Speed Mentoring: The Power of Lifting Each Other Up

August 8, 2019August 12, 20191 Comment

As part of our DevelopHer 2025 mission, our aim is to spotlight and connect over 1,000 women in tech members to help lift each other up. That’s why this summer, we hosted our Speed Mentoring event for 60 of our community members at SYZYGY, to give our members the opportunity to find that connection and support mechanism to help each other. To encourage more women to reach the top, we truly believe in the power of mentoring and how providing a step up is vital in achieving your career goals. We wanted to share with you the highlights of our speed mentoring event below.

What is mentoring?

Mentoring is a support system where one person shares their knowledge, skills and experience to assist others to progress in their own lives and careers. The power of mentoring is more than ‘giving advice’, it’s about motivating and empowering the other person to identify their own issues and goals and help them to find ways of resolving or reaching them. As part mentoring, it includes respecting the different ways of working.

Mentoring tends to include 3 key elements:

Career development
Sharing knowledge
Helping to improve performance.

What is Speed Mentoring?

Speed mentoring is a series of short, focused conversations about specific questions. You will meet with a limited number of mentors in 15‐minute time slots each. At the start and end of each Speed Mentoring round, a bell will ring. Mentees will then move on to the next mentor, and will be giving two minutes to switch and prepare for the next round.

Challenging Your Limiting Beliefs:

Our event kicked off with a keynote from the CEO of SYZYGY, Ita Murphy sharing her insights on applying neuroscience principles to business and career coaching.

Ita emphasised on how we can challenge the assumptions your brain makes. She focused on how we can all have a little voice in our head, our limiting beliefs that say nasty things to ourselves that can pull us down. Ita nicely quoted “Your thoughts become your reality…so be careful what you think, because your brain is listening”. During this keynote, we learnt the importance on how to manage our thoughts, choices and emotions.

The Power of Lifting Each Other Up

During the event, each mentee had the opportunity to have up to 4-6 speed mentoring sessions with our 2019 DevelopHer Mentors. During the sessions, we asked our mentees to come prepared so they can get the most out of their 15 minute mentoring session.

Following the event, we asked our community what they thought:

83% of our mentees were very satisfied with the speed mentoring event
75% of our mentees felt more confident with progressing their next career step or personal goal
75% of our mentees are likely to recommend mentoring as a means to improve their career as person in tech/digital
66% of our mentees found the event very useful
66% of our mentees believe the event helped identified how to further progress their career goals
83% of our mentees were likely to recommend DevelopHer as an organisation that helps develop careers

Our mentees also shared their feedback of the night:

“It was a really helpful experience, I’ve never attended one like it before. The staff were lovely and I felt really welcomed by everyone. I look forward to more of your events. If you are considering, then just do it. To be in a room filled with people who have amazing stories and are willing to share them with you, to be your sound board and to meet new people also going through similar experiences then take the opportunity by both hands!”

“Absolutely go. It’s not every day that you get an opportunity to be in a room filled with 24 amazingly inspiration & bad-ass women who are all willing to give you tips & advice on your career. I learnt something unique from every single woman I talked to, and left feeling motivated, confident & with actionable tips about where I want to go with my career. “

“An amazing opportunity to meet a wide variety of mentors, gain immediate advice, and start to build longer-term relationships for the future”

“DevelopHer’s speed mentoring sessions are really not to missed (if you are lucky enough to get through) because mingling and being mentored by the high calibre of mentors that attend the event will, without a doubt, give you lots of takeaways and inspiration for reaching or re-evaluating your career goals or challenges. It was absolutely invaluable to meet such highly accomplished individuals in roles I aspire to have in the future and have their undivided attention, even for just a brief time, because they all really took time to listen, share advice and be honest about their own experiences. The venue and keynote speaker was also terrific, providing the perfect setting to get into the mentoring spirit and everyone, from the organisers, to the hosts, mentors and mentees, were all so approachable and friendly which made it all the more enjoyable. I would 100% recommend these events to anyone looking for mentorship.”

