-Written by Laura, DevelopHer Co-Founder –

The DevelopHer team held our annual yuletide social event hosted at Syzygy and sponsored by PayPal UK with PayPal Unity in November.

The event was a great way to get our community together, and make new connections for the new year – as we celebrated our key achievements from 2018.

To kick off the event, we also had three leaders in the tech and digital industry, including Angelie Panteli, CFO at LendInvest, Rachelle Denton, Co-Found of Storm Collective and Ita Murphy, CEO of Syzygy.  These ladies shared their experiences on the challenges they faced, and their top tips on how they found their break through moments in their careers. For those who weren’t able to make the event, we’re sharing the top tips we learnt from the event below!

Angelie Panteli, CFO of LendInvest talked about her experience in tech startups: and how you can be faced with opportunities that can be a sink or swim situation, and how you need to be able to take decisions and execute on them.
Her top tips for working in tech include:

• being open;
• remembering who you are & why you’re there
• having self confidence;
• knowing if it’s scary – it’s definitely worth your time;
• find ways on how you can make your boss’s job easier

Ita Murphy, CEO of Syzygy highlighted the importance of communicating your ambition and defining your own brand. As women, we are conditioned not to be “pushy.” Practice it and pretend you know what you’re doing – your future self is watching.

“When you’ve done something – own it.” Ita reminded us all that no one is a mind reader. You have to tell people about your achievements and not to be shy about it.

Her advice also included that it’s also your responsibility to define your own brand. What is the one word sentence definition that you want to be known for? Then say it and act it out – and it will shape other people’s opinions of you.

Rachelle Denton, Co-Founder of Storm Collective, discussed the importance of mentoring and how your mentor can be an honesty mirror for you, helping you figure out what you want and keeping you accountable. Look for mentors in people who do things that inspire you. The best feedback is not always “you did great!” – it’s the scary feedback that helps you grow the most.

Rachelle also talked about the importance of ‘saying yes’. “Remember: every time you say yes, you’re saying no to other things. If you’re a person that always says yes, remember the things you are saying no to – and vice versa.”

Another top tip Rachelle gave was to think about writing your LinkedIn profile or CV as if you were a different person other then yourself, and how you’ll read it if you were a recruiter.

Ita also provided a great framework on how to deal with difficult conversation,
“Do a CISA”

• C for common ground – agree with them;
• I for identify issue – ‘when you spoke to me like…’,
• S for state ‘it made me feel…’,
• A for alternative – ask for alternative ‘next time, please…’ 

We just want to say a huge thank you to Syzygy, PayPal and everyone who came to our xmas event. For those interested in future events with DevelopHer, make sure you sign up to our mailing list to hear the latest monthly events.