{"id":637,"date":"2023-10-14T10:35:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-14T10:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mercatordigital.kinsta.cloud\/?p=637"},"modified":"2023-10-14T10:35:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-14T10:35:00","slug":"women-in-tech-cio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mercatordigital.com\/en\/women-in-tech-cio\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah Bennett – CIO"},"content":{"rendered":"

What does your job entail?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Pretty much everything!\u00a0I always have plans in my head about what I will be doing in a day and sometimes those plans come to fruition but very often the day throws up other challenges.\u00a0Overall, I head up the Accounts, Admin, HR and IT departments.\u00a0I am often a point of escalation for those departments.\u00a0I work alongside the rest of the C-suite to build and achieve the company strategy and I also help with bid writing (especially the social value questions) and bid reviews.\u00a0In addition, I am responsible for reading contracts and paperwork that comes in from clients and negotiating amendments where necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you always plan to have a career in tech?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

No, definitely not.\u00a0My intention was to teach dance in secondary schools but part way through my PGCE I decided it wasn\u2019t the environment for me.\u00a0Similar to many others, I fell into my career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has been your career path to getting to Mercator?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Previous companies have included a book and magazine publisher, a dance company teaching adults to dance, a mortgage broker and an IT recruitment company.\u00a0It was the IT recruitment company where I met the Directors of Mercator and the rest as they say is history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you found it challenging breaking into your profession? If so why do you think that is?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I have been very lucky as I have managed to work for people who recognised my abilities and wanted me to progress.\u00a0This happened firstly at the IT recruitment company (female owned) and subsequently at Mercator.\u00a0I have worked at Mercator for nearly 17 years and was the first employee \u2013 I have continually been pushed by the Directors (often out of my comfort zone \u2013 their belief in me was unwavering!) and as a result have been able to grow with the company.\u00a0I can see that outside of Mercator the challenges are very real.\u00a0The stereotypes still exist and breaking into senior management is tough when the roles are largely occupied by men.\u00a0Within the industry this disparity is more evident being traditionally more male dominated even at lower levels.\u00a0We\u2019ve all been in that meeting where we have to speak a bit more forcefully or loudly to get our point across.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What could be done differently to combat the above?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I really believe that it\u2019s a systemic problem that is cultivated at a school age.\u00a0The curriculum for ICT is still largely framed around coding when a career in tech\/digital goes far beyond that.\u00a0Most people are unaware of the other roles that are required for a digital project \u2013 Service Designer, Content Designer, User Researcher, etc.\u00a0A broader digital curriculum would potentially get more interest from both genders at an earlier age and would help to break down the stereotype.\u00a0Ensuring companies recruit from a diverse range of people and provide apprenticeships and re-training is also vital.\u00a0Part of the recruitment strategy has to be to work with other companies who specialise in and have access to specific pools of people (whether that is women, those who are neurodiverse or from an ethnic minority).\u00a0Looking at how roles are structured also helps \u2013 is there enough flexibility?\u00a0Are specific needs assessed and addressed?\u00a0I think if companies can work on the problem at the top (those already working) whilst the curriculum is revised at the bottom, slowly the barriers to a career in tech could be removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How have you found working at Mercator Digital?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Challenging, exciting, never dull, enjoyable, thrilling.\u00a0I\u2019ve probably felt every emotion under the sun working here but I\u2019m still here after 16 years so I think that speaks volumes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What advice would you give to other women who may want a career in tech?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Go for it.\u00a0Work hard, keep pushing and find someone who believes in you as much as you believe in yourself (or possibly more) to help you progress.\u00a0Once you are there do the same for others coming through the ranks.\u00a0Don\u2019t ever limit yourself.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does your job entail? Pretty much everything!\u00a0I always have plans in my head about what I will be doing […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-women-in-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatordigital.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatordigital.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatordigital.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatordigital.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatordigital.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatordigital.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatordigital.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatordigital.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatordigital.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatordigital.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}