A Big Thank You

We just want to say a huge thanks to the following support for letting our community get together:

Thank you to SYZYGY and all the organising team, for always being a fantastic partner and hosting the most wonderful venue (the rooftop was a dream!).
Thank you Ita Murphy, CEO of SYZYGY for providing the key note speaker session
Thank you to all of our 2019 mentors for giving up your time and giving something back to our community
Thank you to all of our mentees for taking the time to apply as well as opening up and letting yourself be seen in these sessions
Thank you to our DevelopHer team & associates for helping to get this event together.

If you’re interested in taking part or applying for future mentoring opportunities please sign up to our newsletter.

If you’d like to be a speaker or mentor, you can sign up to our DevelopHer speaker list here.

Written by Laura Chung, DevelopHer Co-Founder

Re-booting Your Personal Brand

February 14, 2019February 20, 2019Leave a comment

Written by Sally Freeman – Co-Founder of DevelopHer

The idea for reboot your personal brand came from the thought that I had, that it is often much easier to rebrand for companies and organisations than for ourselves. I work in social media and branding and have often spent weeks and months on one project. So the challenge was, new year, new you, on a cold January evening, what could we achieve with 50 people in two hours? Could we help attendees reboot their personal image and help them achieve their goals for 2019? Could we potentially help them get their dream job and help create new opportunities in this new year?

The tickets went on sale and sold out in a day. The DevelopHerUK community clearly love this type of event and we realised it is much needed.

With a speed dating type feel, our attendees had half an hour with four amazing professionals to give each attendee skills to help them reboot their own brand. Including sessions on:

Having a professional photograph taken to be used on CV’s, LinkedIn & Social.
CV Workshop
How to make your LinkedIn account stand out from the crowd
How to pitch and communicate yourself in 45 seconds

“A picture is worth a thousand words”
Sue Lacey from http://www.Suelaceyphotography.com

Meeting the Experts

Sue Lacey specialises in business portraiture and knows it is essential to have an excellent business image. Sue captured the attendees in a way to show their character and personality. An absolutel essential element for Linkedin to social channels, a good business image communicates a strong message to clients. Our attendees have been over the moon with their new images and have instantly been used across their channels.

Maarit Lilley, luxury brand copywriter and PR helped attendees focus on the summary paragraph that is often used in the profile section of your CV or Linkedin.

Dani Barrett from Digitas is a self confessed Linkedin addict. She knows good Linkedin! Dani guided attendees through the do’s and don’ts of linked in, how to create unique URL’s and how to get noticed amongst hundreds of Linkedin profiles. Sharing her experience about what recruiters look for when they view a Linkedin profile was hugely useful to attendees. You need to make your linkedin profile stand out from the crowd.

So you have your picture, your CV and Linked in profile. What next? How do you convert this to real time conversations, be able to pitch yourself and grow your network?

How do you pitch yourself in real time? You are in the lift with the new CEO, how do you say “ Hello, I am … this is what I do and I would love to come and speak to you about a new idea I have”.

GSB Comms, experts in presentation skills, returned to give top skills in meeting new people, how to introduce yourself, pitch yourself and communicate that all essential elevator pitch in 15 seconds. Richard and Freddie facilitated attendees giving top tips on body language, communication skills and how to make an impact when meeting new people in a networking environment. Everyone loved the role play in the safe environment of the Syzygy offices. Richard challenged us to communicate key aspects of who we are and what we do within 45 seconds.

Top Tips & Learnings:

How to write an outstanding CV from Maarit Lilley:

The Do’s

Be precise about the job you do and for how long you’ve been doing it.
Be clear about which sectors you’ve worked in and your experience.
Be concise.
Keep your introduction profile up to 5 sentences only.
List your key skills – up to 5 or 6, pinpoint your achievements and be bold.
– Say what you worked on, how you got that skill, how you applied and what the great outcome is.
Claim your achievements and name drop well-known brands where you can.
E.g. led a team across international markets, dealt with financial budgets.
You are not obliged to include age, marital status, kids or your nationality.
Claim your positive outcomes and how you met your targets.
Add in just a few interests to show more of your personality.

