Welcome to the Big Careers Small Children Podcast. My name is Verena Hefti. I believe that no one should have to choose between becoming a CEO and enjoying their young children for much too long. Amazing people like I'm sure you listening right now have found themselves stuck on the career ladder when they have children and that leads to gender inequality in senior leadership because because those people don't progress to senior leadership and the same stale, often male middle class people leading our organizations. We must change this together. And I hope that many of you listening right now will progress to the most senior leadership roles that you like where you can make the decisions that make our world a better place. Outside of the podcast, I am the CEO and founder of the Social enterprise Leaders Plus. We exist to help working parents progress their careers to senior leadership in a way that works for you and for your families. We have free events and resources on leadersplus.org where you can download helpful toolkits such as on returning from maternity leave, share parental leave, securing a promotion, dealing with workload challenges, or managing as a dual career couple. We also have an award winning fellowship community which is global for working parents who have big dreams for their careers but don't want to sacrifice their family. You'll join an absolutely wonderful group of people, a very tight knit, supportive group of parents who have your back. Together. You'll explore what your career aspirations are and you'll get advice from senior leaders who are also working parents about how to achieve those aspirations. You'll get new ideas to combine your hopes for your careers with your hope for your family and and you are supported by people who are experiencing what you're experiencing yourself. I'm really delighted that a larger majority of our fellows have made tangible changes following the program, be that becoming more senior in their roles, working shorter hours, having better flexible working arrangement. They always impress me so much with the courage that they instill in each other to do what is right for them without apologizing for having family or apologizing for wanting that top job. Details are on leadersplus.org/Fellowship.

Today I'm chatting to Heather Black. We talk about her story of changing sectors and what she advises others who are thinking about changing sectors. We chat about how she set up Supermums, what it's like to be a CEO who with children. And of course we also chat about why she's such a big advocate for women in tech and she's basically trying to convince all of us to move into the tech sector today. But she does so in a really passionate way. So I really hope you enjoy the conversation.

Thank you very much for having me. So I'm Heather Black. I'm the CEO and founder of Supermums. I transitioned my career into tech back in 2012 and realized that other mums could do the same. And so that led me to set up Supermums eight years ago to help raise awareness of careers in the tech sector. And since then, We've helped over 1,500 people upskill in Salesforce technology. So really love talking to parents, helping parents carve out a life that gives them that flexibility, but also enjoy the time that they can have with their kids, but also have a career that they really love as well.

And what did you used to believe about combining a big career with young children that you've changed your mind on?

I've always been ambitious, and I talk about the ambitious women mindset because I think it's absolutely fine as a parent to feel like you can still have a career and still have those ambitions, but it's about how to manage that, making sure that you manage your boundaries, you manage your mental health, you manage that balance between having a career and also feeling happy with the time that you spend with the kids. Now, that ratio looks different for everybody, right? Everybody wants a different, perhaps, balance ratio of what you do, how many hours you work versus what you do with your kids. You know, it's about knowing what's right for you and feeling comfortable in that zone. So I transitioned my career actually, just as was having kids. And so I was able to carve out a much better balance for myself through taking a new career path when I was starting the journey of having children.

That's really interesting. What have you learned about changing sectors?

I realized that I had relevant transferable skills. So my background was business and career coaching. And I'd run a business and career coaching company for eight years before I realized, you know, I had to take those steps to pivot. And so I did some research into what some of the career options could be. I had used Salesforce CRM, which is a client relationship management system tool, within my coaching company. And it's something I'd really enjoyed getting to grips with. It really helped me grow the company and found a techy side of me that I never knew I had before. And it wasn't about coding, but it was about building a system that could support a business and really help it perform. And I kind of really enjoyed learning about that. So I decided that was one of the areas to research and spoke to people who worked with Salesforce, what their job roles contained, what they did on a day to day basis. I understood what training and qualifications I would need to do to work more in that sector. And having had a business coaching background, I realised actually a lot of the business coaching skills were very relevant in the CRM implementation journey because it's all about helping an organization understand their processes, understand their KPIs, help them manage things better. And that's very, actually very lined with business coaching. You're asking the same questions and uncovering the same answers, but at the end of it you're putting in a technology product that's going to manage everything for them. So there's a very good sort of tangible outcome off it. So I think it's just about doing the research, talking to people. And from that, as a sort of reflection, back to your original question. I realized actually I had a lot of transferable skills that gave me the confidence to take that leap to move over.

