The Journey of a WiT

In celebration of International Women's day, host and women in tech enthusiast Elly Nettleton is joined by seven; pioneering and influential female founders in the heart of Germany, Berlin, to discuss their leadership journey. In this live, special episode, Bryony Cooper, Esé Oghene, Katrie Lowe, Elise Cannon, Marie-Laurence Amigues, Noam Gerstein and Dr Azadeh D  take a deep dive into hiring teams, launching their brand, raising funding and investment, gender equality, imposter syndrome, and career confidence. We learn their backstories and how they have established themselves within their industry. Sharing their tips, valuable lessons, and insight, we learn their backstories and how they have established themselves within the tech industry to empower and inspire fellow females to take their innovations to the next level.Support the show

On this week’s episode of a Journey of a WiT, Elly is joined by Marissa Mocenigo, Engineering Manager at Taxfix. Marissa is based in Berlin where she is currently focusing on growing her teams and enjoying the exciting challenges that brings! Marissa originally took a computer science class and enjoyed creating things so switched her major to computer science, worked in robotics and was hooked! When she was younger she built games for friends and was very entrepreneurial thinking, making websites, playing with graphics and wanting to start businesses. Marissa has explored lots of different paths in her career, moving to Berlin, joining a startup and then moving on to her first management role. She loves the amount of skills she draws on to be a leader, how the stressors have changed, but loves looking back on the impact and effect of her work. Her key lesson from being a leader? You can’t make everyone happy as a manager, you have to make them productive and make sure they have the things they need. Marissa reckons her biggest challenge is working out what makes everyone work well together, there’s not always a logical solution when people are involved!In her career, Marissa has loved working with some amazing female engineers, who still help her out! She is always aspiring to be more like the ace women who handle such a male dominated environment and really enjoys mentoring and giving back. Her words of wisdom – don’t compare with other people but with your past self, ask “what have I learned in the past week?” and give yourself the time to praise your own achievements. We think Marissa has some amazing stories to tell – have a listen and let us know what you think. Support the show

This week on a Journey of a WiT, Elly is joined by Bethan Vincent, Marketing Director at Netsells. Bethan is a digital strategist who is a big contributor to the community, speaking at conferences and hosting a podcast focused on building a brighter future.Bethan’s move into marketing was a bit of an accidental career move. She completed a history degree, started a coffee business and learned how to do marketing by living it. She’s always had an interest in tech and coding, and reckons marketing is key to the future of tech. Now in a senior position, she believes she has a responsibility for raising awareness of key topics (at the moment particularly mental health) and bringing the community together.Elly and Bethan chat some of the challenges faced by the industry, including the huge rate of change and how we are all learning how to learn continuously. Bethan believes it’s really important to take the responsibility of reskilling seriously and emphasises retraining and opening the door to other sectors. Her advice is that if people offer you a chance it’s because they believe you can, always say yes if you can and are comfortable to do so!Bethan is constantly inspired by people who are just chipping away doing good work behind the scenes, the people who just get stuff done!Support the show

This week on a Journey of a WiT, Elly is joined by Alice Loeser, a backend developer at the e-health service, Doctolib. Alice joined the team during the pandemic and shares her experience of joining a global company remotely.Alice started programming because she liked science and as soon as she started looking at coding (her first language was C) it was instant love. She has also worked with PHP and Ruby in lots of different roles; an internship in LA , some freelance work and in a communications agency. Elly and Alice take a deep dive into some of the challenges faced by women in the workplace including sexist remarks and imposter syndrome. They also talk about gendered job descriptions which is really interesting!Alice has some great words of wisdom to share, the importance of finding people who will listen and support you,  and feeling safe enough to ask questions of your employer. Alice says one of the best growth opportunities she’s had is to mentor and pair programme with junior devs and her hope is that we can continue to support the women in tech network and encourage people to engage in networking. She reckons one of the main lessons she has learned is how to stay on track and focused, developing and strengthening her skills without being distracted! This episode is a great look into life as a dev – give it a listen and let us know what you think. Support the show

In this episode of ‘A Journey of a Woman in Tech’, Elly is joined by Amanda Newman who is a Senior Manager at Accenture. Previously Amanda has worked with IBM, Shell and Microsoft and has founded The Career Mum, a community network to support and empower everyone to reach their potential. She was shortlisted for Northern Power Women Mentor of the Year award and is nominated for a We Are The City Rising Stars award. Amanda is a huge supporter of returnships and mentoring for womenAmanda and Elly unpack her impressive career from struggled academically due to moving schools, to a global role at Shell and now Accenture. At school, Amanda wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, until her Dad said “computers are the next big thing”. This was at a time when there were no girls in computer labs and computers definitely weren’t cool. Her advice to career starters it to remember that it is early days and to take one day at a time, you never know what opportunities might come along. Amanda has long term experience with working remotely, and despite this struggled with the challenges of lockdown. She is a self-confessed extrovert, getting lots of energy and ideas from people – something she has in common with Elly. Amanda and Elly discuss the work home balance and the challenges she has faced, especially challenging perceptions of “you don’t look like someone who works in IT”! She says her greatest achievement is her family, and managing all the different priorities through the pandemic!Her role model is her father, and it is clear he had a real influence on her work ethic and mentality as he came from a coal mining background and become an engineer, working all over the world. Amanda’s best bit of advice it to remember that if you’re having a bad day that that too shall pass and if you need to take time out, it’s just one day, remember your community and network, and find your A team! We hope you enjoy this episode. Support the show

In this episode, Elly is joined by Gail Eastaugh, Programme Director at AeroSpace Cornwall. Gail has a really interesting career across lots of different sectors, and her unique background and experience have grown from an early curiosity of how things worked (listen for a really lovely family story about one Christmas!). As well as working with AeroSpace Cornwall, Gail is part of a research and development investment fund for supporting tech developers to accelerate their innovation, develop their new products and services, and build networks. Gail loves working with entrepreneurs and the energy and enthusiasm they bring!Gail is motivated by having an impact on society and humanity and has worked with universities and government, in addition to her private sector experience, to gain understanding and perspective. She speaks passionately about the importance of strong role models and counts Helen Sharman, the first British cosmonaut in space, and Lucy Edge, COO at Satellite Applications Catapult as some of hers.Elly and Gail are very much in agreement about finding a career you’re passionate about and doing what you enjoy - not just what you are good at. Gail says being a woman in the STEM sector can have huge advantages (and we agree with her big time), so be constantly curious and this will bring opportunities. We hope you enjoy the episode! #TheJourneyofaWIT #WomenInTech Follow Transition Partners on LinkedIn for more events and updates! https://www.linkedin.com/company/transition-partners-limited/Support the show