The Don’ts

Don’t waffle, use long sentences, repeat yourself or use clichés.
Look out for typos and beware of using industry jargon and acronyms.
Avoid using the word ‘passion’ – passion belongs in the bedroom. Try using words such as deeply committed, enthusiastic.
Don’t let your CV be longer than 2 pages.

How to make your LinkedIn stand out for recruiters from Dani Barrett:

Keeping your profile up to date is essential, even if it’s as small as moving location.
When you’ve moved jobs, put the end date on your profile and add in your bio that you’re looking for opportunities.
When you’ve been promoted in the same role – always give a snapshot of what you’re doing now, and how it was different then before.
Create a customize URL – this looks better and cleaner when added to your CV.
Always put information under your job title – approx. 3-5 bullet points that are the most relevant, especially when you’ve had a promotion.
Once a week, start showing activity on LinkedIn. Share, like or comment on something you find interesting, this is the start of creating new networking processes – as your reach on LinkedIn can be greater then any other platform.
Don’t be scared to post and share your accomplishments and self-promote in an authentic manner – e.g. either a project you worked on, or thanking others for their contributions. Try and get into the habit of doing it once a month, or more if possible.
Use the promotions feature on LinkedIn, to let recruiters know you’re interested in a new role. Don’t worry, this won’t show up as visible to connections in your existing company.

How to sell yourself or build your own narrative from GSB comms:

Remember we think and remember things in a world of pictures.
So when you’re explaining what your job role, make sure you’re describing rather then explaining. The stuff that sticks is often the description, so work on replacing some of the explanation of your role into a descriptive format.
One book to read is ‘Made to stick’ by Chip and Dan Heath.
When describing what you do, simplify your terminology so that it’s easy to understand from anyone, whether they’re in your industry or not.
e.g. Example 1 “I’m a merchant marketing manager for online financial payments”
Instead try using example 2 “I help communicate to businesses how they can start getting paid online, so we can help these businesses grow their sales”.
Don’t kill your 15-40 second intro by saying at the end ‘yeah but it’s boring’ or ‘yeah it’s alright’. Don’t play yourself down, make sure you end your introduction on a positive. Otherwise people will disregard you straight away.
Body language has a huge impact on your passion. You don’t have to show your passion in what you do by over explaining or rambling on. In fact, expressing your smile and confidence in what you do in your body language can be more impactful then over-explaining.
Portraying energy may not always be how fast and loud you can something. Practice expressing your passion in a calm way – so that what you’re actually saying comes across easily to the receiver.

Thank you to our expert team of communication professionals who gave of their time to DevelopHer so freely. Personally I have learnt how to speak through DevelopHer and this has facilitated me speaking at conferences all over the world.

The event was a huge success and we hope to run it again. We had lots of feedback about how enjoyable the event was and how our community enjoyed being with one another. Thank you to the amazing syzygy team who hosted us with delicious vegetarian and vegan food with lots of dry January soft drinks and wine. Thank you for logistics and general support of DevelopHer, we love to work with Syzygy London.

We would also like to thank Moo.com who gave us 20% off business cards. DevelopHer hope to repeat this successful event for those that didn’t get tickets first time around.

We hope we rebooted and kick started your 2019 and look forward to hearing your stories, please tweet us @developheruk or send us your success stories to hello@developher.org. See you at our next event.

Sally J Freeman

Co-Founder

DevelopHerUK

How to survive and live in high pressure work situations…can we have it all?