You then started, I mean you didn't just transition to the tech sector, you also started a business which is now very successful in tech. How did that happen?

I started out as a freelance salesforce consultant. So I was helping non organizations implement Salesforce and you know, that was the path that I'd taken. I learned the skills of how to implement Salesforce, went into nonprofits, helped them implement a CRM, to manage their donations, their volunteering, their fundraising. And I was doing that three days a week whilst having a newborn at home who I was breastfeeding. So I was able to work virtually earn 450 pound day rates, have some lovely clients that I was working with and I was able to generate a salary of 60, 70k in the first year working 3 days a week. So I was earning more than in my previous job. I was able to have all that flexibility to just work remotely. And it just grew from there really. I won more client work, I got a lot more repeat and recommendation work. And after a couple of years I found that I was actually having more work than I could manage myself. So then I had to make that decision of well, what do I do? Do I just turn it away or do I grow a team? And previously, having run a business, I kind of missed having a team. So I thought, well, okay, I'll grow a team. So I brought other people on board, you know, and the idea was it would be a collective and they would take projects and we'd build the team together. And so I grew that organization to a team of actually 20 of us in the End delivering work for nonprofits. But off the back of that recognized that there was a, a demand for talent. Like actually hiring people to work with me was actually quite hard to find the people. So that's where Super Mums was born. Because I wanted to bring more women into this sector in this job opportunity and make them aware of it and train them up to be great salesforce consultants. And some of those came on to work with me as a team. Others, you know, gone on to work in other companies. So that's kind of how Supermums began. Just kind of naturally evolved.

Just go back to the picture of you breastfeeding a newborn and working at the same time. I know a lot of people do it, but how did you make it work? You know, a lot of people are forced to do that, but I have done it myself and it is really tough, or at least I found it tough. It's not easy to work with a newborn. I think I had my first work related conversation when my baby was two weeks old. It's not the end of the world, but yeah, slightly different from what I was expecting. How did you make it work?

I had the six weeks off where I wasn't working, which is the full pay maternity leave. But financially it wasn't an option for me. I had to maintain working beyond that. So I would work three days a week, but because the baby's in the next room every time it wanted feeding, typically, you know, actually I appreciate every baby is different. But Lucy was pretty routine, right? It was pretty much every three or four hours that she'd want a feed. So, you know, I could be working in here and then I, you know, arrange my calls around where the typical feeding times were. And again, every baby is different. So I appreciate it. But we kind of had. It was certain times that she generally had a feed. So I was able to put meetings in around that and she'd be looked after in the room next door by either my husband or the grandma. And so, you know, we were able to juggle like that. And then on the other, you know, I was working three days obviously and I had the rest of the days, the other four days where I was with the baby. And so it worked out well. And she actually wouldn't take any breast milk for a year. So I had to be, I had to be like close to her for like a year to feed her. She was not taking the bottle.

That is so tough. And I don't mind, didn't take the bottle either. And I still regret to this day of somehow not making it and somehow not getting them to do it. I think one of them only drank from me until he was two and then they just wouldn't drink anything all day in nursery and then just every hour or every two hours. But yeah, I got through it.

