Lost My Name: A Woman's Story
One of our CEO's (Asi Sharabi) beautiful daughters with our Lost My Name title publication

Lost My Name: A Woman's Story

When I was a little girl I loved stories, poems and books. I loved fantasy worlds, elves, dragons, and basically any character with red hair (a diversity option Lost My Name are exploring, but yet to launch... *cough cough*). I grew up wanting to work in book publishing, and focussed on writing from primary school until graduation from my Journalism Communications degree at University of Queensland. My parents had never been to university, but they stood behind me and my little sister at every challenge, every pit-fall, and every success. They committed themselves to raising two empowered, intelligent, independent young women who were capable of, and encouraged to, follow their passions.

I hoped to one day work publishing books (poetry, specifically); working in the University of Queensland Press and bookshops for several years while I completed my studies. Life offered me something else, though, something that I wasn't aware was on the cards. I was offered a graduate role at BHP Billiton BMA when I was in my final semester of Uni. My parents saw my future in corporate affairs and big-business, an able and capable businesswoman living the precise life they'd imagined for me in 1990.

I took the role with great enthusiasm, ready to pursue a path I am still excited about today; Human Resources. It didn't sound as glamorous, perhaps, as writing and editing the future Judith Wrights or Sarah Holland-Batts but I loved it. I immediately saw an opportunity within the mining industry's HR team to work on a challenging and pressing issue: diversity. In an industry desperate for change, I worked alongside several internal HR teams on the Dauna/Caval-Ridge Diversity programme, celebrating women in resources. I was so proud to be a member of that momentous and award-winning project.

Several years have passed since then, and I've worked across companies, continents, and industries. I've worked in the tech industry for the last few years, working my day to day role in UK-based or satellite tech offices, and my extra-curricular roles working to better the UK Tech sector with various HR SaaS and service platforms. Tech has, much like mining & resourcing, felt 'the heat' when it comes to improving diversity metrics. Improving equality of women and minorities in STEM or management roles (and all roles, TBH) should, and has been, a part of every good HR team's strategy that I have come across. I certainly have seen an encouraging momentum behind this at Box, Yieldify, and my current company, Lost My Name.

Who, or what, is Lost My Name? At Lost My Name, we're making the most technically ambitious physical books ever invented. We’re making storybooks magical for a new generation by creating impossible stories on a timeless medium, like a story that is created entirely out of a child’s name or making a book with NASA images and the world's first book that shows your own neighbourhood, your own street, your own house(!) in a book made especially for you. Oh, and speaking of NASA, I'd like to take this opportunity to brag that Tim Peake read Our Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home in actual space. We think-up, write, illustrate, build, design, and sell all of our products directly, and have a team working to produce our wonderful products spanning from Art Directors to Dev Ops. I like to think we’re on track towards becoming the UK’s most admired creative technology company.

Oh, and speaking of NASA, I'd like to take this opportunity to brag that Tim Peake read Our Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home in actual space.

Last year, Lost My Name came into my professional eye-line like a comet, and I have never been more thrilled to explain my role or where I spend my days. Finally, what I dreamed of as a little girl, and the career I have worked so hard on since university, have reached a non-divergent point in my time-line. My company celebrates the work that I do, that we all do, to give grown-ups creative superpowers to make magical, meaningful connections with children.

Despite our heart-warming mission, we are a company. A business where I have (as the Head of People) a role within that employs a huge responsibility in ensuring every person across our workforce feel empowered, engaged, trusted, capable, safe. I work every day with our CEO, founders, and managers to build a culture in-line with our values of kindness, curiosity and courage; a culture that my mother and father would be proud of. I aim, every day, to make Lost My Name a place built of the stuff my parents put their hopes in when I was a little girl.

In the light of the Uber scandal, every tech company in the world has all seen their internal shadows illuminated. I would be lying if I said we didn't occasionally find some small demons in our closets, we absolutely have them. Reflecting on the Uber scandal, and in the lead-up to International Women's Day, I took the chance to sit with every woman in our permanent workforce, to discuss our collective experience at Lost My Name, to share our stories of joy, and some uncomfort, and to work together to look forward and build a community of unity and strength. We committed to work together so that #Women-at-Lost-My-Name can proudly say that life at Lost My Name, and diversity within our business, is incredible.

I hope no one read Susan Fowler's article with joy in their heart. I know some people rejoiced that they were doing better, but in the words of a beloved colleague of mine, Hannah Harrison, "we don't want to be 'better,' we want to be amazing. We want every company in the world to look to us in aspiration." But how?

"We don't want to be 'better,' we want to be amazing. We want every company in the world to look to us in aspiration."

Our CEO is a father of three daughters, and husband to a strong and intelligent wife. Our mission and values are built on children and families, and the love and respect they deserve. I can proudly say the women in our company are given every opportunity that their male counterparts are given. One of the reasons I took my role at Lost My Name were the impressive women I met in my interview process, and the open and transparent environment, filled with children, mothers, fathers, and a feeling of community.

Like Susan, I am an ambitious young woman; unlike Susan during her time at Uber, I am incredibly lucky to have been given the opportunities for progression, equality, trust, and autonomy that I have been awarded at Lost My Name. I know it is not like this everywhere. We want to prove that this does not need to be a problem world over, does not need to be a problem in tech, this should be a problem of the past. Despite anything, I work with our team to commit to zero tolerance towards sexism, discrimination, bullying, harassment, embarrassment, humiliation, degrading comments, or harm.

Our calendar at Women-at-Lost-My-Name is in it's fledgling year, and we're working on including speakers and programmes like Ingrid Marsh from Women With Voices, and Black Girl Tech. I know there is work to be done, we all do, right now I see a devastating statistic: zero women in our executive team at Lost My Name, as Asi says, "we started three dads and an uncle, and somehow, sadly, we are 14 dads and an uncle." We are working on it, and we know it will take time. We don't hire as often as some of our larger tech counter-parts, but we work to promote the intelligent, ambitious, and dedicated women in our business. We offer every opportunity to work flexibly to support a family, to mothers and fathers, and we encourage new mothers back to work with open arms, ready to support them through every new opportunity in their career at Lost My Name. We've developed an initiative to have a woman on every interview panel for every role in the business. We have recently run a full pay investigation to ensure equality in our remuneration, and are building a strategic succession plan for women with strong potential across the business functions. It's not everything we can do, but every day we are getting closer to Hannah's (and all of our) vision of being world-class.

On Friday, following our Women's Diversity lunch, our CEO stood in front of our company at our all-hands, and committed to working with our entire business to do better by us all. He ensured us that we would all be encouraged to foster an environment as safe, inclusive, enabling, diverse, capable, and strong, as any other on the planet. I was, and am, so proud of this commitment. Not just to us, but to the future of his company, and to the future that will be there for his daughters, and the daughters of the mothers and fathers in our office.

International Women's Day offers us an opportunity to look to what we can mend, and to better ourselves than the actions of our pasts. It also hands us an opportunity to take equality off the "hypothetical" Trello board, and onto the "WIP." I'd love to invite you to share your companies initiatives with me; in sharing we can grow more capable of reaching our collective goals. I'd also love to hear your experiences, your goals, and the ideals you hold for Tech in the UK and across the world.

Shameless plug section follows -- I'll be speaking at Diversity in Technology on Succession Planning on June 14th in London. Come along.

Follow me on Twitter: @HeyJMHayes

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