, and development and learning activities and all of that sort of thing, once they join the organization, just to make sure that they are engaged and retained.

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Don’t miss our exclusive LIVE webinar taking place on International Woman’s Day on March 8. Our speakers will be sharing their experience of gaining the right digital skills, at the right time in order to succeed in their own careers in the male-dominated arena of tech.