It's hard, isn't it? And the thing is in some ways it's lovely to be able to feed them. Like in some ways you've got to cherish that, that we were able to do that. And there's a level of bonding with them. But yeah, there's a level that you'll go to to try to get them to take the bottle. And like you say she was stubborn, like she would not have anything for like seven, eight hours. And then you're like, okay, this is like serious. My second child was fine with the bottle. Right. You know, she loves her food now she's a different kettle of fish. So, you know, I think you don't know what cards you're going to be dealt. It's not like you can order a certain recipe out of the machine, unfortunately. But I'm very thankful to have had a career at home that was flexible for me, that I could choose when I had meetings and I could juggle my hours. I could work in the evening if I needed to because actually a lot of the work I could do on my own time. As a self employed salesforce consultant, there was nobody watching my clock that I was working nine till five, you know, I was able to work the days or weeks that work for me, you know, and I could flex that. So all of these opportunities led me to think actually, you know, other mums could do this and it's something they need to know about.

I wonder how much time. So I know that you have an agenda which is you do want more women to move to tech sector. But I'm just wondering for the people listening who are thinking, actually this sounds interesting. How much time do you have to invest to train to be able to just as an example, to do that salesforce. I know there are other tech jobs but to do that salesforce consultant work.

Yeah. So I designed the training program at Supermums to be very comprehensive and robust to give people the confidence they need to upskill. I had trained and obviously I didn't have supermums or I trained. So I trained on a. I did a suite of three weeks of training courses with salesforce at the time but they were very expensive, they were over in stain. So you had to go and be in their office for a week. Each time one of those I had a lot of morning sickness which wasn't particularly enjoyable, you know. And I say there were three and a half grand a pop what you would pay for the courses. So there were a lot of money. So I designed the Supermums program to be completely virtual and it's 16 hours a week over a three month period. And you really not only learn the skills but you apply them and do some practical case studies and you have a one to one mentor that works with you as once you've done the three months of training which you're juggling around other things you would do your certification. And then we also give people work experience at Supermums where they can get their hands dirty with the product and they'll deliver some deliverables for a client. And so everything reinforces your learning. It's like that memory muscle, you know, you keep learning, keep practicing and feel confident that when you go for the job opportunity you've practiced it over and over again and you've had somebody looking at what you've done and giving you a pat on the back and reinforcing your learning. And I think that's really important if people have never worked in tech or have been out of work for quite a few years, you know, so it isn't, I believe if you just do a week training course you're not really ready. You know, it's about practicing and feeling confident when you go for that job interview and for hitting the ground running in a job. So typically that can be, it's a six month program where you've got the training certification, work experience as I feel is like the proper ramp period that.

Almost sounds too good to be true to get a 60/ 70,000 salary for just three weeks training.

So I had obviously used Salesforce before and so I was earning 450 day rates because I had invested in training. So I had also invested in business analysis training, Agile project management training. And so I was, you know, I'd spent 11 grand on my training, hence why I could charge £450 day rates. So it's relative to what you invest in your training of what you're going to get out of it. So the super mums that start with us pay two and a half grand for their course but they would start on a day rate of maybe 300 a day or salaries of 40,000. But then you can quickly incremental increase from there because you will continue, you have to continue to invest in your training. But if you were to say invest in a course, that's two grand and you're earning minimum 200 day rates. Right. If we're looking at the minimum, you paid off that course in 10 days. So it's all about, I'm going to invest in this, but actually this is the financial return I'm going to get. And that's how I saw it. I was like, I'm going to invest 11,000 pounds, which wasn't all in one go. This was over, you know, my period of growing myself as a consultant. You know, I built up and I continued to increase my day rate because I was investing in my training. That would give me more skills and allow me to charge more and kind of have more confidence in myself. But that's a tangible trade off. Right. It's about any career, investing in training to upskill yourself in order to earn it back.

I think that's very true, actually.

It was quite funny, actually.

Now when I think about the Leaders Plus Fellowship, which if you're in a charity is around about 3,001 around about 4,000 for someone employed. Usually employers pay the fee, but obviously.

In order to run something quite high.