January 30, 2019February 14, 2019Leave a comment

-Written by Laura, Anna & Sally, DevelopHer Board Members-

In January, DevelopHer board members Sally, Laura and Anna spoke at a fireside chat as part of GetaHead Wellness Week. The topic was on how to survive and live in high pressure work situations…and can we really have it all?
Although we’re not medical experts, we shared tips and advice on how we personally manage stress.

Below are the highlights of what we spoke about it:

What is pressure and stress?

It’s all about how you respond under the constraint of certain circumstances. It might be how you respond and manage yourself in either a work context or personal context. Sometime the urgency of this situation can create strong attention or distress on yourself.

Stress can be an emotional, mental, physical strain or tension based on how you react to a demanding situation.

What does it mean to have it all?

Understand and identify what ‘having it all’ means to you. Having it all can depend on your where you are in your life and what is important to you at the time:
- Based on the Bravest Path Brene Brown coaching programme that Laura and Anna joined, we learnt that’ having it all’ refers to achieving what our values in life are. A value is a way of being or believing what’s most most important to you. Knowing what your 5 values are, can help you live your life focusing on achieving your values. By achieving your values, you can live a more meaningful live. So if ‘having it all’ connects back to achieving your 5 values in life – then yes you can have it all.

What does stress feel like to you?

When noticing stress, the three of us get the following symptoms:

Weight and strain on my shoulders (Laura)
Stress-eating on sugary snacks or caffeine related (Laura & Sally)
Lack of clarity – can’t think straight (Laura)
Over-working and lack of attention to other people or activities (Laura)
Short fused – things get to me quickly (Laura)
Inability to sleep (Anna & Sally)
Inability to settle down – feeling weird when you have a few hours of quiet (Anna)
Loss of appetite (Anna)
Need for lots of sensory stimulation such as music (Anna)
Back pain (Sally and Laura)
Feeling like I have FOMO (Sally)
Rumination when I cannot resolve something – think of it over and over again

Laura mentioned that it’s important to notice these elements before you get burnout as she often notices different symptoms when facing burnout such as:

Anxiety
Unable to sleep
Change in mood, typically lack sense of energy/happiness
Losing confidence in my capabilities

How do you manage stress?

