Avanade MVP Spotlight Zoe Wilson

Subject

Name: Zoe Wilson

Award Category/categories: M365 Apps & Services

Number of times awarded: 2

Link to MVP Profile: Zoe Wilson (microsoft.com)

Please introduce yourself

I’m Zoe Wilson, and I have worked in tech for about 20 years, starting in service-desk / first line support type roles, and I discovered SharePoint fairly early in my career. Back then, I worked in Leeds which had a smaller jobs market for IT roles, I looked young for my age, and I struggled to progress in the way that I wanted to. When I was about 30, I moved to London, which has a much more open and competitive jobs market, and was slightly friendlier for an ambitious woman working in tech, and was able to progress much more quickly.

What I loved about working with SharePoint was that it gave me the opportunity to get out of the male-dominated IT departments, and I was able to connect with the wider business, to understand what their pain-points were, identify their inefficient processes, and look at how technology could help solve these problems. I’ve spent a lot of time earlier in my career developing solutions on SharePoint, but also using things like InfoPath, SharePoint Designer workflows, Nintex, K2 etc. I’ve worked in very large global companies, and for small companies with less than 25 employees. In my recent career, I broadened out of SharePoint to the wider M365 ecosystem, and related workplace technologies, and moved into leadership roles where I’ve been able to help people and organisations with their workplace challenges on a much larger scale.

What do you do at Avanade?

I sit in our European Workplace business, and I’m the Workplace Value (VR) Offering Lead for Europe. This means that I work with colleagues across Europe, to help clients drive more value out of their investments in workplace technologies. Every day is varied, as I work with all our European regions, supporting with business development and sales enablement. I’m responsible for the execution of our go-to-markets within the VR space. I get to work closely with Microsoft, and also with colleagues from the Accenture business.

This role is really exciting for me, as I get to partner with colleagues from different parts of the business, and work on driving the sales and adoption of newer technologies, different ways of working, and really focusing on what will deliver the most value for customers.

What is your passion for technology?

For me, technology always comes down to one thing – how will this enable me to solve business problems. Technology should the enabler for all organisations, for all industries. When I look at what has motivated me throughout my career – and life in general – it comes down to helping people, helping solve their problems or find an easier way to do something. I love the fact that my career allows me to do this on a broad scale, with technology as the enabler.

I’m constantly looking for new features, new ways of doing things, will allow me to deliver a better result or outcome from a personal productivity perspective, and then sharing this more broadly. And from an enterprise perspective, looking at things that we can do with tech across the board that will have a significant impact.

What do you do in the wider tech community?

I’m an active speaker at tech conferences, both in-person and virtual – I’ve presented at the European SharePoint Conference twice, I’m a regular at a lot of the big UK events, and I’ve presented countless virtual sessions, particularly since things moved online.

I’ve recently started my own blog – https://zoe-365.com – where I’m publishing a lot of content focused on improving diversity within the tech community, and information for those new to community speaking, aimed at demystifying the process a little, and help them get started.

I’m one of the original Viva Explorers, which is a group of MVPs and RDs who collaborate on all things Viva. We set the group up with the aim of helping each other stay up to date with the rapidly changing Viva platform, as well as support / help each other with educating and sharing knowledge on Microsoft Viva. We co-present at events, we have held Viva Explorers Community Days in the UK and Canada so far, with more to follow, and I’m currently supporting the Commsverse conference in the UK with their Microsoft Viva track.

I am part of the organising team for Scottish Summit, and I regularly volunteer at other events like South Coast Summit too. I’m also working with a couple of other MVPs on an event we’re planning to run in the UK later this year, which will be a full day workshop for new community speakers. I’m incredibly passionate about supporting the next generation of speakers at our events, and increasing diversity, and we’re aiming to run this workshop to help those who want to speak but are not sure where to get started.

What kind of things do you enjoy?

I love all things community! I get so much energy out of working with the wider tech community, with sharing ideas and learning from one another. I love technology, I love helping people, I’m a massive foodie and I live at home with my fiancé and our 5 cats. I’m an avid reader, I love science-fiction, fantasy and books on leadership / business, but my guilty pleasure is romantic comedies, which I find I tend to read more when I’m involved in stuff from a work or side-project perspective, that is quite taxing mentally.

Tell us something interesting about you

I was on the women’s fencing team at university, and won medals for both the sabre and the épée, as my team finished in the top 16 out of all the UK universities. My fellow team members and I went on This Morning, which is a UK breakfast show, for a make-over ahead of our final athletics union ball.?

This was a fantastic experience throughout my time at university, and there’s nothing quite as fun as staring down the end of a sword, into the eyes of your friends!

What is it like being a Microsoft MVP?

One of the main factors that motivated me to become an MVP, and motivates me to want to stay in the programme, is being a visible role model for younger women who may be working in tech.

As a hiring manager, I’ve interviewed easily over 100 people for technical roles, and the number of women I’ve interviewed during that time I can count on both hands. This isn’t for lack of trying to find good women who work in tech, but I do think that for certain roles, there just aren’t enough women in the candidate pool. So the way that I’m trying to address this is by being a really visible role model, to encourage young women who are early in their career, and to show them that there are people who look like them, who have been able to thrive and have a really rewarding career working in tech.

Alongside that, one of the main benefits for me is the network of people that I’ve met, both through my time contributing to the community before and since being award MVP for the first time in summer 2021. I’ve made so many great connections – both within the tech community and at Microsoft – and feel lucky that I now get to call many of these my friends.

As an MVP, we get access to product groups, which is great for staying up to date with the Microsoft roadmap, and have the opportunity to contribute and provide feedback. However for me, the friendships and the community are still the most impactful and valued thing that I get out of this, along with the ability to be a more visible role model to those early in career.

What Advice would you give your younger self?

Don’t question yourself as much, be bold and keep going!

I’ve had so many rejections – unsuccessful interviews, and what felt like missed opportunities – but the best advice I can give it to just keep going! Don’t take it personally, just pick yourself up and keep doing what you feel is right.

I will never forget being passed over for promotion, and receiving the feedback that I was “too aggressive” – for aggressive, read passionate. It is common for women to be perceived as aggressive or bossy where a man would be seen as passionate, or showing leadership skills. If this happens to you, challenge it – and remember, it isn’t a reflection on you, it is a reflection on other people.

My last bit of advice I’d give myself is to learn at a younger age what is important to me – what are your core values, what are the hard lines that you won’t cross – and then use this to guide decision making about things like which company you join, or how long you stay.

What are your links? Where can people follow you?

Blog: https://zoe-365.com

LinkedIn: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/zoe-wilson-uk/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SharePoint_Zoe

Summary

Thanks Zoe, for sharing a bit about yourself and the valuable contributions you make to the tech community as part of the?Spotlight on Avanade Microsoft MVP's .

Check back soon to see who we speak to next!

-- Lee