February 17, 2025 • 21 mins
In this episode, Cat Wildman, the founder of Powered by Diversity, talks about her experience of being named Commended Winner of the Agent of Change at the #NPWAwards. Despite the recognition, Cat shares how it triggered imposter syndrome and made her question her own success. As a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion, Cat explains the mission behind Powered by Diversity and how its GEC app helps identify and track imbalances in the workplace.
Cat also reflects on how her career took unexpected turns—from wanting to become a doctor to working at a national newspaper. She discovered that technology, much like science, is about solving problems, but with computers instead of cells. Cat shares the turning point when, at a conference, she realised that “no one was coming to save us,” which led her to set up Powered by Diversity. She talks about the framework she created to bring real change to workplaces and how recent news around diversity and inclusion has been affecting her.
This episode is full of insightful thoughts on diversity, career changes, and the challenges of setting up a business for change.
Chapters: 00:00 - Welcome to the Powered by Diversity Podcast
00:46 - Meet Cat Wildman
01:24 - Cat’s Achievements and Experiences
02:46 - Starting Powered by Diversity
04:21 - Cat’s Career Path and Insights
07:33 - Overcoming Challenges
17:58 - Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
20:55 - Final Thoughts and Goodbye
Find out more about We Are PoWEr here. 💫
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, hello and welcome to the we Are Power
podcast.
If this is your first time here, the we Are Power podcast is
the podcast for you, your careerand your life.
We release an episode everysingle Monday with listeners in
over 60 countries worldwide,where you'll hear personal life
stories, top-notch industryadvice and key leadership
insight from amazing role models.
(00:21):
As we Are Power is the umbrellabrand to Northern Power Women
Awards, which celebrateshundreds of female role models
and advocates every year.
This is where you can hearstories from all of our awards
alumni and stay up to date witheverything.
Mpw Awards and we Are PowerNever imitated, never replicated
(00:47):
singularly wonderful,everybody's wonder girl.
This week, I am delighted to bejoined by Kat Wildman, who is
the co-founder of Powered byDiversity and our commended
winner for Agent of Change atthe 2024 Northern Powering
Awards.
Kat, welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm very excited.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Looks very Hello Magazine there in the background
For those of you listening,just looks very Hello Magazine.
Catch up on the YouTube.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
This is my daughter's bedroom, you know, and it's now
the nicest room in the houseand I'm going to steal it.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Oh, I love it.
I would actually, yeah, I would.
There you go, there you go.
Daughter Come home.
Next time she comes home,everything will be moved out.
You Come home.
Next time she comes home,everything will be moved out.
You are a total advocate fordiversity and inclusion and
(01:35):
dedicated to promoting genderequality.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
You know, right up our street, what did it feel
like to get up to the stage lastyear at the awards and pick up
that trophy.
Oh, my gosh.
I was so, oh gosh, so manythings.
I was feeling a big dollop ofimposter syndrome, as we all
want to do, and no matter howmuch you try and fight against
it, the imposter always is likeare you sure they said your name
Just because the caliber ofpeople who are getting awarded
(01:59):
and it made me so proud as well,which is Northern women, and
I'm like yes, yes, this is greatcelebrating all the northern
women, um, but the overwhelmingfeeling was pride.
I was so proud of myself.
I was so proud that I hadearned my place in that room
with all those phenomenal peopleand a newer power.
I just thought yeah, I'm proud.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
It's like an energy boost, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
in an evening yeah, it's that bit of recognition,
you know, because it'sday-to-day like.
I think, sometimes, when youlook at people on social media,
you look at people on LinkedIn,you think, oh, you're always
doing that sort of stuff, you'realways going to awards, you're
always going to glitzynetworking things, but actually
those are just the things youput on social media and
day-to-day you're grafting,grafting really hard every day
(02:43):
those nice little moments ofrecognition which makes it all
worthwhile and you are, I said,co-founder of Power by Diversity
, and you developed the GEC appin 2020, which is all about
tracking imbalance in theworkplace.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
But just tell us broadly about what what it is
that Power by Diversity does yes, so we started off.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I started off with the co-founder back in the day
and we were doing education andbusiness together, and so what I
wanted to create was adiagnostic that worked for both
education and for organizations,because I'm a scientist and
technologist, and so what I sawwhen I was in the workplace I
was a director in technology.
2017 gender pay gap reportinginitiative came out and I saw
(03:23):
people running around with theirheads on fire, going quick, we
better close our gender pay gap.
And I'm thinking but we don'tknow what the cause is.
I mean, we know the symptom isnot enough women leadership
level, but we don't know thecauses.
And from my own personal livedexperience just one person there
were so many different barriersthat I'd had to navigate to get
to even where I was.
(03:43):
At the time.
I just thought we need adiagnostic here to be able to
break the problem down andaddress the root cause, and I
wanted to do the same thing foreducation, so we formed the GEC
first, which was education andbusiness.
Both of them took off and theaudiences and the customers
wanted them to go in differentdirections, so we split them
into two businesses at the startof 2023.
(04:05):
And now I am founder of Poweredby Diversity.
My ex-co-founder is running theGEC still.
She still does education, Ijust do businesses and yeah,
we've all it's been.
I mean, I can't believe it wasthat long ago.