- Identify which situations create the most stress to you, and how you respond to them. Think about tracking what causes you to be stressed or what makes you feel the tension when you’re under pressure. Knowing your own symptoms and when it happens, can help you think about the small changes you can look to implement to help manage it.
- Establish boundaries on what you take on, how you respond to
  people/friends and saying ‘no’.
  - Anna – when working with other time zones: edit your calendar so people can’t book in meetings past 5:30pm. Only join late meetings if it’s an absolute priority.
  - Anna/Laura – I never do work on the weekend or at home. I try to keep it to the office so that when I get home, I can focus on other things. This also helps condition me to not think about work at home too.
  - Laura – Set time for yourself, even if it means saying no to a couple of social events! Ensure you take time to re-charge your batteries without other people being around you.
- Take time to recharge – and incorporate into a routine. Practice and find out what allows you re-charge yourself.
  - Exercising, releasing natural endorphins
    - Anna – I’m goal-oriented so setting goals so that I have to exercise – half marathons and triathlons to work towards – means you need to exercise every week to get there
    - Laura – I try to set 20 mins three-four times a week to at a home HIIT session. I also go to dance once a week even if its a busy period. Make sure you exercise in a way that makes you happy and that will motivate you to do it again! I’m not a gym person, so I don’t kid myself!
    - Sally – I love dancing, swimming & pilates. I also make morning walks on the weekend with my dad into a consistent routine.
  - Meditate and learn to be calm – e.g. using headspace app is a great way to start practicing mindfulness.
  - Every morning I listen to a podcast whilst I get ready for work (Laura)
    - I also love Oprahs supersoul conversations and masterclasses podcasts, and getting curious with JVN (Sally).
  - Try and create an ‘artist date’ for yourself once a month or week. An artist date is solo adventure that I fully dedicate myself into for 2–3 hours e.g. going for a walk, reading a book, attending a class (Laura)
    - Sally loves the quote “time spent without purpose” by Brene Brown, give yourself space.
  - Do something that makes you feel good and energises you – Sally loves singing in groups
Maintain a healthy diet
- - Laura – When I’m stressed I normally reach for high sugared snacks and caffeine based products. However it makes me feel quite low in energy and I lose control of when to stop. I try and food prep on Sundays to avoid going down the slippery slope during the week.
  - Anna – I try to eat what I want but in smaller portions, try not to be too restrictive so that I don’t think about eating – e.g. big lunch, very small dinner
  - Sally – I’m a fish eating vegetarian. I have always eaten healthy. I don’t drink much and don’t do drugs.
Keeping organised
- - Sally – I use a table diary and make lists. I also plan my day, the day before so I don’t wake up in a panic! Give yourself time to process.
  - Anna – Give yourself realistic deadlines, then add a few working days to when you think you can actually deliver something – its gives you less pressure.
  - Laura – Alongside to-do lists, I block out time in my calendar on individual tasks that I want to focus on – whether it’s for high priority tasks or self development, try and block it as a meeting in your diary.
  - Laura – I also colour coordinate my calendar, anything work or meeting related I colour it red. Anything personal that is time for myself, colour it green (even if its spending time to go for lunch or seeing friends). I try and make sure if my calendar is red, that I’ve put some green in there too to balance it out.
Letting go of your perfectionism
- - Laura – Avoid putting on self pressure by being too much of a perfectionism. Take 1-2 small steps each week on making changes e.g. challenge yourself to give more liberty to people working on projects. Or try doing a project in a different way then your normal tactics, to challenge how you work on something.
  - Anna – be kind to your self
  - Anna – give realistic deadlines – add a few working days to when you think you can actually deliver something – gives you less pressure to be stressed out on tight deadlines.
  - Sally – be prepared to be uncool – cut loose

Practicing gratitude
- Anna – Celebrate the small things in life too
- Anna – Be glad about friends, and speak to them when needed
- Laura – Make sure you spend time to celebrate your hard work without moving on to the next task too quickly. Find a way to do this, whether it be updating your CV, sending thank you notes or taking the time in your day to say ‘that was pretty good, well done’.
- Laura – remember to be thankful to those who helped you and say it out loud. If you’re ever feeling burnout, I like to use positive cognitive therapy which was suggested to me by a friend. This involves writing the 10 things that I’m grateful on a piece of morning, and read through it every morning and every night.

Our Reading List

Here is also our suggested reading list which might also help you manage your own stress:

Seven Habits of Highly effective people – Stephen R Covey
The road less travelled by M Scott Peck
Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown
Poems for Grown Women
How to own the room by Viv Groskop
Thrive by Arianna Huffington

Your Bravest Year Coaching 2018

November 23, 2018February 14, 2019Leave a comment

-Written by Laura Chung, Founding Member of DevelopHer –

As we come towards the end of 2018, the DevelopHer team have been reflecting on some of the amazing work we’ve done this year. One highlight (out of many!) for us included launching our Coaching Programme.

In March, DevelopHer & The Bravest Path came together to provide our community a 6-month coaching programme to live their ‘bravest self’ in 2018. In total, 18 participants out of a hundred applicants were selected to take part, to receive a combination of group and one-to-one coaching sessions on the ground-breaking research of Dr Brené Brown.

The program was designed to enable women to take steps to realise their aspirations and feel brave. Over the 6 months each participant was coached on the following topics:

Personal Values
How to be authentic and create connected relationships
Building a more resilient and joyful you
Overcoming perfectionism & practising self comparison
Daring Greatly and Living BIG.