Impact, you know, it has to be funded. But it is. Now you're thinking, well, I think the usual pay rise is about on average, I think with the last quarter was 11%, which included a lot of public sector workers before the uplift. So, yeah, I haven't actually thought about it this way, but you're absolutely right. If you choose the right training, it can have the impact on the salary. Interesting. Also, by the way, there's some stats that apparently the impact of training for men on salary is higher on average than for women. I can't remember where, which is unhelpful, so I won't be able to include it in the show notes, but I think it might have been an article in cipd.

Anyways, I'll stop going off on tangents.

Because women don't sell themselves. They don't sell, you know, that's our biggest barrier. Right. We don't necessarily sell ourselves as well as men or feel shy to say that, which is maybe why we don't get the pay rises.

Yeah, I don't know. I think there's also something about being socialized not to do it because there are different expectations of behaviors on women.

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?

So, yeah, I think it's a complex one. You're also an advocate for people, you know, having exciting careers after children and I'm interested. Just a common question is how do I explain a career break.

How do I explain that I have.

Just had three maternity leaves in succession? What is your response to that? How would you sell that to an employer?

I've been producing next generation of talent.

Fair enough of tech talent, probably, given how much they all are on iPads.

Exactly. You know the world's going to stop unless we keep producing, right? Very important job.

I agree. I fully agree. However, sadly, I'm not sure that every hiring manager always has that at the forefront. So do you have any reflections about what to say we have to sell.

Ourselves again, it goes back to selling out rather than see it. Because the thing is, if our perception is it's a negative thing and we have that perception, it's going to be a barrier. It will be that barrier and it will be that negative thing. So it starts with us. It starts. How about we promote it? As I say, we can actively say in our cv, very important career break to produce next generation of talent. You know, during this time I did xyz, you know, and I'm very much looking forward to getting back in the driving seat with my career. You know, it's about how you proposition it. I think if we turn up to everything with a level of fear that it's going to be negatively seen. It will be like that. But we've got to remember that it's not just women that will have breaks. Men will have breaks for different things. You might have to look after a carer, you know, be a carer for somebody in your family. You know, there's lots of reasons why people will have breaks and we have to proposition it as this is what we've done during this time. Almost be proud of what you've done during that time. And what I think is important, going back to the upskilling piece though, on this, is that one of the biggest reasons why people might be concerned is like, oh, well, their skills aren't up to date, they're not got the latest skill sets. So for people that have done our training program at Superman's, for example, they are going to have actually the latest training and latest skill set up to date to hit the ground running in a job. That's why people invest in their training. So I think if you've had a career break and you're trying to break into an industry where you may be behind on your skill sets, I think it's a harder expectation to ask the employer. I'm not saying they shouldn't by any means, but obviously if they've got a suite of CVs and they've got people that have got more relevant experience using latest products or whatever, they're going to come on top, whatever. Whereas if you've invested in training and skills in the latest industry that you're working in, it's obviously going to put you on an equal footing. And sometimes what I say to our super mums is that if you're currently out of work, you've actually got the opportunity to upskill in products that quite often, if people are working, they don't have the time sometimes to upskill in.

Some of the latest products.

So you could create yourself as a unicorn. So in the Salesforce industry, they've just had a new product called Agent Force come out. A lot of people would be like, oh, I really want to learn that. But they're so busy working their day job that they don't have time. Whereas those that are training up now can become the experts in Agent Force and then be landing these new job roles that are coming out. So it's about being ahead of the curve. It's about. Tech is changing very quickly and rapidly. It's about positioning yourself with the most in demand skills that are needed by employers. And that's where you've got to do your research to know where do you invest your time right now? So I think it's about showing what you've done in that time. We've certainly had people train up during their maternity leave, for example. You know, is there a demonstration of that?

Interesting. And when you think about, you know.

The whole idea, yes, I should upskill.

Myself, yes, I should be on top of the industry trends. Those are important ideas. But where do you find out what you know outside of Salesforce, which is just one out of many applications, where do you find out what the hot topics are or the opportunities?

