IWD 2019: Women in Tech - Amanda Mesler

Happy International Women's Day! We were lucky enough to sit down with Amanda Mesler, CEO of Earthport, to discuss her thoughts on gender diversity and the changes she has seen within tech. Amanda is one of the strongest voices in the Tech industry on diversity issues and she is determined to help drive change. Her impressive career allows her to provide an insightful view to guide women who are looking to build a career within tech. Read about her views on developing a career in tech, overcoming obstacles and fighting for change in our in-depth interview below:

What first attracted you to pursuing a career within the tech industry?

I have been in technology for a long time, back in the dot com days actually. Even back then technology was disrupting brick and mortal industries and the dot com boom accelerated this trend. It was clear that technology would be the future. From a career perspective I go where the opportunities are and tech was it! This was why I pursued my career in tech. These days, come forward 20 years and technology underpins everything we do as consumers and businesses. Every industry is being disrupted. Take a look at Uber, that not only disrupted an age old industry, but it changed consumer behavior on how people get around. The same with AirBnB. That’s pretty exciting and being involved in enabling change like this is what kept me in technology!

During your career, what changes have you seen within the industry?

I guess two things. Firstly, the speed of technology innovation is incredible. I remember back in the dot com days you would develop or implement a new technology and it would take months and years of development. But these days, if you are not doing it within weeks and sometimes days, then your competition will. The second thing is technology IS business! Look at any industry, even the most traditional one out there, and it operates with some sort of technology. Whether you want to acquire new customers, access new technologies, automate manual processes, reduce R&D cycle time or just become more operationally efficient – technology will be one of the solutions. There is no business without technology.

How well do you think the tech industry is doing in improving gender diversity?

Not great is the bottom line! There seems to be a lot of activity and a lot of show casing but the numbers are still dismal. Look at the CEO numbers and look at Boards. Boards are slowly moving up, but, I think we need much more of a focus on CEO’s and executive level positions. Key decision making is driven at the executive level and we don’t have enough of women in the highest positions in tech. I actually put a lot of this on recruiters as well. If you look at several of the big main stream recruiters who recruit at the executive level, they are still not producing as many female candidates as male. Even from my own experience, shortlists can consist of the “token female”, and not necessarily the robust search to find multiple candidates. To be fair, there are lots of different firms who focus on women candidates and make diversity a different priority but over all that profession needs major disruption. And this disruption is beginning to happen as you now see many more boutique firms who are focusing more on specialisms and capability to provide many more qualified women candidates. 

Overall I don’t think we are there yet until the executive level is 50/50. There is much to be done as one candidate on a short list is not good enough. Boards, CEO’s, leaders, recruiters and women themselves need to work together to demand the changes needed across our industry. When we have 50/50, all perspectives will be looked at and cultures, work dynamics and environments will change to be much more inclusive. Take that chance and bring more women into your business!

The theme for this year’s IWD is “balanceforbetter” – if you were in charge for the day what would be the first thing you would do to improve balance?

As I said before, the numbers matter. I would have every executive hire result in 50/50 immediately. Companies need to do their homework to find, develop and take a chance to get more women in. I did a lot of work with Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean IN” movement and heard her speak many times. She cites much research and examples saying “unless the numbers change the decision making isn’t going to change” and it is so true. With more diversity, we’d start seeing things from different perspective and not have these aggressive “A type” environments that some women feel off-putting.  If our traditional work environments change to become more inclusive, more women would thrive, the culture would change and we’d see more progression. Numbers matter!

The other I would do is eliminate any place where “I’m the first woman” in this job/in this company, in this geography exists. It’s not a badge of honour to be first – it’s a burden and it’s hard work. Thank all of the women that went before me as I know how hard it was! 

During your career, what hurdles did you encounter and what did you learn from them?

The first one is back when I was working at KMPG as a senior consultant and I was up for promotion to manager. My husband and I had been married for a couple of years and we talked about having a family, but I was concerned as I wanted my promotion! I fell pregnant months before promotions were handed out and I found myself not wanting to tell anybody. Luckily, I was able to hide it for 5 months and didn’t have to. Interestingly, no one was putting that pressure on me it was myself and perceived societal pressure. So I looked for another woman partner to gain advice. I explained to her that I was pregnant and she stopped me dead in my tracks and congratulated me. I mentioned to her the reason I came to her was the worry I had about being passed up for a promotion due to being pregnant. She said to me “I wouldn’t work for this company if they didn’t promote you because you were pregnant - if you perform you are going to get promoted”. This helped my confidence come back and realise it was my own pressure. And I got the promotion!

