293: Women in Tech Leadership: Why You Don’t Need a Perfect Career Plan to Reach the Top (With Sarah Walker, Cisco UKI CEO)

Toni
If you think you need a perfectly mapped out career, top grades at 18, or moving to a particular postcode to make it to the top of tech, this episode is going to challenge that. Today I’m joined by Sarah Walker, Chief Executive of Cisco in the UK and Ireland, a woman who started her career selling those old analog mobile phones in the late 1990s. She didn’t follow the traditional university path. She was told she needed to move to London in the UK to succeed, and she didn’t. Nearly 30 years later, she is leading one of the most influential tech organizations in the region, advising the UK Government’s Board of Trade, serving as a non-Executive Director, and championing women across the industry.

In today’s conversation, we’re talking about stumbling into tech and building a career without a master plan. We’re talking about leading through uncertainty and taking roles before you feel fully ready. Why mindset is often the biggest barrier for us as ambitious women, and the evolving landscape for men in tech leadership, including how AI can really unlock human potential rather than replace it.

But what struck me most about Sarah is this: she leads with conviction and empathy, and you’re going to hear a lot of things in today’s episode. She speaks out about loss, about doubt, about being stretched, and about backing herself when she couldn’t see someone else who looked like her ahead of her.

If you’ve ever questioned whether you fit the mold of a tech executive, if you’ve ever hesitated because you didn’t tick every box, or if you’re navigating big ambition alongside real life, this episode is going to resonate. Let’s dive in.

Welcome to the Leading Women in Tech podcast, the show that celebrates women in technology leadership. I’m your host, Toni Collis, and this podcast is the result of my passion for building better tech by diversifying the leadership of the technology sector. Join me on this journey as I discuss all things leadership, what it takes to be innovative, breaking through the glass ceiling, being a great leader, and how to navigate the unique experiences we face as women in tech. So sit back, grab your headphones and get ready to be inspired to become a better leader.

Welcome to the show, Sarah. Thank you for joining us today.

Sarah
Oh, thank you so much. My absolute pleasure to be here.

Toni
Well, let’s start where I love to start on these episodes. Start with your potted history, if you wouldn’t mind — how you started your career, how you got to where you are today at Cisco, and the ups and downs that you’ve had along the way.

Sarah
Yeah, sure. So goodness me, I started back in 1997, so I’m in my 29th year in the tech industry, which is both exciting and terrifying, I think, in equal measure. And full transparency, Toni, I think I stumbled into the tech industry.

So I had finished my A-levels that summer, and I moved up to Liverpool while I wanted to work out what was next for me. I grew up in Coventry, so that was quite a big move, and I was working for Forte Hotels at the time. A friend’s mom worked for BT and said they’re creating this new team in nearby Skelmersdale. Sounds really exciting. Why don’t you apply? And that is where my career and my love of the tech industry started.

So I interviewed for a role which was selling mobile phones to small and medium businesses, which in the current day and age sounds like a really simple job — not much selling involved in getting people to buy mobiles. But wind back nearly 30 years: I was selling analog mobiles. So that’s my age in technology years. We were still on analog and nobody used mobiles. So it was actually one of probably the hardest jobs I’ve ever done, trying to convince businesses that mobile was the future.

When I reflect back on those conversations, it was a lot of, “What do I need a mobile for? I’m always in the office. I don’t know anybody else that’s got a mobile. Why will this be additive to my business at all?” And actually some of those questions were quite difficult to answer at that point in time.

But it was a really fascinating introduction for me on how you can talk about the role that technology could play, or how it actually starts to transform how businesses run. Having that conversation with a small and medium business saying, well, if you didn’t need to be in the office, how different would it be if your customers could actually reach you when you’re on the move? Which, again, we kind of take for granted now, but was quite an unusual concept back in the day.

So that was just a temporary role for three months — that was my original contract. And I, as I say, fell in love and was quite successful at the sales role. So BT took me on permanently, and I continued in various specialist roles from the desk.

