EP26 Amiee Stroud : Shattering the Glass Ceiling in The world of Data & digital Marketing and Inspiring Resilience

Episode 26 Our next guest is Amiee Stroud , Director Business development for data driven marketing business 
What does it take to break through the glass ceiling in the digital marketing industry? Join us for an enlightening chat with Amiee, a seasoned trailblazer and senior director of new business, who's made her mark in this male-dominated field. From managing her company's largest account at just 22, to her relentless pursuit of mastering her craft, Amy's journey will inspire and motivate. 

We kick things off by delving into Amiee's decade-long career journey. She dissects the evolution of salespeople, reveals how she overcame gender-based barriers, and the stereotypes she battled to become a top salesperson in her company. Amiee's tenacity and resilience are palpable as she shares her victories and challenges in the data forecasting and marketing industry. 

We also explore the delicate balance between professional grit and personal space. Amiee gives us a glimpse into her world - the sacrifices made, the peace found in the countryside, and how she's managed to strike that elusive balance. As we wrap up, we underscore the power of resilience, character, and attitude in overcoming adversity. Amiee's story is not just inspirational, it's a call to action for all young women looking to leave their mark. So hop on board and remember to share the Trailblazers Experience podcast - it's a journey you won't want to miss.
0:00 Intro
0:12 Journey in Digital Marketing
8:59 Challenges, Success, and Growth in Advertising
20:02 Workplace Challenges & Building Support
27:24  Balancing Work and Personal Life
34:34  Post-Pandemic Work Ethic
37:14  Trailblazer takeaways
40:51 Inspiring Young Women Through Resilience

Watch on Youtube https://youtu.be/XwpprcIHqZE
Follow Amiee Stroud 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amiee-stroud-brown-86848b47/

Listen : to the audio version Apple Spotify .Amazon Music Google Podcasts
Watch and subscribe to my YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@Thetrailblazersexperience
Follow Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/thetrailblazersexperience/

Transcript

The Trailblazers Experience: 0:12

Welcome to another episode of the Trailblazers Experience podcast, and my lovely guest today is Amy Hi. How are you? Hello, I'm good.

Amiee Stroud : 0:20

Thank you. How are you this sunny Friday morning?

The Trailblazers Experience: 0:24

Sunny Friday morning Rolling into the weekend is sort of what I'm. I'm just waiting for wine o'clock is what I would say For those that don't drink alcohol. See, they're mocktails, maybe later Markling water o'clock. But yeah, I am so excited. Exactly, exactly exactly the four litres a day motto that we're supposed to adhere to. I am so happy to have you, Amy, really just to acknowledge you as a Trailblazer woman and talk about your journey and your story and hopefully share some learnings for the women out there.

Amiee Stroud : 1:03

Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited. I'm excited to come on for a little while. So glad we got there.

The Trailblazers Experience: 1:09

I know it's been a long time in the making, but good things come to those who wait. As I Before the audience for the audience. Amy is a senior director of new business in a data forecast marketing company. This company describes itself as they're allowing themselves to help brands unlock their potential of the customer database by using industry leading identification platform to create a single customer view and message. Amy is has over a decade experience working across everything from what we know is PPC, affiliate display, email on site and loyalty for e-commerce brands and big agency groups. So a lot of scope there and a lot of history as well.

Amiee Stroud : 1:57

Yeah, I think you went as far into describing the company I work for without actually saying the name, so any Googlers out there can definitely do a quick Google and find out exactly who that is. So, yeah, definitely a lot of scope, and within that I've worked. When I started my career, I was in operations, so literally all the way from how a website works operationally up to what I do now, which is much more kind of enterprise sales for big businesses wanting to utilize their data in different ways.

The Trailblazers Experience: 2:33

And how does one drop into this? You know this space and this sector. It's always interesting because we know that, those who are in Silicon Valley, that's sort of how you end up working for tech and technology and so on. But how did you drop into the space? Was it planned? Was it something you always had an interest in, or did your journey just start completely different? Tell me about it.

Amiee Stroud : 2:55

Yeah, I think the answer is very similar to a lot of people who work in digital marketing. E-commerce is it was an accident, and now I'm here and I like it and there's lots of things to enjoy. It's always changing. You're always learning something, but no, I never. I was not a child dreaming of selling online media campaigns at all. So I actually.

