Tees Business LIVE : February 2024
EVENTS
TALKING TECH
Tech leaders – Panellists Bob Makin , Imran Anwar , Scarlett Bendelow and Rich Himsworth spoke at the February Tees Business LIVE , held at Bloom in Middlesbrough .
Tees Business LIVE : February 2024
BLOOM , MIDDLESBROUGH
Digital diversity on the agenda during tech event
PICTURES : TOM BANKS
Tees tech leaders have revealed how they ’ re tackling the diversity challenge in the digital workplace – but more work is yet to be done .
Tees Business held its February Tees Business LIVE event at Bloom Show Hall , in association with law firm Womble Bond Dickinson .
The event , attended by around 70 delegates , focused on the local digital scene , and featured four tech business leaders .
Tees Business director Dave Allan quizzed Bob Makin , Imran Anwar , Scarlett Bendelow and Rich Himsworth during the insightful , hour-long Q & A .
Diversity in the local digital world was one of the topics of discussion , and whether enough is being done to attract more women and girls into the industry .
Imran Anwar – governor of Middlesbrough College and the CEO and founder of award-winning Alt Labs and Flok Co-Working Space – said it ’ s getting better , but more has to be done to attract people from the BME background .
“ The big challenge is at grassroots , from schools , colleges and universities . Grassroots coming into careers is where we need to focus ,” he told the audience .
“ As employers , sometimes we might be looking for experienced people and we just don ’ t have the time to train people up if we ’ re on a deadline for a big project . So we go out to recruit talent
“ The focus should be to encourage young women and girls to think of a career in tech .
“ Another key area for us is trying to recruit people from ethnic minority backgrounds . We ’ re looking to launch an ethnic minority programme . We ’ ve identified women need help , we ’ re not seeing them from BME backgrounds coming into the workplace and being given opportunities .
“ There ’ s a lot of work to be done on that , and a lot of it is to do with cultural differences . When we launched Flok , we tried to create an environment that ’ s fitting for everyone , to encourage people from all backgrounds .”
Salesfire UK CEO Rich Himsworth says he has seen a shift in recent years , with more women joining his award-winning Middlesbrough firm .
“ We have pretty much an even split within our business ,” he said .
“ But if you break down businesses in terms of sectors and specialities , it isn ’ t an even split .
“ For example , we can ’ t get male marketing staff . All the best people for marketing roles tend to be female .
“ Our marketing team consists of one man and 11 women . Our development team is all male . Our sales team is virtually all male . Our account management team is about 80 per cent female . So it isn ’ t even within sectors of the industry .
“ As we develop , in a few years ’ time , I think we ’ ll probably have more females working in the business .
“ As businesses , we should be reaching out to the education authorities , the colleges , the universities , and building that connectivity .”
Scarlett Bendelow – head of brand and marketing at Aero Commerce and winner of the Rising Star accolade at last year ’ s Tees Tech Awards – explained why she launched Brave Bold Digital .
“ It was a passion project , to empower , encourage and support women in tech ,” she said .
“ But it was also to open girls ’ eyes to the potential opportunities out there . If you ask girls at school , they usually say they want to do art and English . They don ’ t automatically think of the opportunities in tech .
“ One of the problems is that the tech industry is often pigeonholed as developers and coders . But there ’ s so much more to it than that .”
Behaviour Interactive UK general manager Bob Makin admitted he had issues recruiting women in the early days of SockMonkey Studios .
“ We ’ re now above natural average for a games developer ,” he said .
“ But in our early days we hardly had any women or girls in the business . Breaking down the initial barrier in getting women into the business was the most difficult thing .”
10 | Tees Business