“This is a fantastic coaching program. They’ve helped me find myself, my values in turn truly live to my capabilities. I’ve also met a fantastic group of amazing and inspiring women in the industry, who I’m lucky enough to call my friends now.”
Omi Ducat, Coachee

The Results:

As the 6-month coaching program came to and end in July, DevelopHer hosted a ‘Be Brave’ speakeasy sponsored by TransferWise, where each participant gave a 2 minute overview on what they learnt and what this journey meant to them infront of family, friends and the DevelopHer community. We also had Flora Coleman, Head of Government Relations at Transfer wise share her experience on finding a mentor, and how it was valuable to her.

After the event, we heard back from our participants and found that the coaching programme was able to provide a valuable support mechanism and give the ladies the opportunity to progress their career goals, feel more confident and make braver decisions.

100% of participants were either extremely satisfied (71%) or satisifed (29%) with the program
100% of participants believed they have now made braver decisions on a regular basis since starting the program
94% of participants feel significantly more confident since starting the program
94% of women believed this program helped progress their career goals
24% of participants had received a promotion since starting program
35% of participants had received a job offer or changed jobs since starting the program

“This coaching programme has had a huge impact on my life, and everyone deserves to know and benefit from Brené Brown’s powerful research. If you are debating whether to sign up and the thought of living bravely makes you nervous – this programme is what you need! Take a leap of faith, believe in yourself and the rest will follow.
Phoebe Ashworth, Coachee

We are hugely thank you to all the ladies who were brave enough to apply for the programme and made themselves accountable of taking risks throughout the journey. A big thank you to Bravest Path for partnering with us to give our ladies a great coaching experience. And finally thank you to Transferwise for sponsoring the celebration speakeasy, Syzygy and Sprinklr for sponsoring the coaching meet up events and Qubit for sponsoring our kick off event.

Considering if coaching is for you?

We asked Bethan Davies, our Bravest Path Coach in the DevelopHer Coaching Programme to give a few tips on whether coaching is right for your personal or career development.

What is coaching and how does it differ to mentoring?

Firstly, be clear if it’s a coach or a mentor you need.

Coaching differs to mentoring in that coaches do not offer advice or opinion. They trust that you are the expert on you, and by having a supportive and challenging partner you can co-design the best solution that will be the most effective and sustainable.
Mentoring is a relationship where often someone shares the benefit of their learning, and ultimately may advise you on what you should or could do. Mentoring can be very useful depending on the timing of your career, but may not always affect behavioural change and can create dependency on others. Coaches help people to think for themselves, by giving them a safe space and time to explore an issue, where the quality of their questions help challenge, reframe and help them form and take tangible actions on the output of thought. It builds courage, as the coachee develops self-trust to listen to themselves

What is the top tip you would give to someone looking for a coach?

When looking for a coach its important to try a few out to make sure you get the best “fit” for you. Coaching is like dating – you need to make sure the chemistry is right!

Request testimonials, and examples of where your coach has helped someone achieve their targets – credible coaches should be able to provide these and contacts to speak with further.

To ensure your success, take some time to reflect on what you would like to be different at the end of the coaching process, where are you now and how will you know when you’ve reached your goal? What does success look, feel or sound like to you? Coaching is not a cosy tea and chat, its an action and outcome orientated process where progress can be measured against your goals, and a coach provides the accountability to maximise your chances of making it happen.

What qualities do you feel people should look for when identifying the right coach for them?

Trust is critical. You need to feel safe and supported by your coach. They should challenge and provoke you. A little discomfort can be useful, as a skilled coach should be pushing the limits of your comfort zone and encouraging you to step into a place where true growth happens. Someone that listens beneath the surface, to not only what you are saying, but what you are not saying is important. Your coach doesn’t need to be an expert in your industry or area, in fact often the best coaches have little to no knowledge about the subject, as it enables them to be truly unbiased and curious.

In order to get the most out of coaching;

Bring your most important topics and be clear on the outcomes you want
Be prepared to be fully open and honest with yourself and your coach
Allow time immediately before and after the coaching session to mentally prepare and reflect
Challenge yourself and be brave!