Amiee Stroud : 3:21

I only went to university for three months and I hated it. I thought it was terrible. I didn't like the people I had to live with. I didn't particularly like my course. So I came home crying at Christmas and said please don't let me go back, I hate it. And understandably, my parents at the time said yeah, sure you can quit if you find a job before the start of the new term.

Amiee Stroud : 3:54

My uncle my mom's brother was. He had been working in media for years and so at Christmas I relayed my my crying I hate it, please help me find something else to do. And he helped me to get an internship at a shopping comparison website that he had previously worked for, the affiliate arm of the business that owned that website. So I started there in the February and, as I said, as a operations intern, it was very poorly suited to any of my skillset. It was a lot of attention to detail my new copying and code.

Amiee Stroud : 4:38

I think a lot of people now in the business that I work in and people that work around me are quite surprised to learn that I used to do pixels on websites. Seems quite unimaginable now. But that's where I started and then slowly moved my way up from please let me talk to some clients I think I'd be a little bit better at that and then worked in client services and then said please, let me sell something, and actually at the time was told that I would be a terrible salesperson and that I didn't have a salesperson personality. So maybe not, and I really had to ask a lot and you know, I think that there's lots of reasons why people might think that In general. I think a lot of historically, especially in the media side, the idea of a salesperson was quite laddy. So like if you were a boy and you like going for drinks with the boys, you're a salesperson for sure.

Amiee Stroud : 5:44

If you're a girl and you're capable of putting a pixel on a website. No way You're not a salesperson. So it took a little while to get to the point and what actually happened at that point is that I was allowed to do sales as long as I kept all my other jobs, so I wasn't given a new role. I was allowed to have a go at sales on top of still doing some operations managing, I think I mean it was crazy. I think I had nearly 200 clients at the time and that range from kind of clients that would tick along and do everything themselves up to clients that were relentless in how much they wanted from you.

Amiee Stroud : 6:29

As you can imagine, it was often some of the smaller brands. I would say you know, bob's law moors wants to know exactly what you're doing with his click budget, whereas somebody big like the department stores they're not that big and then spend, spend, spend, yeah, exactly, and they kind of understand the market and they know that they need to be there and have that visibility on those websites, whereas the smaller guys are relentless. So I was doing all of that. Plus, I was allowed to try and sell some stuff and I did. I sold more stuff than anyone else actually, and that was listings. So stuff is listings on the website, and then I was allowed to actually have that as my job.

The Trailblazers Experience: 7:11

That's so interesting, isn't it about the stereotypes, about what? And it's evolved, thank God for that, isn't it as to what makes a salesperson, but ultimately, resilience, empathy, communication. You talked about how smaller brands want to know more about their budget versus bigger organizations. Has that shaped how you approach dealing with startup brands or brands with smaller budgets now? Has that experience shaped how you approach them? Because I'm sure it's the same now.

Amiee Stroud : 7:42

No, I think it's the same in some ways when you think about big budgets and running especially more brand led activity. Historically, later on in my career, I moved on to repping the big agency groups and those brands that work with the group agencies and they have set budgets and they let the agency kind of plan out whatever they want and it's quite straightforward, especially in branding, reach awareness goals. However, the role I do now because it's so data focused and it's all about how brands can best utilize their customer data Everyone, whether they're a big brand or a small brand, wants to get into my new detail, Because there's no way that you want to be the person that does something that was not in line with GDPR, was not in line with privacy policy. If you're the biggest brand on the smallest. We're having to really get into the depths of the detail with everyone.

The Trailblazers Experience: 8:44

So sort of the early training wheels in your job before is to dealing with brands that are at an intricate level. Rob's Moas, as we call it, has probably helped and shaped those new relationships. Talk to me what's how you got into working for agency and what you've enjoyed about that so far.

Amiee Stroud : 9:07

So there's yeah, I work within a big agency group now, but not on the media side. I work for the data arm and before that I was just selling into the agency groups. Eventually, as you can imagine, after working my way into as I referred to it earlier, being allowed to be a salesperson at my original role, wanting to move on and find something new, I was keen to explore more of the media side, so the display and video and at the time again, 10, 11 years ago, what was the most popular route to explore display as a channel and working in sales on display was to sell into the agencies. So that's when I made a move to a publication and I worked publisher side for a little bit before moving to a mobile DSP and starting to get back into, you know, working out how to sell data, sell different ideas and, potentially, performance to clients.

