In celebration of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, Privitar is shining the spotlight on some of our amazing women PriviStars. This month, we are featuring interviews with team members across the company, demonstrating the talent, passion, and commitment they bring to their day jobs at Privitar and advancing women in the broader technology landscape. Read on to learn more about Kate Fletcher, VP of Demand Generation at Privitar. 

Describe your role at Privitar 

I serve our global campaigns, field marketing, and digital acquisition teams to drive qualified interest in Privitar solutions alongside our internal sales development teams who convert this interest into concrete demand. Essentially, it’s about sales pipeline growth which involves looking at people, process, and technology elements holistically to provide our sales organization with enough opportunities to grow company market share. 

How did you get started in tech?

I grew up watching my Dad forge a successful career in tech and was adamant I didn’t want to follow that route. But that early exposure to computers and the world wide web (far earlier than most of my peers) meant I saw the power technology could have from an early age. When I later graduated from university, I went straight into a technology marketing role. Here I am a couple of decades later. 

What challenges sit on the path to becoming a female tech leader?

Unfortunately, still far too many. It boils down to a single issue for me: not truly being ourselves at work. This happens for a variety of reasons, but we’re often put in situations where we feel we have to speak less, soften our assertiveness, and much more. I’ve heard it referred to as “intentional invisibility” where women opt for a conflict-avoidance strategy so as not to be seen negatively by colleagues. But we are all acutely aware of the rewards of visibility. 

So the more women in senior roles who are themselves at that level — and bold at that level — the better. This is the responsibility: to be authentic in these positions and to encourage younger women to not even question themselves. 

What are your professional passions? 

To help more women feel confident at work and “choose to challenge.” It can be really difficult and often dismissed, but I do it for my fearless 6-year old niece so that when she enters the workforce, being a woman in tech is no longer even a conversation. As I’ve already alluded to, seeing is believing.

What inspires you about working in this space?

I’ll always remember being at my regular blood donation prior to joining Privitar. As I was sitting giving a pint of blood, I read a banner about the NHS using de-identified data from personal donation records to investigate how donor experiences can be improved. Privitar’s data provisioning solution enables this to happen while protecting a person’s human right to privacy. We’ve seen far too many examples of companies abusing personal data for financial gain. But data can be used safely—- and for the greater good.

How do you drive change? Not just in your team, but across the business and the industry?

In order to drive change, you must first prepare people for change, especially in the fast-paced environment of working at a tech startup. I try to prepare people for change by breeding a culture of humility, where people are applauded for admitting ignorance and asking questions. After all, when driving change, there is no handbook and we don’t always know the answers. 

What’s the biggest change that needs to happen in order to encourage more women to pursue technical careers?

We need to start at school. There is a huge disparity between the number of women in tech compared to men—not surprising given the woefully low representation of females taking STEM subjects in education. It is improving, but we still need to get more females interested. Tech is such a significant part of our everyday lives now that there’s a strong argument that computer science and coding should be taught by default just as mathematics is. 

I have never known a time when there was not a skills shortage for technical expertise. Encouraging women into these careers would not only increase the talent pool, but it would also highlight the importance of soft skills in these roles too. Technical expertise is worthless without the ability to interpret and deliver it. 

Any final thoughts or fun facts that you’d like to share?

Give blood if you can!

Learn more about life at Privitar by checking out our Careers page.