Coaching has the power to facilitate deep behavioural change, and if the motivation is there, can be a powerful and transformational experience to achieve the results you want.

You can also read some of the personal journeys our coachees blogged during the 6 months for inspiration on whether coaching is for you:

Defining Values…who are we? – written by Omi
It’s not failure, it’s data – written by Rachelle
Losing my marbles and marking myself a sandwich – written by Shao

Why we should aim to be brave and not perfect: Learning through role models

April 4, 2017June 29, 2017Leave a comment

Do something that scares you.

Fake it till you make it.

Embrace failure.

We’ve all heard these expressions so many times that they’ve become almost meaningless catch phrases rather than pieces of advice. They’re also much easier said than done, especially for women.

Do you recall ever wanting to do something but holding back because you thought you weren’t good enough? Have you ever tried something new and immediately stopped, thinking you were bad at it? And then of course, never attempted it again?

Reshma Saujani, the Founder of Girls Who Code, had similar thoughts about herself. As a Yale Law School graduate, she had always wanted to serve the public, but was afraid to take the first step. Finally, in 2010 at the age of 33, she decided to run for Congress. She was the first Indian-American woman to do that. She launched an election campaign, which for her felt like jumping off a cliff but in fact she was set for victory.

The end result? She lost. Big time. It was a loss she referred to as “humiliating”. But it taught her a lesson, and it wasn’t one about failure – it was a lesson in bravery.

It became clear to her that very few women take a leap of faith and pick a career that they’re unsure of. Many of us go for roles that we know we are going to be good at, as we’re always worried that we’d under-deliver. We also very often think we lack the knowledge or the natural ability to accomplish something. Reshma understood that the desire to be perfect is instilled in girls from a young age and we grow up thinking that multiple attempts at something are a defeat.

“We’re raising our girls to be perfect, and we’re raising our boys to be brave.” – Reshma Saujani.

She had given an inspirational TED Talk about how the quest for perfection (not lack of ability) is responsible for the gender gap. By pursuing her desire to serve the society and help increase women’s share of the computing workforce, she founded Girls Who Code. Reshma thought that alongside teaching girls problem-solving, team work and confidence, programming would help them learn that imperfection is okay. Coding is all about trial and error; it’s hard, but extremely rewarding. It emphasises the importance of perseverance and self-belief.

Since 2012 when Girls Who Code was established, they’ve taught over 40,000 girls and operate in all 50 states of the U.S. They have partnered up with many Universities and major IT companies that support the program. But most importantly, they have given thousands of girls new-found confidence in their own ability and potential.

“..when we teach girls to be imperfect, and we help them leverage it, we will build a movement of young women who are brave and who will build a better world for themselves and for each and every one of us.”

At DevelopHer, we’re in awe of Reshma, who has done so much to help elevate women in technology. The way she’s mitigating the gender gap issue is just genius – she teaches girls the in-demand skill of programming and, at the same time, equips them in self-belief. Since losing in the first election in 2010, she’s founded a successful non-profit and ran as a Democratic candidate for New York City Public Advocate in 2013.

If there is one learning we can tell you to do based on Reshma’s experience is –
Do something that scares you.
Because you can, and you will!

If you’re interested in also inspiring others and doing something out of your comfort zone, sign up to our speaker list here.

Written by Martyna Maron

15 UK Tech Women to Watch in 2014

February 25, 2014September 3, 20191 Comment

At Girls in Tech UK we’re consistently asked to share examples of some of the leading women in tech. Even though women are still a minority in the tech industry, we are optimistic and never hesitate to share the stories of some of the women who are paving the way for future generations.

Therefore, we are pleased to announce our very own list of the top 15 UK tech women to watch this year. These are women that we feel are doing something cutting edge, stepping out of their comfort zones and really leading by example in the tech industry.