The Trailblazers Experience: 10:18

And for those who don't know what display advertising is, do you want to just describe what it is before I just say it?

Amiee Stroud : 10:25

Yeah, definitely. At one point I was going around just referring to it as selling rectangles, which in its most basic form you know it kind of is selling rectangles, right, when you're on a publisher site, you're reading the news or you're reading what I read this morning, an article about how stupid cats are. I looked at about 30 videos of cats being stupid this morning, classic, so on any of those sites. When you see the ads that come up mostly different variations of rectangles that is a display ad.

Amiee Stroud : 11:00

Originally it was very square, square landscape skyscraper yes, Double MPU, you name it, and originally it was focused on kind of buying those publisher sites. So when I started selling display it was, I remember we had the big O2, had that big Be More Dog campaign and their whole focus was about oh, we want to deliver our impressions, their rectangles Next to articles about dogs. So it was pretty limited for a while and now it's much more focused around targeting people, figuring out who the right audience is and working back to some kind of performance.

The Trailblazers Experience: 11:46

That's amazing. I mean, the organization you work for now works with some big brands and have done some amazing things. Talk to me about yourself and your career and maybe the things that you're proud of. You know, when you look back, a decade is a very long time and you've worked your way up in organizations and really went for what was right for you said look, university is not for everyone, it's not for me, but I found a niche, I found something I'm good at. What achievements would you say that you're proud of if you were to look back?

Amiee Stroud : 12:17

Yeah, definitely. I mean I'm proud of my career as a whole. As we've alluded to, it's not always easy being a woman who wants to be successful in sales and taken seriously, as you said. I mean I think that's got a lot better and I think that the pathway is a lot easier now. But just manoeuvring around that, historically, there was a phase in my career where I kind of went from when I first moved to a publication it wasn't really the most senior role, I wasn't involved in a lot of direct selling and then from then to about three years later, I had quite a few big leaps in my career quite quickly moving forwards and being more senior and taking being able to take full ownership of what I was doing. The company I worked for before this one. I was. I think I was only probably about 22 when they gave me their biggest account, so I was pretty pleased with myself for that and I did manage to continue to grow it and change the profits. Last year I had a really good year as well. So yeah, I mean definitely there's been lots of highs, lots of movement and forward growth over my career and, I think, a wider thing and somebody said this to me.

Amiee Stroud : 13:45

Once early on, I went to like a women in media event and I saw someone talking. She's quite a famous person in the industry, in media and agency land. She's been around for a long time and afterwards me and my friend went and spoke to her and we said so what do you think makes a woman successful in this business that you've spoken about so many different areas. You've told your story, but what should we do, like, if we want to be successful? What should we be doing? And she said no, your shit inside out. Know it inside out. Know everything about your product, everything about your company, everything about your client, and you can't fail.

Amiee Stroud : 14:30

I think that's something that I've always lived by. And going back to what you mentioned earlier, that history of working in operations, I understand how a website works. I know I might not still be able to do it, but I do know how to put pixels on. I know how to do those more intricate things. I've managed day to day from the smallest clients and had huge workloads, like a lot of clients are having at the moment, you know, and being able to compile all of those things together has always been helpful and also been something that I'm proud of, because I meet a lot of salespeople who do not know. They don't know what's going on. They know a nice story and they tell it and they hope for the best and off they go and historically in a lot of businesses that's worked. But I think times have changed and that ability to really know what's going on in market with your own product is vital across the board now.

The Trailblazers Experience: 15:29

You've really just described the blueprint isn't.

The Trailblazers Experience: 15:31

It Is in terms of know your shit is just fundamental, I think, because a lot of young women you don't understand that the early stages of your career, it's really about you gathering and mastering everything that you do at that level so that when you are in the senior positions which, unfortunately, there's a research that says only 12.6% of directors in media globally are women, so that's still very small, you know To break that glass ceiling and yes, there's so many women paving the way, like this woman who you met and you talked about.

The Trailblazers Experience: 16:09

But she basically said look, it's really hard out there and in order for you to make an impact, break through and be the chosen one amongst you know, maybe 10 or 15 men going for that role, you need to have that acumen, understand your product, your sector to a T. It's so important and I think it's one thing that just needs to be communicated, because the social media world is telling us we're telling people different things that it's really easy and you can do the. You know, only work four hours a day, and so on, and I was like I do not recall in my early 20s working only for four hours.