Now it's flown by, but it alsohasn't flown by.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
And you talk you just mentioned you're a scientist
when.
And you talk you just mentionedyou're a scientist where did
this whole kind of career path?
How did you get to founding abusiness?
Because we we talk on thispodcast an awful lot about.
Nobody has that one straightline, that one career easy
trajectory.
You know, at the age of 14, 15,I know what I'm going to do and
off off a go I'm going to do,but where does?
(04:42):
Can you give us a part ofhistory of yours?
Because it's, it's, it'sinteresting yeah, what was it?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
you said it's like a jungle gym, was that in lean in?
Um, yeah, totally.
I mean, I wish I'd been able toknow at 15 what I wanted to do,
because then I could have justfully focused.
So where where did I go?
So I, um, I did science atschool, did physics, technology
and chemistry at A-level, andthen went to university and did
a biomedical sciences andphysiological sciences degree.
(05:11):
I wanted to be a doctor andthen I changed my mind at uni
and then.
So I came out of the world ofscience and then immediately got
a job working for a nationalnewspaper, in technology, in
projects.
Because actually I was like, ohmy gosh, I don't know anything
about technology, I know nothingabout technology.
And but I got, I got thisentry-level job project
(05:33):
coordinator and loved it,because what I very quickly
realized was that technology isthe same sort of mindset as
science.
It's about gathering the data,it's about making a hypothesis.
Where do do you want to go?
Let's control our experiment,let's do the experiment, let's
measure how it went.
It was basically the exact sameskill set that I had, just
working with computers insteadof cells and microbes.
(05:55):
So, yeah, I loved it straightaway and I just went from there.
I moved into digital product.
Digital product wasn't a thing.
When I got into the workplaceFrom there, I moved into digital
product, digital product wasn'ta thing.
When I got into the workplace,the website was like five guys
in the corner wearing likeAndroid T-shirts.
No one knew what Android wasback then and we were like, oh,
the web guys, what does it evendo?
(06:15):
Who knows, don't know.
And then went to the Telegraph,migrated the website to a new
platform because everyone wassaying podcast, it's all about
multimedia.
It's all about multimedia, it'sall about seo, it's all about
the web, a mobile web.
And we're like, really, is itgoing to be?
What the heck is seo?
(06:35):
And so we went like it was thedawn of the telegraph, going
into that world and it wasreally exciting.
It was such a great project andwe trained all the journalists
and felled off with digital fromthat moment and thought this is
the only area I want to work in, worked my way up to digital
product director and then I,when I was at that at the
telegraph, I was director ofdigital product.
(06:56):
That was when the gender pay gapreporting initiative came out.
I had had three children inthat time and also I had seen
the part as I became a cd readerof people who I was now
recruiting.
They were just men, men, men,men, men, men applying.
And I'm like this why are womenand girls not interested in
stem?
I'm obviously a great big stemgeek.
(07:17):
I love it.
I can't get enough of it.
It's the way my mind works andI just thought I need to get
involved in the scene.
So I got massively involved inthe scene and the more I saw,
the more I saw things I wouldhave the power to be able to
change and, you know, getinvolved in, have some impact in
.
And then, when the when I, whenthe gender pay gap reporting
initiative came out and everyonewas running around with their
(07:37):
heads on fire going we need toclose our gender pay gap right
now, I'm panicking, and went tothis event.
I went to Women of SiliconRoundabout that year and all of
the themes of these womenstanding up on the stage talking
to a room full of 300, 400smart, technical women.
The theme was something has tobe done.
Someone needs to do somethingabout this.
(07:58):
Who's going to do somethingabout this?
This is not right.
It's like give us a call toaction, please Come on.
Thing about this.
This is not right.
It's like give us a call toaction, please come on, we can
solve this problem.
I just wanted the message to belike we can do this, here's
what we can do, and just make uswalk out feeling empowered.
And I walked out feelingexhausted and I just thought I'm
going to work in EDI in someform.
And when I started researchingthat what are the root causes to
(08:21):
the, the gender pay gap I fellin love with that research and
it very easily extrapolated overto other protected
characteristics like race,disability and so on, and I just
thought I'm going to do thisforever now, because I want to
do it for my kids, I want to dothe next generations coming up,
because I don't want them tohave to, you know, climb, scrawl
(08:42):
up their fingers to the bone,getting over the same ridiculous
hurdles that I had to and I'man incredibly privileged white
woman, but I had to go overthose hurdles I just thought do
you know what?
I've got to?
Spend the rest of my careermaking life easier for other
people?
Because it's silly, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
And it's the ultimate .
You're in that room at that bigconference and I can sense you
sort of sat there, me right yeahit was like I walked out of
that room and my main messagewas no one's coming to save us.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
It gives me goosebumps, actually.
It actually gives me goosebumpsremembering it, because I was
like no one's coming.
No one is coming here to saveus.
They've done the gender pay gapreporting initiative.
They've said let's all do thisevery year and now it's up to us
.
Actually, we're the grown-upsnow.
There's not a boss coming downto be like right, okay, what
we're going to do is this.
We can do it.
(09:37):
And then I thought I can writea framework for how to do this.
This is my skill set, this iswhat I enjoy doing.
I'm going to have the audacityto just go and do it.
