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Women in Leadership
Name: Katy Magrane
Role: Digital Business Consultant, Product Management specialist
Company: dothethings.co.uk
A bit about you: Wow, it’s hard to fit everything you are and everything you’ve learned into a little box!
I’m a person who invests themselves wholly in their work, thrives on variety and the feeling of using their skillset to help businesses grow; I’m also a Mum, I have ME/CFS, and was late diagnosed Neurodivergent (ASD and ADHD).
I’ve found that working for myself is the best solution for juggling what I need to juggle while also being able to pursue work in senior leadership and impact businesses to the fullest possible extent.
I’ve spent nearly 20 years working to use technology as an enabler to help businesses grow across various industry verticals.
What is it like working in your company?
I work for myself now, so the boss isn’t too bad…
Honestly, it can be lonely since I’ve only myself to rely on for motivation and to figure out the next move. Most days when I arrive at my desk, I sit down to a blank piece of paper rather than a to-do list, and there is huge cognitive load in deciding what to do next!
Not having someone telling you what to do is exposing, it is vulnerable and it means there’s pressure. If things go wrong, there is no-one else to blame, and I, like most others, have to pay a mortgage and to support my family, so the stakes are high.
For me, though, it is worth it. I have complete control over my diary and a lot of say over which businesses I decide to work with - those businesses become my team for the duration of the project, so picking the right clients is crucial.
Why did you decide to go into your chosen field?
Through my academic career, I came to realise that I enjoyed a mix of getting into the nitty gritty of a problem or challenge and lifting my head up and stepping back to look at it from all sides - I was (and am!) a generalist who can balance lots of variables, but I’m also a quick learner who can get to the core of things fast.
Additionally, I know how to tell a story, how to engage people and bring them on a journey.
I didn’t know it at the time, and in fact, the role didn’t really exist in businesses when I graduated, but these traits of mine made me a great fit for something called Product Management.
What is a Product Manager? Read more here: https://www.mindtheproduct.com/what-exactly-is-a-product-manager/
What qualifications and work experience did you need to reach your current position?
I loved learning, but I had a tricky time in secondary school due to bullying and had to take my GCSEs following a year out of school with the resulting mental health challenges. I made it to sixth form at a new school and then to university where I started studying law and maths and finished with a degree in business and sociology. I guess I struggled to fit into a single box even then…
University was where I was really able to find like-minded people and also understand more about what was important to me as I imagined the working life ahead.
I took roles in Project Management (focused on delivering on time and on budget) when I first graduated, but when I stumbled across Product Management (focused on delivering the most value possible for the business), that resonated much more for me, so I made the switch and never looked back. I undertook some training, ad hoc as I needed it, but honestly, in this kind of role, the best thing you can do is get as much experience as possible!
Once I found that job, I did it for 10 years for various employers, then I switched to doing the job in a consultancy capacity, and for the last 5 years I’ve been working for myself as opposed to for a consultancy firm.
What do you enjoy the most about your job?
The fact that my role sits at the cross-section of all the functions of a business is part of what I love. By doing my job well, particularly when working with a Board of Directors or with Founders, I can impact all of the roles in the business positively by helping them get clear on what the business is trying to do, where they belong in that vision, and what the next steps are to getting there.
In order for people to feel they are making a valuable contribution, and therefore feel engaged, employees or team members need to know where they fit; that they do fit!
The other part of the job I love is generating genuinely valuable change for customers or users of a product or service. We all have had good experiences with companies, and we all have had bad ones, so since we all know what good and bad look like, it shouldn’t be hard to deliver good experiences, right?
Except it really often is. I love to straighten that out for a business and ensure the customer/user is getting what they need from a product or service they’re buying/using.
What obstacles have you overcome in your career?
There were virtually no women in tech when I started and the culture was extremely challenging, but women are better represented now, and there’s definitely hope for the future.
I spent the first half of my career underpaid compared to my male colleagues. I had to work doubly hard to sell my ideas and to influence decisions, and I had to prove myself many times over before earning promotions along the way. I had to face down rooms of middle-aged men to get investment and rooms full of male software developers to get their grudging acceptance before I could even get started on the task of delivering value to customers.
I developed a pretty incredible level of resilience, but that comes at a cost and I’ve had to really learn to manage my energy and to be much more thoughtful when I consider investing myself in a team or a business.
I was made redundant during maternity leave which is what sparked my decision to work for myself and retain seniority, rather than take a pay-cut to re-enter the workforce part-time and therefore at a junior level. Not much of a choice, but such was the nature of work at that time. There are many for whom working for themselves isn’t an option.
The reason it was an option for me was that by the time I had my daughter, I’d achieved a certain level of seniority in a well-paid specialism that could be transferable, and which was not contingent on being on-site or permanent with a single company.
I recognise that while I had worked extremely hard to carve out my career, I was able to do so in part because I started from a position of privilege, so I feel very lucky to have had at least these options available to me.
My hope is that with the rise of flexible and remote working over the last two years, and with the slow but steady increase in gender representation. There will be more options for a higher proportion of returners, not just for the privileged ones.
For my part, any time I’m in the room where decisions are made, I intend to ensure I don’t waste the opportunity to make space for other people - I’ve seen that diversity is a big driver for thriving businesses, so even commercially speaking, representation should be a no-brainer!
Why do you think it is important to have a strong representation of women in your industry?
The lack of representation in my Industry has led to a culture which seems almost designed to force women out of their roles.
He who shouts loudest gets his voice heard. He who swaggers most convincingly, gets the investors, regardless of real world performance. He who stays longest at the networking event gets the promotion. He who drinks the most beers with the clients gets the sale. And I do mean he.
Thankfully, there are businesses now where this is changing. That’s only happening because a few incredibly resilient women have made it into the rooms where decisions are made - woman investors, woman founders, women who make policy in government. These women have sacrificed their own comfort or health to at least dent the glass ceiling, and in most but not all cases, they’ve been enlightened enough to reject the narrative that there’s only room for one woman at the top as a toxic construct that’s helped keep women out of the jobs they now occupy.
When a woman is in the room and in a position to challenge, careless decisions that would have made life harder for women get questioned.
More women who are great at their jobs are present in the workplace (whether remote or on-site!), and therefore more men are getting the opportunity to be inspired by them; to collaborate with them. These men go on to recruit women, to ask women their opinions and to become allies for the next generation of women trying to move through their careers.
To be clear, tech is still nowhere near diverse enough - the women who have become decision makers are still usually the most privileged of women, and many of them don’t recognise that privilege, which is damaging. But the experience of having been “othered” is one that more people are learning from and the benefits of diversity in commercial environments are now much higher profile.
What advice would you give those wanting to take a similar career path?
Seek out allies. Seek out experiences. And as soon as you are able, seek out workplaces where you are valued and where positive change is part of the DNA of the business.
Finally, when you get to a position of influence, ensure you bring your peers along with you; you be an ally for the next generation so that this industry of tech can continue to evolve.
…oh, and call me if you ever want to know more about Product Management, Consultancy, being self-employment or working in tech!