The second one was when I got promoted to the company’s Executive Committee. I was thrilled, highly qualified and certainly as experienced as my peers on the committee. However, I was the first and only woman on the committee. We would often have discussions where they would completely ignore me. It got to the point where I was constantly ignored and talked over. And my idea became one of the men’s ideas instead. It was dreadful and I lost my voice and became quiet in the meetings. If you’ve ever met me, you’d know that was way out of the ordinary!  What I did is I scheduled 1:1 meetings with each of my male colleagues to get to know them better and have them get to know me. This worked as it became a lot scarier in a group setting to treat me without respect when they knew what I was capable of. Soon my colleagues were standing up for me as well in the meetings. Along with this time consuming tactic, I also sought out a woman on our board, and got some great advice and council from her as well. It’s so critical to get some support!

The third one, is a big one, and most women I’ve spoken with our coached has been through this. And this is about being coaching on my style. Numerous times, rather than coach or manage me about my performance, I would be coached on my style. I’d find that I was being told I’m too passionate, or not nurturing or too direct, etc. I’d be the top performer, and yet I would be coached on style! This took a long time to come to grips with. As many women do, I self reflect a lot and any feedback given me – positive or negative – I look inside first. However, I’ve learned that I do not have to change who I am because someone doesn’t like my style. I listen and I judge my audience, and still take on board these points but I won’t allow it to change my personality and who I am.

One final thing that I encountered in my career is something I don’t talk much about or dwell on, but given the courage of so many “Me Too” speakers, I’ll mention it here. I did have a situation where I was sexually harassed by a superior and then discriminated against when I turned away his advances. So I spoke up, I thought about my three daughters and if they were ever in this situation, and I decided “this is just not okay”! I went to HR and I told them and then I left the company as I didn’t want to be part of a company where this happened. This is what the Me Too movement is about, it is about bringing forward these issues where women, and also men, are not being treated fairly and with the respect they deserve!  

What is it you enjoy most about your role?  

I love having responsibility for the performance of the company and the responsibility for each and every stakeholder – whether it’s customers, investors, employees or partners! And I absolutely love working at speed and making a big impact! I worked for big companies and CEO for Business areas, but I found I couldn’t run as fast as I wanted or create the environment I wanted but here I can do all of that! I love working with no politics, getting things done, developing people and making a different. We do not have time for politics here! I just love that I can create the environment and the culture that I want and 50% of my executive team are women! We at Earthport are making that valiant effort to ensure that women are promoted and given that development in order to be successful!

Finally, what advice would you give to a woman who is looking to move into tech?

This would be advice across all industries:

Find role models and learn from them. You don’t need to know them but find out what made them successful and what kept the sane. I have a personal board of advisors who are all women CEO’s and we get together quarterly and talk about business issues and issues we face as women executives.

Pick a company where your values and culture align and that starts at the top. Find out if there are women in executive ranks as this is a massive asset as there will be different perspectives in balanced companies. If you are only working for a company that has a great brand name, but not a great, diverse culture – does it make you happy!

Always perform!!!! No matter what your style is , if you continue to perform, you will be the one who is valuable to that company and can achieve all that you want in your career.

Do not be afraid to try something new, women always wait to find out more about the role before they apply for it whereas men will go ahead and apply. Have that confidence and even if you don’t just pretend you do!

Finally, do not change your style for anyone, be who you are and be confident in that style. If someone wants you to change who you are for the role you have are doing, then you should find a new one!

Amanda Mesler is the CEO of Earthport, an AIM listed global payments company (www.earthport.com) as well as a Non-Executive Director with National Grid. She has 30 years of extensive international leadership and general management experience at CEO and board level and held leadership positions as CEO, COO, Chief Client Officer, and Corporate Strategy Officer. To find out more an Amanda’s impressive career please visit the following link: https://www.talentedge.co.uk/our-iwd-2019-career-profile/