Amiee Stroud : 16:47

I was like why I see so many career advice posts on Instagram and they all talking about you know, really back yourself, make sure you're backing yourself. And I think, unfortunately, some people who haven't had a lot of time in industry think that means just saying I'm really good and I'm going to be really good. But what it does mean is exactly what we're saying like go back and learn everything I did. I once interviewed somebody who that was. They really backed themselves. They really said they were going to be so good, they were going to be the best and they are the best. So they didn't know anything. You know and you could really feel that that's they kind of had taken half the story of you've got to back yourself, otherwise you won't get anywhere, but they'd missed that extra bit of and know what you're talking about and that's that's. That's vital, right? That's what everyone needs to know if they want to get on in the world.

The Trailblazers Experience: 17:42

It's so interesting because I know, as we rise and you become a director, you know that someone said surround yourself, build teams that you know are probably better than you, that you can delegate, and it takes it's a certain amount of confidence and bravery to acknowledge that you're not good at something and surround yourself with the team that are. But you also have to be curious and understand what they're also doing as well, you know.

Amiee Stroud : 18:12

Yeah, for sure, curious, and actually let them do things. Even if you can do it, you do have to be able to delegate, and that's that's a hard one, isn't it? I found that hard, as I've as I've got a team to be like. I know I could do a really good job on this, but I also know that you need to do it, so I'm going to let you do it. It's hard. I think a lot of people who really care about their own work find that one of the hardest things to just let go. Just let go, let someone else do it. Letting go.

The Trailblazers Experience: 18:43

Mm-hmm, letting go, letting go. Talk to me about the challenges that you've faced, especially as a woman. You've talked about some of them that you've had in the early stages, but maybe hindsight is always an interesting thing. What are the lessons from these challenges that you could maybe impart any knowledge of, any experience you'd like to share? Yeah, I think there are challenges.

Amiee Stroud : 19:06

There will always be challenges that you can take really strong learnings from and you can move forward and think oh, I wish that I had just thought before I sent that email for a little bit longer, and then I would have added in these further two, three sentences. That might have made the difference. I wish I would have put things in writing, especially when you want to progress your career or when you're trying to work with clients or, in your case, maybe with agents. Put it in writing. If you had a conversation, put it in writing. Otherwise someone's going to claim that that's not what they said and that includes your progression. Right, you need to say this is what you told me, this is where we're going and we're going to do it by this day. But a lot of the learnings is also just about. Again, it's all connecting together that ability to let go.

Amiee Stroud : 20:02

I'm a woman. I started my career when I was 19. So until recently which has been another thing for me to get used to I've usually been the youngest person in the room. I'm now sometimes the oldest person in the room and I don't like that at all. But being a woman being the youngest person in the room, I'm not much over five foot tall. It is quite hard to be taken seriously and that has been an issue throughout my career that I would come into a room and just automatically there'd be people in that room that wouldn't take you seriously. And sometimes you can do the right things, you can wear the right clothes, talk in the right way, you can learn everything, like we said inside out. And there will still be people who either are threatened by you because they think you're younger than me, you're a woman and you're better than me, or just won't respect you, no matter what, and you can't always change those people and I think when I was younger I would get quite head up on trying to prove that those people were wrong. I've worked with some challenging people in, I think, one person in particular in an old company who just would not respect me, no matter what I did. They would try and tell me off at work like I was a naughty child and there was nothing I could do.

Amiee Stroud : 21:39

But I was in my early 20s and I felt very determined that I was not going to be you know, and I was going to convince this person to think differently and I never was, and really the time I spent trying to convince this person to respect me and convince this person to think differently would have been a lot better spent going out and meeting another client, you know, and it's trying to, and it doesn't come instantly, because you have to learn when's the right time to challenge someone and to try and change the way that things work and when's the right time to say you know, this isn't for me and I could go and work somewhere where I am respected or I could just ignore you, a person that works in my office, and get on with something different.

Amiee Stroud : 22:27

And I think you know it takes a long time, but that's a point that I've got to you now in my career where, okay, if you're that kind of person and you don't respect women, you don't respect me because you think I'm too small. That's fine, lots of people do. So I'm going to move on, you know.