And I was like oh gosh we'regoing to save ourselves.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
We've got our own capes.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Look at our capes in our bag there, right here, put
the apron round and put it overthe back there.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
And at what point did you?
You know, we talked about that.
Now I need to do something nowbut at what point were you like,
actually, literally, me now,literally, I'm going to be an
entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
It was when I was researching, so I started on
geeking out by myself andlooking at things like bias in
the recruitment process, bias inthe appraisal process,
gathering the scientificresearch that had been done and
there isn't a lot and that wasalso a huge worry in terms of
let's look at a longitudinalstudy of females average
(10:32):
appraisal scores and the sortsof verbatim feedback they get.
I only knew from my own livedexperience.
I was told to grow thicker skin.
I was told to be less emotionaland I'm not an emotional person
.
I was, but if I get annoyedabout something, it's like you
need to be less emotional, youneed to be more stoic about that
.
You needed to take a harderline in there.
You needed to speak up more inthat meeting all of those.
(10:53):
You need to have more gravitas.
That was the feedback I used toget time and time again to
morph me into this leader shapethat they wanted me to be in
order to promote me, basicallytrying to turn me into a bloke,
and I just thought how?
What?
There's no research on this.
I'm going to have to do theresearch and I'm going to have
to write questions like things,like what is belonging.
(11:14):
Everyone's talking aboutinclusion and belonging and for
me, belonging feels a certainway.
I know I feel I like I belongwhen I, when there's certain
things in place.
It's having someone's desk togo and perch on and have a cup
of tea and be like I've just hadthe worst call with the most
annoying person, which reallyannoyed me.
Have someone to, to be able tosay hello to people, feel like
(11:35):
you can be yourself with all ofyour flaws and you're like oh,
why do I put my foot in my mouthall the time?
Am I too loud?
That sort of thing?
It's like, no, I'm not, becauseI'm here with my people.
That's my belonging.
But every other individualperson has a different sense of
belonging.
And who's done that work to lookat the diagnostics for
belonging?
What does that mean?
To belong at an organization?
(11:56):
And that when I realized it wasme, I was like I love this
stuff and I geek out massivelyabout this.
I enjoy it.
I'm doing this for a sidehustle, this is my hobby, so I
want to do it for my job.
You know when people say whenyou do what you love, you never
work a day in your life.
Now my husband is like you needto get some hobbies.
And I'm like, but this was myhobby and now it's my work and
so sorry, I'll just do this.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
That, that is your t-shirt.
We talk a lot on the pod aboutum, you know the tote bag
moments, but you, you just havea whole brand range.
Now I geek out that is it,that's my t-shirt, that's your
t-shirt, your bag.
Now, kat, you need that can beyour new hobby, your own merch
range.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I will get that t-shirt and I will send you a
photo and I want to sort of stepinto the.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
You know you, you then went right.
Actually, I'm going to take myside hustle and turn it into my,
my business.
But I just want to track backon some of the, the where you
were told to you know, be morestoic, be more this, be more
this.
Um, what's your thoughts onhaving more masculine energy?
Oh, my gosh, I've said it outloud now.
What to start to the year onsocial media?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
it's I mean, if you want to see someone triggered,
it's me reading the news.
My husband tries to read methings.
Last night he read me.
He showed me a headline of anarticle.
What was the article about?
Something about edi.
Oh, this 75 year old woman hadto go on edi training because
(13:23):
she liked to post about illegalimmigrants and like embraces
connotations.
She was asked to go on thisdiversity training and the whole
thing was how can you ask herto do this?
She's 75 year old woman, etc.
Then the next article was aboutthe murder and one of the
questions they picked out wasthey asked her what a pansexual
was.
She's 75.
Like this feeling of outrage ofhow could they make her do it?
(13:45):
The next article was about themurder of a trans girl, the
stabbing of a trans girl, andI'm like can you not put those
two things together?
Like really it's this headlinegrabbing, sensationalist
posturing thing that is going tobe very embarrassing in the
future, people who are comingout and saying all this stuff
(14:07):
about we need more masculineenergy.
I mean, what does that even?
Please define that?
I'm a scientist.
I need to know what is yourdefinition of masculine energy?
Please tell me.
But also, the stuff about EDI isout and this, this, this.
It's like, well, back yourselfbecause let's have a
conversation about it.
What is it about EDI thatyou're throwing out?
Is it one specific part of it?
(14:32):
Because you will be doing stuffand it's these headlines, which
are five words and they say athousand things to a thousand
different people and it's justgiving the wrong messages and
they're going to look back andthey're on the wrong side of
history.
Because I'm raising threegeneration alpha kids and if you
think Gen Z are woke and I'mwith it with this stuff, they
have not met Gen Alpha.
They learn about this stuff.
At every assembly my kids havehad non-binary teacher.
They are horrified and outragedby anything to do with not
(14:54):
accepting LGBTQ plus families,not accepting people's gender
identities.
They just get it, it's just inthem and they're coming into the
workforce.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
And do you think it is?
We have to back ourselvesbecause there's a lot of people
and conversations I'm having atthe moment that are worried that
work around the equalityinclusion space and it's
actually let's face it, they'renot spaces.
It's what we should be doingevery day.
It's in our every assembly, inour DNA.