So LinkedIn does a review every year about the most in demand employer skills. So those at the last count were cloud computing, business analysis, emotional intelligence, AI business analysis. Interesting enough. So everything that covers, you know, that's not just specific to, it's very specific to Salesforce, but also very relevant to other sectors and tech industry because it's all about tech. You know, if you go into a shop these days, there's nobody on the cashiers anymore. Those jobs are going, they're being replaced by technology. So whether we like it or not, the world is changing to a world where everything is becoming more focused on technology. So LinkedIn, you know, have reports, there'll be other job sites that will have reports, you know, doing a Google Search, asking, chat gpt, you know, or similar. What are the most in demand technologies right now? Where are the skills gaps? Just do your research as to where things are coming out. But also I've always had a background as a coach, right done career and business coaching. So similarly, it's also about understanding who you are, what your attributes are, what your values are, what you your strengths are. And working with a career coach who can help you think about what career is going to suit you best. Because maybe you're the very empathetic carer. And one of my good friends has just gone back to learn to be a maternity nurse at 50. You know, she's never done anything like that before. She worked in environmental before. So we're never too old to change our career and completely shift it. But what's important is you kind of knuckle down about one, what are the options? But two, who are you and what was going to fill your cup. And working with a career coach doing the research, all of those things are going to help.

I don't mean to sound as if I'm throwing challenges at you, but given I have an expert, I might as well. I think one reason that puts many people off, especially working parents, off going for the tech sector because it has a terrible reputation of long hours, lots of sexism, racism and any other ism you can think of. I'm sure not every employer is like that, but what would you say to that? You clearly you believe there should be more parents and carers in the tech sector.

When we talk about tech, we talk very broadly. Working in the salesforce arena, there's very dominant values within what we call the salesforce ohana. So they're around innovation, trust, equality. Everybody is so supportive of everybody else in the salesforce industry. There's a lot of really lovely culture. Some people have even called it a cult, interestingly enough. But it's a very lovely supporting culture where everybody is celebrating each other and supporting each other, which you don't really see a lot. There isn't really an equivalent of that in the tech products and so it is very unique. And Supermums similarly, everybody that's come through the Supermums community have adopted all of those values and principles and actively support each other. So everybody's supporting each other with problems and everything else. There's a 50, 50 gender split at the Salesforce admin level. So actually it's quite an even balance of how many women or men are certainly at the admin level. I think as you progress up again Women might be scared of those promotions or scared of going forward because it might compromise their flexibility. So that leads me on to the next thing around. Over time and hours. There's lots of different companies out there and some companies might be very commercially motivated, might have complete expectations that aren't aligned to you and what you offer. That doesn't mean the company over the road is the same. There's some amazing companies that are very supportive of people having families, people working the hours that they're meant to managing their workloads on projects. So I think it's about finding the right company with the right call. And if you're finding that you're in a company that's expecting too much of you, then obviously that's not the right fit for you. But equally, we can also be our own worst enemies and that we don't say no and we don't manage our own boundaries ourselves because we just don't push back or manage our time. You know, we're always a yes person, always trying to help. We always take on too much. And so I do think there's a level of self responsibility. You know, I've been through this journey where I've burnt out and I've had to delegate, I've had to sort of relook at what I'm doing. You know, I think we all can do this. And that's why I went. I mean, I went back and had some leadership coaching that helped me reset and redefine my parameters. And I think having a coach to do that is sometimes necessary. You know, I found it useful because I couldn't sort of reset myself. So I think there's an element of overworking. You know, it can come from both of those directions. So I think it's just being really honest with yourself about what's creating this environment. Is it me? Is it the company? If it's a company, okay, move. Because not all companies are like that. So I think there's bad reputational situations in any industry which can be caused by any different company, you know, that might be out there that's done it. I think the fact that there's less women in tech is, you know, we're going to constantly have this issue of having less women in tech if we don't get more women into tech. Right. And the more we, we get into tech and the more women get into leadership roles, you know, we'll see the shift and the change. And we are seeing that slowly. But that's why organizations like ours exist to kind of make that shift.