The Trailblazers Experience: 22:46

I think that's a very valuable lesson and thank you for sharing that moment. You know it's being vulnerable and talking about an experience that you had and, you know, at a time where you couldn't do anything about it because it just was the way it is. But we are so happy to be in and that's one of the benefits of the time that we're in right now is there's more openness. You know, hr diversity and inclusion are formed into the charters, into the corporate governance of a business.

The Trailblazers Experience: 23:21

It's something that is, I mean, respect is really important. You know you can criticize someone for their work and so on, but there's a way to go about it and make sure that the person has understood what's been done wrong or what could be improved. There are ways of having those discussions and, of course, we should be human in the workplace and, you know, have those off the record conversations and say, look, I didn't agree with what you did, et cetera, et cetera. But it should be balanced. I think, you know, treating people with dignity, respect, especially women, is still important and making sure that all the young women out there know that and have a voice and they should speak up if something happens. But yeah, we've been through some things, isn't it?

Amiee Stroud : 24:09

It's constantly evolving and I think you know it's important that, as you and I and women in general move forward in our careers, that we recognize that that responsibility lays on us as much as anyone else. You know I've potentially given you examples there of times when I've clashed with men, but I've equally clashed with women at work and that's so important that we help each other and try and progress together rather than turning it into something which is overly competitive. Healthy competition yeah, you always want a bit of healthy competition, but not overly competitive, not challenging each other for no reason, and I'm really lucky that the team I work in now is not like that at all. But historically there have been places that have been like that or there's been meetings I've had with people that just have purposely wanted to be the important woman in the room and that's not how it should be. We should all be important.

The Trailblazers Experience: 25:14

I've always found that very weird, do you?

The Trailblazers Experience: 25:16

know, it's always very noticeable when and honestly, I had worked with men for so long, I was really just what I was used to, and what I love about men, who are definitely our allies, are they're very direct, they're in your face, they say it like it is and there's no back talk, back stabbing. It's really. They say it like it is, to your face and that's it, and they don't take it personal. You know, it's just okay. This was for this moment. The next day we continue and I've worked with some women where I just thought what is going on here?

Amiee Stroud : 25:53

It's like being back in high school.

The Trailblazers Experience: 25:56

Yeah, I know it's very ambiguous. What's going on? And you're right, we really need to each one teach one stay together. You know this is the purpose of the podcast, or even you know the events that we attend. When we see our women there, we are proud. We need to stand tall and represent and build each other up so that you know that glass ceiling becomes even. It's no longer glass ceiling, it's shattered. Yeah, it's open for so many women. But I think that for me was the biggest shock where I thought, hey, women, what's going on? Why does this feel like I'm in a episode of Clueless, or you know?

Amiee Stroud : 26:36

Yeah, I thought that one was. I thought that lady was your friend. Now you're saying something terrible about her and we're at work. Who's so surprised?

The Trailblazers Experience: 26:45

Yeah, yeah. And I always say my thing is have you had this conversation with this person? Are you telling me something that this person already knows? Because if that's the case, she knows about what, then that's fine, but if you haven't had that conversation yet, you know, come on, have that conversation. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Talk to me about your worth, work ethic and values, and has that changed or evolved over time?

Amiee Stroud : 27:16

Yeah, I think values, values wise, I definitely believe that you get out of work what you put into it. And again, like we said, if you feel like you're putting absolutely everything into a role and you're getting nothing back, that's not the role for you. And I do believe in working in sales, what you put in is what you get out. There's elements of luck or the market changing, or you know a business you've worked on for two years going out of business. You can't control all those things, but if you've worked hard enough, you've got a backup and that will always be the case and that translates into so many different areas of business and of our careers. If you work really hard, you should get results Right. I think work ethic as I've got older, I definitely have more of a view on having a bit of a work life balance, as I said. I mean, when I wanted to be a salesperson, I did three full time jobs on a one full time job salary, because that's what I wanted, and I worked late and I lived two hours from the office and I went in every day and maybe that was verging on some kind of insanity to do that. I don't recommend that anyone does that Start their career. That was a lot. But now and I think a lot of people like that, you know post pandemic, you realise actually it's quite nice to be able to have some flowers in my garden that I actually vaguely managed to water most days of the week because I'm not in the office until 10 o'clock at night. It's quite nice to be able to.