How do we take the fear away?
(15:25):
Because I feel like there's alot of fear out there and
there's a lot of fear fromorganisations automatically
putting the brakes on andstopping and considering it,
which is that's a worry,especially for businesses out
there.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Definitely yeah, and we encounter.
The biggest thing that Iencounter when we're training
people is fear, and it'stackling the fear.
What I would say is get offsocial media, get off.
Don't follow activists, don'tfollow people on LinkedIn who
are making you feel afraid.
It's those.
The activist space is incrediblyimportant.
It is essential for the workthat we all do, but actually,
(15:59):
when you are ready to learn andyou're and you're taking your
first steps, it's time to shutthose messages off now, because
they do propagate fear.
That's what they are designedto do, and rightly so.
But when you're in the learningspace, you suddenly become
aware of what you don't know andthat gulf feels enormous.
Um, and you're also in, you'reentering the bottom of the
change curve where all you wantto do is go back and you're like
(16:20):
, oh no, I don't obtain from my.
I'm scared.
It's that bargaining.
Please don't make me do this.
And people are so vulnerablewhen they're in that we call it
the terror zone, because they'resuddenly aware of all the
things they don't know.
They've got this big curriculumof things.
They feel like they have tolearn ahead of them.
So I would say switch offanyone who makes you feel afraid
and talk to real humans,because the real humans in your
(16:44):
office, in your workplace, inyour life you know on the
streets who you meet in yourfriendship groups, your wider
they're never going to scream atyou for using the wrong word.
They're going to want to have aconversation.
If you say to them, you knowwhat is inclusion to you.
Or do you experience this sortof stuff?
Or how did you feel during theriots over the summer?
They'll talk to you about itand they're not going to scream
(17:05):
in your face and they're notgoing to like cancel you.
Real people are not like thatand so when people this is what
all of our training is isexposure to real people and just
building back up theirconfidence to say the thing and
not worry if it's the rightthing so much that you end up
saying nothing and then causingexclusion.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
So yeah, it is a real problem but I think is one of
the solutions.
It's the real life talk to reallife people, as opposed to
reading fake news yes,absolutely yes.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I'm following activists who are amazing, but
when you're in that fear zone,not helpful as much get out the
fear zone back yourself.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
You are a self-confessed startup junkie.
And do we all have an innerstartup junkie?
I suppose I think probably.
Yes.
I was sort of 45 before I setmy own business up and thought,
gosh, now I'm like, oh yeah,this is a business.
Who knew?
What advice would you give toindividuals out there who have
(18:03):
got those side hustles or havegot those passions or have got
have been in that room that goand looking around and no one
else is doing it and they'relike I want to do this.
What's the top tip?
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Gosh, that makes me so excited when you just said
that there's people right nowwho are in that room.
Being like this is wrong and Icould do it better.
And yeah, do it first of all,do it.
Um, but subheading, make surethat you.
It's a it's a tough world.
It is tough.
(18:34):
You know as well as I do.
It is tough and the things thatpeople put online are such an
edited version of the actualtruth.
If we all put what actuallyhappens day-to-day life and
running and growing a business,don't whatever.
Start a business, uh, but youput the highlights on, it all
looks glossy.
I would say make sure thatyou've got your support network.
(18:55):
Find your tribe.
Don't compare yourself againstpeople who you see.
Don't compare yourself againstpeople in the interviews who've
made, you know, seven figureexits and this and this.
Don't ever look at peoplewho've existed from silicon
roundabout at silicon valley,because you'll feel miserable
work on what.
One thing I'd say, a bit ofconcrete advice is think about
(19:17):
your own personal successfactors not to do with money.
So I'll know I've been asuccess when, for example, for
me, I can drop my kids off atschool every day and pick them
up, I can go to every sports dayand play I've got.
I can close my laptop at theend of the day and not have
anyone shouting at me, althoughthat's still a bit of a pipe
dream.
I don't really do.
I do that.
No, I'm not saying I take myown advice, but just think about
(19:41):
your own success factors anddon't tie them to like
necessarily exiting for x amountof money and I know you were
raised by a mum who made youbelieve you could do anything.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Now, this is one of the things that amused me that
at 45, your your mum applied toManchester City Football Club
yes, she did, oh my god shewanted to.
She applied to manage.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Sorry, she applied to she applied to be the manager
of man City.
Like, literally, my husbandtells this story in public and
I'm like, oh my gosh,embarrassing.
That's the sort of woman thatshe was.
She was just there.
When you say she told me Icould be anything, she believed
that to her core, like whetherthat was a saying belief or not,
I'm not so sure, but shecertainly raised me to be like
(20:25):
if you want it, go for it.
You know if, if she, if I hadgenuinely wanted to be the
manager of man City, she wouldhave supported me, helped me
find what courses to do.
Like, yeah, she, that was my,my role model.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
I'm sensing right now , the apple does not fall far
from the tree cat.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Well, like, so I've got more realistic expectations
of what I can achieve, thoughI'm not going to be the manager
of man City.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Well, I think he's just signed on for a super
contract, so you know, it mightbe next time round, who knows?
But what is your superpower,Kat my?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
superpower is being able to get back up again.
I really like my own fire.