We were truly blown away by the accomplishments of women in tech today and the impact they are making on the industry. These women are making huge contributions not only to tech, but to education, finance, fashion, music, and so much more. On behalf of Girls in Tech UK, thank you!

Please note that this is not a ranking and names are not in any particular order.

Alice Bentinck – As the co-founder of Entrepreneur First, she finds talented individuals and provides support to build high-growth startups. Many, such as AdBrain and Blaze, have graduated and gone on to secure millions in funding. She also set up Code First: Girls, a coding course especially for female students and graduates.

Sherry Coutu – An angel investor and entrepreneur involved with hit companies like Linkedin, Lovefilm and Artfinder, is co-chair of Silicon Valley Comes to the UK, and more recently joined as non-executive director of the London Stock Exchange (alongside Joanna Shields). Sherry was also ranked on our GIT EURO 100 list in 2012, marking the top 100 women in tech in Europe.

Joanna Shields – From Facebook to Tech City, and now on the board of the London Stock Exchange to help boost tech appeal, is there anything Joanna can’t do? Joanna was also ranked on our GIT EURO 100 list in 2012, marking the top 100 women in tech in Europe.

Kathryn Parsons – She’s a co-founder with the incredibly ambitious task of making the world code-literate. Kathryn’s Decoded has already taken on big name clients (Google, Microsoft, WPP and more) on several different continents. Kathryn has also been a speaker at some of our Girls in Tech events in the UK.

Jess Butcher – CMO and co-founder of Blippar, a very unique mobile visual discovery business. She’s also a recent Women of the Future Award winner in the entrepreneurship category.

Belinda Parmar – She’s one woman we admire for how she represents and integrates women in the tech industry, most notably through Little Miss Geek. She was recently quoted as saying the future of the tech industry is in the hands of 13 year old girls. How could we disagree? We’re looking forward to more fresh perspectives from Belinda this year.

Deborah Rippol – As Startup Weekend Europe coordinator, Deborah has done an unbelievable job at building the Startup Weekend brand across Europe. They estimate 300 SW events this year in Europe alone!

Nathalie Gaveau – Having recently raised another $4 million for her big-data powered social commerce platform Shopcade, Nathalie is sure to have some awesome and disruptive things coming our way in e-commerce. She’s been a speaker at some of our Girls in Tech events in the UK and was also ranked on our GIT EURO 100 list in 2012, marking the top 100 women in tech in Europe.

Clare SutCliffe & Linda Sandvik – Teaching code is all the rage these days, especially after the recent launch of UK campaign the “Year of Code”. Code Club, targeting children aged 9-11, has grown to be a huge success and plans to exist in 25% of UK primary schools by 2015!

Anna Bance – She’s a fashionista turned techie, having previously worked in PR at Hermes. She and co-founder Xavier recently raised money from Global Founders Capital (one of its backers being Olivier Samwer!) for Girl Meets Dress, their luxury garment rental service.

Michelle You – YCombinator Grad and backed by some of tech’s best known VCs (including Sequoia‘s first-ever UK investment), Songkick‘s concert/music platform announced 8.5 million users in November 2013 with 50% mobile traffic. They’re growing strong! Michelle was also ranked on our GIT EURO 100 list in 2012, marking the top 100 women in tech in Europe.

Julia Fowler – Former fashion designer-turned startuper. She’s the co-founder of big data fashion startup Editd, which just announced a new round of funding. We’ll be expecting big things!

Avid Larizadeh – This investor-turned-entrepreneur has turned Boticca into one of the world’s leading online jewellery marketplaces. With more cash in the bank as of 2013, we’re sure Boticca is going to be making more waves. Avid has been a speaker at some of our Girls in Tech events in the UK and was also ranked on our GIT EURO 100 list in 2012, marking the top 100 women in tech in Europe.

Also check out the Top 10 Women in Tech in 2014 from Girls in Tech Paris (in French).

DevelopHer UK

Elevating women in technology

Category: Top Women in Tech