That's a very fair point and well done you for setting something like that up and creating that change. If you are faced with challenges and stereotypes by the people around you, because it sounds like Salesforce is quite a supportive environment. But perhaps you ended up in a different. You changed your career and you somehow ended up in the frying pan. What's your advice then?

Leave.

Fair enough. Okay, next question.

I think don't stay, you know, and don't stay in. You can try but I've been in those situations similarly and I think it's important to get somebody on your side again. I've had career coaching at different points in my life. You know the reason I stepped out of employment and went self employed at age 26 was because I was in the frying pan and not getting the support in the workplace. And I had a career coach to help me recognise what to do and help me take the next steps out of that. So get support around you and find an organisation in the right role. That was really going to light you up. It's really important that you feel like you're light you up.

And then the flip side to this is how you choose the right employer. I've just been chatting in this AI learning group actually incidentally talking about tech. I'm very proud of myself. I'm leading an AI learning group group and one of the women in that group is currently applying for jobs and she wants to do as much research as possible to make sure that she lands in an organization with a good culture. But of course every website these days has beautiful statements about diversity, inclusion, etc. What would be your advice to her about how to choose an organization that is really supportive?

Reach out to somebody that works there via LinkedIn and start chatting to them and find out.

Excellent advice.

And that's how you get the jobs as well. It's a hidden job market. It's all through networking and reaching out to people and having virtual coffees or meeting in person and find out what it's really like on the inside.

That is excellent advice. I would fully agree. Where can people find out about Supermums? How can they connect with you?

Yes, if anybody wants to explore more we do have two full time member of staff who have been through our program incidentally who offer free career consultations. So if you're interested you can head over to Supermums website which is supermums.org and there's a page on there which we can add to the show notes which is about what is a salesforce career. So that explains the different job roles, the different salaries, what the transferable skills would be. And you can book in a free consultation with our team just to chat through all of those questions you might have with them.

Wonderful. And we usually finish the podcast with a few practical recommendations that take no more than five minutes. So if someone is wanting to change sector, not just career, but sector, and is listening to this and might be from the corporate sector to the charity sector or vice versa, what would be two or three things that take no more than five minutes each that they could do this week to get it started?

So I think just to summarise probably three key things that I've said in the podcast today. One is write down and write down, actually physically get a piece of paper and pencil and write down all the things that you think you are really good at. Your attributes, your skills, your knowledge, your values, what's really important to you. And if you're not clear, ask people that you've worked with or know you. So get clear on who you are and what lights you up. The second is do some research around the most in demand jobs, opportunities, sectors and find those areas which align with those skills and values. And then third is talk to people. Reach out to some people to talk to them. Now some of this will take longer than five minutes in the long term, but just to start to identify people who might be in your immediate network, you know, tell people what you're thinking. You only can make ever an informed decision through having conversations and learning in order to then make the decision to move forward.

Very well said. It was a pleasure to have you on the podcast, Heather.

Thank you for having me and good luck to everybody that's listening. I hope you find what you're looking for and if we can help then that's fantastic too.

Wonderful.

I really appreciate you listening. Thank you so much and I always love to hear from our listeners. If you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, just go to Verena Hefti and I'd be delighted to hear your feedback and your suggestions or just have you say hi. Likewise, if you do feel passionately about gender equality and you want to support a female led podcast, then please do leave a review and share it with a friend. Just because at the moment podcasting is still a very, very male dominated environment. Most of the top charging podcasts are led by men. I really love all the people who've joined from the podcast, our fellowship program and if you want to do the same, then please head over to leadersplus.org/Fellowship in order to get access to a community of support to help you combine ambitious career with young children together with people who have your back. See you next week.