So I have this internal pilotlight is how I think of it, and
even if I'm getting worn down bylife and cynical, I know that I
just give myself a bit of time,a bit of inspiration, and that
pilot light will light up againand fire me on.
(21:15):
So I'd say it's just theability to just keep getting up
amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Kat Wildman, utter inner geek serial startupper.
You're all about real life,real experience, reality,
telling those real life stories,cutting out the noise.
Kat, thank you so much forjoining me today.
You're a total and utter legend.
Thank you for having mesubscribe on youtube, apple,
(21:43):
amazon music, spotify orwherever you get your podcasts.
Leave us a review or follow uson socials.
We are power underscore net onInsta, tiktok and Twitter.
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power on YouTube.
Hello, hello and welcome to the we Are Power
podcast.
If this is your first time here, the we Are Power podcast is
the podcast for you, your careerand your life.
We release an episode everysingle Monday with listeners in
over 60 countries worldwide,where you'll hear personal life
stories, top-notch industryadvice and key leadership
insight from amazing role models.
(00:21):
As we Are Power is the umbrellabrand to Northern Power Women
Awards, which celebrateshundreds of female role models
and advocates every year.
This is where you can hearstories from all of our awards
alumni and stay up to date witheverything.
Mpw Awards and we Are PowerNever imitated, never replicated
(00:47):
singularly wonderful,everybody's wonder girl.
This week, I am delighted to bejoined by Kat Wildman, who is
the co-founder of Powered byDiversity and our commended
winner for Agent of Change atthe 2024 Northern Powering
Awards.
Kat, welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm very excited.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Looks very Hello Magazine there in the background
For those of you listening,just looks very Hello Magazine.
Catch up on the YouTube.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
This is my daughter's bedroom, you know, and it's now
the nicest room in the houseand I'm going to steal it.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Oh, I love it.
I would actually, yeah, I would.
There you go, there you go.
Daughter Come home.
Next time she comes home,everything will be moved out.
You Come home.
Next time she comes home,everything will be moved out.
You are a total advocate fordiversity and inclusion and
(01:35):
dedicated to promoting genderequality.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
You know, right up our street, what did it feel
like to get up to the stage lastyear at the awards and pick up
that trophy.
Oh, my gosh.
I was so, oh gosh, so manythings.
I was feeling a big dollop ofimposter syndrome, as we all
want to do, and no matter howmuch you try and fight against
it, the imposter always is likeare you sure they said your name
Just because the caliber ofpeople who are getting awarded
(01:59):
and it made me so proud as well,which is Northern women, and
I'm like yes, yes, this is greatcelebrating all the northern
women, um, but the overwhelmingfeeling was pride.
I was so proud of myself.
I was so proud that I hadearned my place in that room
with all those phenomenal peopleand a newer power.
I just thought yeah, I'm proud.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
It's like an energy boost, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
in an evening yeah, it's that bit of recognition,
you know, because it'sday-to-day like.
I think, sometimes, when youlook at people on social media,
you look at people on LinkedIn,you think, oh, you're always
doing that sort of stuff, you'realways going to awards, you're
always going to glitzynetworking things, but actually
those are just the things youput on social media and
day-to-day you're grafting,grafting really hard every day
(02:43):
those nice little moments ofrecognition which makes it all
worthwhile and you are, I said,co-founder of Power by Diversity
, and you developed the GEC appin 2020, which is all about
tracking imbalance in theworkplace.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
But just tell us broadly about what what it is
that Power by Diversity does yes, so we started off.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I started off with the co-founder back in the day
and we were doing education andbusiness together, and so what I
wanted to create was adiagnostic that worked for both
education and for organizations,because I'm a scientist and
technologist, and so what I sawwhen I was in the workplace I
was a director in technology.
2017 gender pay gap reportinginitiative came out and I saw
(03:23):
people running around with theirheads on fire, going quick, we
better close our gender pay gap.
And I'm thinking but we don'tknow what the cause is.
I mean, we know the symptom isnot enough women leadership
level, but we don't know thecauses.
And from my own personal livedexperience just one person there
were so many different barriersthat I'd had to navigate to get
to even where I was.
(03:43):
At the time.
I just thought we need adiagnostic here to be able to
break the problem down andaddress the root cause, and I
wanted to do the same thing foreducation, so we formed the GEC
first, which was education andbusiness.
Both of them took off and theaudiences and the customers
wanted them to go in differentdirections, so we split them
into two businesses at the startof 2023.
(04:05):
And now I am founder of Poweredby Diversity.
My ex-co-founder is running theGEC still.
She still does education, Ijust do businesses and yeah,
we've all it's been.
I mean, I can't believe it wasthat long ago.
Now it's flown by, but it alsohasn't flown by.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
And you talk you just mentioned you're a scientist
when.
And you talk you just mentionedyou're a scientist where did
this whole kind of career path?
How did you get to founding abusiness?
Because we we talk on thispodcast an awful lot about.
Nobody has that one straightline, that one career easy
trajectory.
You know, at the age of 14, 15,I know what I'm going to do and
off off a go I'm going to do,but where does?
(04:42):
Can you give us a part ofhistory of yours?
Because it's, it's, it'sinteresting yeah, what was it?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
you said it's like a jungle gym, was that in lean in?
Um, yeah, totally.