But during that time, I did also work out that I wanted to go to uni, so a bit of a late joiner, but I did eventually go to university. And BT also sponsored me through uni at that time. And I did maths, stats, and computing, because I thought within the realms of what I wanted to do that maybe I might get into some kind of engineering and coding as well. I didn’t. I’m glad I stayed on the sales path, but it was something that interested me, and I had that support to do during that time.

Now, in those early years, I was involved in things like the launch of broadband in the UK, which again we take for granted now. No home even doesn’t have broadband, but that was a real big progression for businesses at the time. And again, talking about how that improved bandwidth and connectivity would transform how businesses engage digitally was really exciting. We did the 3G launch, the 5G launch — so all of these kinds of transitions in technology that we take for granted now, I was part of the specialist teams that launched those and were talking about the impact of those with our customers.

So I absolutely loved all of that. And as I say, from a tech industry perspective, just continuing to be at the forefront of some of those transitions and thinking about how that would transform how we live and how businesses worked, I just absolutely loved it.

Now, I’ve worked for some brilliant people early in my career who recognized potential in me that I probably hadn’t given much thought to myself. I just enjoyed what I did, worked hard, and wanted to be good at what I did. So I was actually asked to go for my first management role — or put into my first management role, I should say — at the tender age of 25.

When we talk about the ups and downs, I think that immediate piece was, in full transparency, probably a bit of a car crash, because I was very naive around what good management and leadership looked like. In my naivety, it was: you turn up, you tell people why you’ve been good at the jobs that they’re doing, explain that to them, and hope that they go out and do the same thing.

And obviously that was quite a stark lesson for me in terms of understanding different people’s motivations, the way different people operate, and the way you inspire them and engage them. That was a bit of a baptism of fire for me at that young age. But again, it was a part of the job that I grew to love — learning about that psychology of people and how to get the best out of them, and get teams to be performing at their best, as well as what I’d focused on individually. And that’s really what I’ve continued with throughout my career.

So, various leadership roles then across different jobs in BT, and the bigger the teams that I worked with, the more I continued with that hunger, I guess, to support teams and work out ways of bringing the best out of large groups of people, to love tech as much as me, to love the customers as much as I do, and just really create those environments for people to succeed and thrive in.

In between that, I had quite a lot of time off on maternity, so I had three pregnancies and maternity leave, so had a bit of time to navigate what that meant for me being a mom and being a sales leader. And again, when you talk about the ups and downs, that was a pretty challenging period. I did actually lose one of my children, and I talk about that very openly in terms of how that drives me as a leader.

But managing some of that complexity of what you’re going through personally and still trying to lead teams, again, I learned a lot about myself and about other people during that time. But in the main, I continued to get some really strong support and continued into senior leadership roles in my late 30s and early 40s.

Up until we built the regional teams across BT, and I got to be the Regional Director for the North of England, which was a big passion project of mine because I’d been advised pretty early on in my career that unless I moved to London, I wouldn’t really realize my full potential. So not having to do that, and then actually be in a position where I got the senior role and it was about being based in the North, was really special to me. And that was my final role in BT. So I felt like I’d been on a real journey through that.

And I left in 2022, and I took what has been referred to by journalists as a micro-retirement. I wasn’t aware that’s what it was called at the time, but I took nearly 10 months off to be with my family. My son was going through his GCSEs, so that was a bit of a turbulent time. Got him through that. We traveled as a family and just had some really nice time together.

And then I took the role at Cisco, who had been a longstanding partner of mine during my time in BT, so I knew a lot about the organization and the culture. It’s a business that I had admired from the outside and from having worked with them as a partner. And I joined as the Managing Director for Enterprise later in that summer of 2022.

Fast forward 18 months, my boss moved on to take a job in the Middle East and Africa, and I took the leap to apply for this role that I do now as the Chief Executive for the UK and Ireland. And 18 months on, still going strong.

Toni
Wow. That is — I mean, that’s quite a potted history. There’s so many pieces I want to dig into here. But what really strikes me is that you’re anything but a traditional techie. And I think that’s something I really want to pull on as a thread throughout this episode.