Amiee Stroud : 29:00

I've I know I said to you before we started I've started running and I really want to make sure that I do go for my runs because I think that it's is important. It helps me to stay of sound mind and I make time for those things now, and that is a difference to when I was younger. If there was work to do, it didn't matter what else there was in life. I was going to sit and do that work until midnight. And now I'm a bit more balanced. I prioritise going for a run, you know, and also probably a bit better at making sure the work's done a bit more quickly. It takes you longer when you don't know what you're doing. It takes you a lot longer when you're not quite sure what you're doing. But yeah, I believe that you have to work hard. You do, and a little bit of work done is better though.

The Trailblazers Experience: 29:59

Yeah, you've described really what I think is. It's for everyone. You make the sacrifices earlier because, al, you're not as skilled, you know things will take you longer. You may have to commute two hours to work, because that's what we need to do. If you're that high achiever and you want to achieve things and learn and progress, it comes with the territory and it's making those sacrifices earlier for you to live the life that you want later in life. And work-life balance, I think, is different for everyone. I think there is no one way to describe it, but it really also depends on what kind of lifestyle you want for yourself to afford. That's what determines how you sort of. You know, if you're still happy, you know living the way you were in your 20s, well then, when you're in your 40s, then do you, but it will burn you out in the end because, yes for sure, it's not sustainable as well. So what do you like to do in your spare time apart from running?

Amiee Stroud : 31:05

Running is actually a big one. I did the London Marathon last year and I would like to do another marathon because I got sick quite a lot beforehand. So again, reasons to get that work-life balance right, so I'm really keen to do one. I'd love to be an under four-hour marathon runner, but I'm currently a almost dead-on five-hour marathon runner because I did not get to do enough training.

The Trailblazers Experience: 31:31

You're still in the marathon club, though. You're still in. Yeah, you're still in the marathon club.

Amiee Stroud : 31:35

Yeah, I'm back to half-maritans now until I feel a bit more confident, and then, yes, I do. I was using a real example. I do have a nice garden with some plants and I grow food at home Again, that classic post-pandemic thing. I've got a vegetable patch, and the reason I've never lived in London so I was doing long two-hour commutes is that I've always had horses as well. So again, something that I think you maybe have laughed at previously riding and more recently trying to create new horses breeding horses.

The Trailblazers Experience: 32:15

So that explains why you live around my showers.

Amiee Stroud : 32:18

then why we're almost neighbors because of the horses.

The Trailblazers Experience: 32:22

That's the main reason it's beautiful living in the countryside, I mean people always ask me why I mean for me it's because I grew up in Zambia, which is sub-Saharan beautiful. There was always greenery and it's something that I craved. I think cities are great concrete jungles. When you're in the hustle of the bustle, you get around, but at some point you just want that peace. I listened to a podcast called Modern Wisdom and he always talks about in the morning sunlight, before screen time. So he makes an effort every morning to go outside, whether it's take a walk etc. And just before you get into the hustle and bustle of being on your different gadgets and apps and we work in digital, so you are in some point always then on your screen and it makes a very big difference. So the fact that horses are very intuitive. You get to get back to you and then when we go to London we can be 300 miles an hour.

Amiee Stroud : 33:25

It's like yeah, I love being in London and this week I was in Soho for several hours just wandering around after meetings and stuff, thinking I miss this so much. I miss having to walk around central London every day as part of my job. But I also loved waking up, not in a city. Exactly as you said, you look outside.

The Trailblazers Experience: 33:52

You found, with a pandemic ending, there is more need for connection. So even with your business, it's more about meeting the clients in person, discussing. Has that become more prevalent, or is it still very much? You know we're working from home. We can do everything via teams or Google Meet, etc. How have you found it?

Amiee Stroud : 34:17

Yeah. So I think there's there's two sides of that, right and from a work perspective the client side, and then there's also the internal working with your teams side. For clients, I say it's 50-50. You know, some people are so glad that they don't have to go and do loads of in-person meetings anymore that I've never met them in person. And I ask, and I ask and I've never met them in person. And there are other people who are so desperate to start meeting new people in person again that when I suggest that I come to their offices they absolutely jump at the chance and I'm there in a matter of days. But it is a real split.

Amiee Stroud : 34:59

I wouldn't say that there's a shift one way or the other.