I mean, I wish I'd been able toknow at 15 what I wanted to do,
because then I could have justfully focused.
So where where did I go?
So I, um, I did science atschool, did physics, technology
and chemistry at A-level, andthen went to university and did
a biomedical sciences andphysiological sciences degree.
(05:11):
I wanted to be a doctor andthen I changed my mind at uni
and then.
So I came out of the world ofscience and then immediately got
a job working for a nationalnewspaper, in technology, in
projects.
Because actually I was like, ohmy gosh, I don't know anything
about technology, I know nothingabout technology.
And but I got, I got thisentry-level job project
(05:33):
coordinator and loved it,because what I very quickly
realized was that technology isthe same sort of mindset as
science.
It's about gathering the data,it's about making a hypothesis.
Where do do you want to go?
Let's control our experiment,let's do the experiment, let's
measure how it went.
It was basically the exact sameskill set that I had, just
working with computers insteadof cells and microbes.
(05:55):
So, yeah, I loved it straightaway and I just went from there.
I moved into digital product.
Digital product wasn't a thing.
When I got into the workplaceFrom there, I moved into digital
product, digital product wasn'ta thing.
When I got into the workplace,the website was like five guys
in the corner wearing likeAndroid T-shirts.
No one knew what Android wasback then and we were like, oh,
the web guys, what does it evendo?
(06:15):
Who knows, don't know.
And then went to the Telegraph,migrated the website to a new
platform because everyone wassaying podcast, it's all about
multimedia.
It's all about multimedia, it'sall about seo, it's all about
the web, a mobile web.
And we're like, really, is itgoing to be?
What the heck is seo?
(06:35):
And so we went like it was thedawn of the telegraph, going
into that world and it wasreally exciting.
It was such a great project andwe trained all the journalists
and felled off with digital fromthat moment and thought this is
the only area I want to work in, worked my way up to digital
product director and then I,when I was at that at the
telegraph, I was director ofdigital product.
(06:56):
That was when the gender pay gapreporting initiative came out.
I had had three children inthat time and also I had seen
the part as I became a cd readerof people who I was now
recruiting.
They were just men, men, men,men, men, men applying.
And I'm like this why are womenand girls not interested in
stem?
I'm obviously a great big stemgeek.
(07:17):
I love it.
I can't get enough of it.
It's the way my mind works andI just thought I need to get
involved in the scene.
So I got massively involved inthe scene and the more I saw,
the more I saw things I wouldhave the power to be able to
change and, you know, getinvolved in, have some impact in
.
And then, when the when I, whenthe gender pay gap reporting
initiative came out and everyonewas running around with their
(07:37):
heads on fire going we need toclose our gender pay gap right
now, I'm panicking, and went tothis event.
I went to Women of SiliconRoundabout that year and all of
the themes of these womenstanding up on the stage talking
to a room full of 300, 400smart, technical women.
The theme was something has tobe done.
Someone needs to do somethingabout this.
(07:58):
Who's going to do somethingabout this?
This is not right.
It's like give us a call toaction, please Come on.
Thing about this.
This is not right.
It's like give us a call toaction, please come on, we can
solve this problem.
I just wanted the message to belike we can do this, here's
what we can do, and just make uswalk out feeling empowered.
And I walked out feelingexhausted and I just thought I'm
going to work in EDI in someform.
And when I started researchingthat what are the root causes to
(08:21):
the, the gender pay gap I fellin love with that research and
it very easily extrapolated overto other protected
characteristics like race,disability and so on, and I just
thought I'm going to do thisforever now, because I want to
do it for my kids, I want to dothe next generations coming up,
because I don't want them tohave to, you know, climb, scrawl
(08:42):
up their fingers to the bone,getting over the same ridiculous
hurdles that I had to and I'man incredibly privileged white
woman, but I had to go overthose hurdles I just thought do
you know what?
I've got to?
Spend the rest of my careermaking life easier for other
people?
Because it's silly, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
And it's the ultimate .
You're in that room at that bigconference and I can sense you
sort of sat there, me right yeahit was like I walked out of
that room and my main messagewas no one's coming to save us.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
It gives me goosebumps, actually.
It actually gives me goosebumpsremembering it, because I was
like no one's coming.
No one is coming here to saveus.
They've done the gender pay gapreporting initiative.
They've said let's all do thisevery year and now it's up to us
.
Actually, we're the grown-upsnow.
There's not a boss coming downto be like right, okay, what
we're going to do is this.
We can do it.
(09:37):
And then I thought I can writea framework for how to do this.
This is my skill set, this iswhat I enjoy doing.
I'm going to have the audacityto just go and do it.
And I was like oh gosh we'regoing to save ourselves.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
We've got our own capes.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Look at our capes in our bag there, right here, put
the apron round and put it overthe back there.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
And at what point did you?
You know, we talked about that.
Now I need to do something nowbut at what point were you like,
actually, literally, me now,literally, I'm going to be an
entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
It was when I was researching, so I started on
geeking out by myself andlooking at things like bias in
the recruitment process, bias inthe appraisal process,
gathering the scientificresearch that had been done and
there isn't a lot and that wasalso a huge worry in terms of
let's look at a longitudinalstudy of females average
(10:32):
appraisal scores and the sortsof verbatim feedback they get.