So many women come to me and say, well, I can’t do this because I haven’t checked these boxes. And I think you epitomize that you haven’t. I think for those listeners outside the UK, you might not realize how much pressure there is to move to London for your career if you have the ambitions to become an executive in a big company, which Sarah is. And I think it’s really interesting that you didn’t move to London, and yet you are, you know, owning Cisco in the UK, as far as I’m concerned. That is a really big deal for somebody outside London.

And I think every country has their own kind of idiosyncrasies — like, what are the things you’re supposed to do? And for the UK, that is one of those things. Coupled with that, we’re going to talk about your school results shortly, because again, you mentioned that you didn’t go to university until a little bit later. And that is non-traditional for the tech industry.

So I really want listeners to hear that you don’t have to have it all mapped out at the age of 18, and if you don’t follow that path, you’re okay. You can still be like Sarah.

But let’s slow down. I’ve taken a ton of notes while you were just talking because I was like, oh my God, I need to ask about that.

The first thing that jumped out to me was selling mobile phones in the late 90s. And then you talked about broadband as well, that, as you put it, was the forefront of industry, the forefront of tech. And what really struck me there is, as you said, nobody could imagine not having a mobile phone today, and yet people were like, what? Why do I need one? To us it’s obvious — so you can speak to people outside the office. And yet that was unusual.

And I think it really resonates because of what we’re going through right now. And I know if we have time, we’re going to talk a little bit about AI later, but a lot of it is a lot of reluctance. Although AI has been quite quickly adopted, I think the really good adoption work has been slow because people, again, we’ve got blinkers on. In 10 years’ time, we’ll look back and say, why didn’t we think that was obvious?

Actually, I don’t think people do look back and think that, but you and I can be like, well, why didn’t people pick up the mobile phone in the 90s? My mom had a mobile phone in the 90s because she was commuting a long way, and so it was purely a safety thing, right?

So what do you think today is that technology that we’re kind of reluctant to pick up? If you put all of your history together, can you see the thing that in 10 years’ time you’ll think, well, why didn’t we do that?

Sarah
Yeah, I mean, it is going to be anchored around AI. And I think for me, I consider it just the latest of the transitions.

I think out there in the wider world, where you don’t have the same kind of familiarity or understanding of what it is, the narrative is quite scary at the moment for people. And that is where I think that reluctance and that fear comes from.

If you think about those transitions like mobile and broadband, there wasn’t that same narrative to say it might take your job. It might stop there being certain jobs in the market. It was all quite progressive. It was, this is how it will change or transform. And at the moment, because there is that narrative of actually AI might take jobs, that immediately kind of creates that fear in people.

The reality is that actually I see so much opportunity where AI actually helps release human potential and human capital. And that’s the bit that I think, if we can create the mindset shift and we create that familiarity — and at a baseline, people actually understanding they’ve probably been interacting with AI for a considerable number of years without actually physically realizing that it’s AI.

Our children are incredibly instinctive and intuitive with it. Most people will have a speaker in their house, a smart speaker, that they can talk to and ask it to do things. That is interacting with AI. It’s changing the way you live, but it’s not impacting you in a negative way.

So I think there’s that baseline comfort and confidence that you’re probably already doing some of these things without realizing. And then in the work context, how does it help you become more productive and effective? And how do you think of it as a digital assistant to what you do, rather than something that is there to kind of take over jobs?

And we see this in Cisco. We’ve created our own AI agent. And I talk a lot about this internally. You said I’m not techie — I kid you not, very not technical. And there are so many things now that I rely on our agent to do because I can just speak to it in normal language and say, can you go and find this for me? Brilliant, now that you’ve found that, can you execute this task for me?

And that’s stuff that might have taken, at best, a few minutes, maybe half an hour to an hour. So on a daily basis, the productivity gains that I get, that isn’t taking away any part of my job that I love or that I want to do or should be investing my time in.

So it’s about finding that curiosity, that comfort, and taking a little step back from that fear narrative to say there are some really simple things that you possibly already do every day, or that you could do, that will help you gain that comfort and confidence and see how AI can sit as complementary to who you are and help unlock that potential.

Toni
I think one of the things that stood out to me when you were speaking at the beginning was your passion for your team, right? Getting the best out of your team — it’s what you love. And you like the bigger team because you can get more out of more people.