Amiee Stroud : 35:03

The people who do want to meet are more desperate than ever to meet in person, and then the others are just quite relaxed and happy to keep things virtual, which leads into the internal and managing teams structure, part of that, which is that there are people and you need to recognise now that there are people that will work for you who equally would be quite happy at home and quite happy not coming to the office or not building those face-to-face relationships.

Amiee Stroud : 35:34

But, exactly as you said, it's more important than ever and when we're talking about those people who are starting their careers and you've got individuals who maybe have never worked pre-COVID times it's so important for them to be in the office and to interact with people, to get to know people who are more the kind of more senior members of staff, to understand how the business works, to overhear conversations not overhearing and learning through osmosis of what other people are doing. If you're at home, you just won't progress as quickly if you're always at home in the kind of work that we do, which is so interactive and it's so focused on that understanding of other people that that's only possible if you come into the office.

The Trailblazers Experience: 36:27

I think that's it. I think it's we're embracing flexibility, but, yeah, in the early stages of your career, you will learn so much from those interactions and it's about finding that balance. Isn't it as an organization, as a leader, to make it work both, both ways? Yeah, for sure, you've had an amazing career and I love the fact that you've talked about your journey in terms of you know it didn't go to uni, which is fine, and you've built an amazing career through hard work over time. If you were to share some trailblazer takeaway tips, what would they be?

Amiee Stroud : 37:07

Takeaway tips, so I think we've mentioned most of them today. Right, you need to know your shit. Know what you are talking about, whether that's the industry, the individual. If you're working on a specific product, know how that product works. Know the technology. You should be able to do several of the roles within your company Not perfectly, not brilliantly, but if you're at the start of your career, you should have a loose grasp of. I could probably be a junior member of any of these teams because I understand how they work.

Amiee Stroud : 37:43

As you move up, you become more specialized. That's fine. You need to understand how it works and how all those gears fit together. And equally, there is no substitute for working hard and making sure that the work gets done. And you can't you can't replicate that. Yes, it's important to make sure that you're looking after yourself. You have enough work-life balance that you're you're not going to burn out completely, but think. You know. You have to think about how you balance that and what you want out of both sides your life outside work and your career.

Amiee Stroud : 38:22

And then the point that we made about it's important to interact with people and to be present.

Amiee Stroud : 38:30

It's going to be different in absolutely every business, every career path that somebody might take, but find a way to interact with other people. Find a way to be visible. The other thing that's really challenging if you're new in your career and you don't have a reputation yet, if you are not visible and people can't see you at work or see the work that you're doing because it's it's something that happens in the background you most likely won't get recognized because these people that are making decisions on your career and your progression they're so busy, they've got 15,000 other things to think about. If you don't show up for yourself and celebrate yourself and make that visible, you might not get recognized. So finding ways to do that the way I think you can do that is is find ways to do that in person, because that's what we all used to do, and I'm sure that other people will have ideas. If, for example, you're working for a business that's 100% remote, there will be ways to celebrate yourself elsewhere as well.

The Trailblazers Experience: 39:33

I love that. Know your shit, pr yourself, work hard. It's like that is a t-shirt, amy, I love that. Yeah, wow, I think, amy, I've really enjoyed this conversation because you're talking about it from a different perspective. They've. You know, all the GCSE results have come out, a level results come out in the UK and there seems to be this pressure for everyone to to go to university when actually work hard in secondary school, you know, get the results that that makes sense, just in case in the future, if you do decide to, you've got them in your back pocket. But other than that, getting into the working world and working your way up in your career, if you've got the skills, it's still okay. And look at you, you've done it, you know.

Amiee Stroud : 40:24

Thanks, yeah, I think that somebody said this to me really early on as well, and I always use it when I interview junior people. And you can learn skills, you can learn skills. You can learn anything, but what you can't always teach is attitude. If you've got the right attitude and you want to make it work, you can learn anything, you can do anything. You can take your, your career, your life where you want to just have the right attitude, just want to make it work.

The Trailblazers Experience: 40:51

I agree, amy, and you have the right attitude, resilience, character. I think you are going to inspire some young lady out there through your this conversation and and your journey, and thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Amiee Stroud : 41:06

Thanks so much for inviting me. I enjoyed it.

The Trailblazers Experience: 41:10

Love it. Thank you very much. Thanks. This has been the Trailblazers Experience podcast and, as you know, remember to subscribe, share, tell another woman about the podcast and through that we continue to bring amazing guests such as Amy and others to come in the future. On that note, bye.