I only knew from my own livedexperience.
I was told to grow thicker skin.
I was told to be less emotionaland I'm not an emotional person
.
I was, but if I get annoyedabout something, it's like you
need to be less emotional, youneed to be more stoic about that
.
You needed to take a harderline in there.
You needed to speak up more inthat meeting all of those.
(10:53):
You need to have more gravitas.
That was the feedback I used toget time and time again to
morph me into this leader shapethat they wanted me to be in
order to promote me, basicallytrying to turn me into a bloke,
and I just thought how?
What?
There's no research on this.
I'm going to have to do theresearch and I'm going to have
to write questions like things,like what is belonging.
(11:14):
Everyone's talking aboutinclusion and belonging and for
me, belonging feels a certainway.
I know I feel I like I belongwhen I, when there's certain
things in place.
It's having someone's desk togo and perch on and have a cup
of tea and be like I've just hadthe worst call with the most
annoying person, which reallyannoyed me.
Have someone to, to be able tosay hello to people, feel like
(11:35):
you can be yourself with all ofyour flaws and you're like oh,
why do I put my foot in my mouthall the time?
Am I too loud?
That sort of thing?
It's like, no, I'm not, becauseI'm here with my people.
That's my belonging.
But every other individualperson has a different sense of
belonging.
And who's done that work to lookat the diagnostics for
belonging?
What does that mean?
To belong at an organization?
(11:56):
And that when I realized it wasme, I was like I love this
stuff and I geek out massivelyabout this.
I enjoy it.
I'm doing this for a sidehustle, this is my hobby, so I
want to do it for my job.
You know when people say whenyou do what you love, you never
work a day in your life.
Now my husband is like you needto get some hobbies.
And I'm like, but this was myhobby and now it's my work and
so sorry, I'll just do this.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
That, that is your t-shirt.
We talk a lot on the pod aboutum, you know the tote bag
moments, but you, you just havea whole brand range.
Now I geek out that is it,that's my t-shirt, that's your
t-shirt, your bag.
Now, kat, you need that can beyour new hobby, your own merch
range.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I will get that t-shirt and I will send you a
photo and I want to sort of stepinto the.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
You know you, you then went right.
Actually, I'm going to take myside hustle and turn it into my,
my business.
But I just want to track backon some of the, the where you
were told to you know, be morestoic, be more this, be more
this.
Um, what's your thoughts onhaving more masculine energy?
Oh, my gosh, I've said it outloud now.
What to start to the year onsocial media?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
it's I mean, if you want to see someone triggered,
it's me reading the news.
My husband tries to read methings.
Last night he read me.
He showed me a headline of anarticle.
What was the article about?
Something about edi.
Oh, this 75 year old woman hadto go on edi training because
(13:23):
she liked to post about illegalimmigrants and like embraces
connotations.
She was asked to go on thisdiversity training and the whole
thing was how can you ask herto do this?
She's 75 year old woman, etc.
Then the next article was aboutthe murder and one of the
questions they picked out wasthey asked her what a pansexual
was.
She's 75.
Like this feeling of outrage ofhow could they make her do it?
(13:45):
The next article was about themurder of a trans girl, the
stabbing of a trans girl, andI'm like can you not put those
two things together?
Like really it's this headlinegrabbing, sensationalist
posturing thing that is going tobe very embarrassing in the
future, people who are comingout and saying all this stuff
(14:07):
about we need more masculineenergy.
I mean, what does that even?
Please define that?
I'm a scientist.
I need to know what is yourdefinition of masculine energy?
Please tell me.
But also, the stuff about EDI isout and this, this, this.
It's like, well, back yourselfbecause let's have a
conversation about it.
What is it about EDI thatyou're throwing out?
Is it one specific part of it?
(14:32):
Because you will be doing stuffand it's these headlines, which
are five words and they say athousand things to a thousand
different people and it's justgiving the wrong messages and
they're going to look back andthey're on the wrong side of
history.
Because I'm raising threegeneration alpha kids and if you
think Gen Z are woke and I'mwith it with this stuff, they
have not met Gen Alpha.
They learn about this stuff.
At every assembly my kids havehad non-binary teacher.
They are horrified and outragedby anything to do with not
(14:54):
accepting LGBTQ plus families,not accepting people's gender
identities.
They just get it, it's just inthem and they're coming into the
workforce.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
And do you think it is?
We have to back ourselvesbecause there's a lot of people
and conversations I'm having atthe moment that are worried that
work around the equalityinclusion space and it's
actually let's face it, they'renot spaces.
It's what we should be doingevery day.
It's in our every assembly, inour DNA.
How do we take the fear away?
(15:25):
Because I feel like there's alot of fear out there and
there's a lot of fear fromorganisations automatically
putting the brakes on andstopping and considering it,
which is that's a worry,especially for businesses out
there.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Definitely yeah, and we encounter.
The biggest thing that Iencounter when we're training
people is fear, and it'stackling the fear.
What I would say is get offsocial media, get off.
Don't follow activists, don'tfollow people on LinkedIn who
are making you feel afraid.
It's those.
The activist space is incrediblyimportant.
It is essential for the workthat we all do, but actually,
(15:59):
when you are ready to learn andyou're and you're taking your
first steps, it's time to shutthose messages off now, because
they do propagate fear.
That's what they are designedto do, and rightly so.
But when you're in the learningspace, you suddenly become
aware of what you don't know andthat gulf feels enormous.
Um, and you're also in, you'reentering the bottom of the
change curve where all you wantto do is go back and you're like
(16:20):
, oh no, I don't obtain from my.
I'm scared.
It's that bargaining.
Please don't make me do this.
And people are so vulnerablewhen they're in that we call it
the terror zone, because they'resuddenly aware of all the
things they don't know.
They've got this big curriculumof things.
They feel like they have tolearn ahead of them.
So I would say switch offanyone who makes you feel afraid
and talk to real humans,because the real humans in your
(16:44):
office, in your workplace, inyour life you know on the
streets who you meet in yourfriendship groups, your wider
they're never going to scream atyou for using the wrong word.
They're going to want to have aconversation.
If you say to them, you knowwhat is inclusion to you.
Or do you experience this sortof stuff?
Or how did you feel during theriots over the summer?
They'll talk to you about itand they're not going to scream
(17:05):
in your face and they're notgoing to like cancel you.
Real people are not like thatand so when people this is what
all of our training is isexposure to real people and just
building back up theirconfidence to say the thing and
not worry if it's the rightthing so much that you end up
saying nothing and then causingexclusion.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
So yeah, it is a real problem but I think is one of
the solutions.
It's the real life talk to reallife people, as opposed to
reading fake news yes,absolutely yes.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I'm following activists who are amazing, but
when you're in that fear zone,not helpful as much get out the
fear zone back yourself.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
You are a self-confessed startup junkie.
And do we all have an innerstartup junkie?
I suppose I think probably.
Yes.
I was sort of 45 before I setmy own business up and thought,
gosh, now I'm like, oh yeah,this is a business.
Who knew?
What advice would you give toindividuals out there who have
(18:03):
got those side hustles or havegot those passions or have got
have been in that room that goand looking around and no one
else is doing it and they'relike I want to do this.
What's the top tip?
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Gosh, that makes me so excited when you just said
that there's people right nowwho are in that room.
Being like this is wrong and Icould do it better.
And yeah, do it first of all,do it.
Um, but subheading, make surethat you.
It's a it's a tough world.
It is tough.
(18:34):
You know as well as I do.
It is tough and the things thatpeople put online are such an
edited version of the actualtruth.
If we all put what actuallyhappens day-to-day life and
running and growing a business,don't whatever.
Start a business, uh, but youput the highlights on, it all
looks glossy.
I would say make sure thatyou've got your support network.
(18:55):
Find your tribe.
Don't compare yourself againstpeople who you see.
Don't compare yourself againstpeople in the interviews who've
made, you know, seven figureexits and this and this.
Don't ever look at peoplewho've existed from silicon
roundabout at silicon valley,because you'll feel miserable
work on what.
One thing I'd say, a bit ofconcrete advice is think about
(19:17):
your own personal successfactors not to do with money.
So I'll know I've been asuccess when, for example, for
me, I can drop my kids off atschool every day and pick them
up, I can go to every sports dayand play I've got.
I can close my laptop at theend of the day and not have
anyone shouting at me, althoughthat's still a bit of a pipe
dream.
I don't really do.
I do that.
No, I'm not saying I take myown advice, but just think about
(19:41):
your own success factors anddon't tie them to like
necessarily exiting for x amountof money and I know you were
raised by a mum who made youbelieve you could do anything.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Now, this is one of the things that amused me that
at 45, your your mum applied toManchester City Football Club
yes, she did, oh my god shewanted to.
She applied to manage.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Sorry, she applied to she applied to be the manager
of man City.
Like, literally, my husbandtells this story in public and
I'm like, oh my gosh,embarrassing.
That's the sort of woman thatshe was.
She was just there.
When you say she told me Icould be anything, she believed
that to her core, like whetherthat was a saying belief or not,
I'm not so sure, but shecertainly raised me to be like
(20:25):
if you want it, go for it.
You know if, if she, if I hadgenuinely wanted to be the
manager of man City, she wouldhave supported me, helped me
find what courses to do.
Like, yeah, she, that was my,my role model.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
I'm sensing right now , the apple does not fall far
from the tree cat.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Well, like, so I've got more realistic expectations
of what I can achieve, thoughI'm not going to be the manager
of man City.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Well, I think he's just signed on for a super
contract, so you know, it mightbe next time round, who knows?
But what is your superpower,Kat my?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
superpower is being able to get back up again.
I really like my own fire.
So I have this internal pilotlight is how I think of it, and
even if I'm getting worn down bylife and cynical, I know that I
just give myself a bit of time,a bit of inspiration, and that
pilot light will light up againand fire me on.
(21:15):
So I'd say it's just theability to just keep getting up
amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Kat Wildman, utter inner geek serial startupper.
You're all about real life,real experience, reality,
telling those real life stories,cutting out the noise.
Kat, thank you so much forjoining me today.
You're a total and utter legend.
Thank you for having mesubscribe on youtube, apple,
(21:43):
amazon music, spotify orwherever you get your podcasts.
Leave us a review or follow uson socials.
We are power underscore net onInsta, tiktok and Twitter.
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