And I want to talk about that piece in a minute, and how that’s worked as you’ve gone higher. But just from the AI angle, I think there is this legit concern about AI taking our jobs. And I think if you’re a programmer — that’s where I started — I think they’re nowhere near ready to take our jobs. But the jobs have changed.

I think if you’re in the creative industries, there is a real concern, although I do think that certainly the written stuff, I don’t think they’re anywhere near as good at yet. You can tell when the news article is written by an AI system.

But what I see in the kind of role you’re talking about — you are a leader. That is a people thing, and it’s what you’re also passionate about, is the people, both the customers and your team. And to me, they are so far away from being something that AI can do. I think I’m going to have a job for a long time as a coach because what I do is people.

Would you agree with that? And how do you help your team with their dealing with the angst of, oh, AI is taking my job, when actually what they need to realize is it can’t replace the human element?

Sarah
100%. There is no EQ that comes with AI. And that’s where I think that unleashing the human capital and allowing AI to do that administrative work matters.

As I always say to my teams, if you think about the things that you can add value to, what are the tasks, the conversations, the activities where you as an individual add that value and all that differential? That’s where I want you investing your time. That’s where you will be the difference.

When it’s administrative, it’s some of the things that we can get our AI agent to do in terms of booking different things in our systems — that doesn’t need human intervention, and it doesn’t require any kind of emotional intelligence.

So actually thinking about the roles that we do and where we as people are the differentiator, versus there is a task and actually if we can automate it, let’s automate it and free up our time — that’s a really easy way, I think, to split out that difference.

And for leaders, it’s really important to think there is a process to leadership and management, and then there is a huge people component and human factors that no amount of digital technology will ever take over in my mind. And actually, if there are any organizations that feel that digital can fully replace that human factor, they are the businesses that will struggle if they over-rotate towards digital or AI over personal and human factors, I think.

Toni
Well, let’s just talk about the human factor in your role, because I talk to so many leaders who are either at a similar level, but in a smaller company, and they think moving to a bigger company, I’m going to be more removed from my people. Or they’ve taken the path you’ve taken, which is they’ve worked up in a small company, and they come to me and they’re like, I want to have that higher role. It’s what I thought I always wanted, but at the same time I don’t, because then I’m not going to be with my people. I’m going to be up there. I’m going to be removed, because we see a lot of executives who seem to be detached from the team.

And the way you talked about your team as you were giving your potted history — you were passionate about them. So how have you navigated that? How have you kept — or have you not kept, maybe — the human piece, the bit that seems to make you sparkle? Have you navigated that?

Sarah
So I think it’s important to reflect there’s a difference between hierarchy and visibility. And I think sometimes people think if there’s a hierarchy, that creates an actual detachment. But that’s a personal choice.

So yes, there is a hierarchy within our business, but there is also proximity that you can create with your teams in terms of how you turn up. Now, sometimes that is about the physical one-to-one time and actually how much time you have with your team. The other is just how transparent and authentic you are about who you are as a person. And that’s a really important part to me in my leadership.

I alluded to this — I speak very openly about things like the fact that I lost my daughter when my second daughter was stillborn. It’s a huge part of who I am, and it’s something that I speak very openly about. And that creates a point of connection with a number of members of my team at every level within the organization, because it’s something unfortunately that many of them have experienced, both as mothers and fathers.

So it creates a human connection. Lots of that is a different point of conversation that I have with team members that might actually not have ordinarily come to me directly about something, but it’s a quick connection to say actually, to hear you talking about that meant something. And creating those points of connection.

So there’s that personally, but I think there’s also, in terms of leadership of the business, my style is very much: I don’t ask anything of my team that I wouldn’t be prepared to do myself. And I think if you’re ever in that position, you’ve kind of lost touch with what it means to be on the front line.

And because I’ve grown up in the industry, and I’ve probably done most of the jobs myself, I’ve got that understanding. But I think that’s really, really important — that there isn’t that kind of deference to say I’m here in my position with no understanding or empathy to what you’re doing. I do understand, but this is how we’re going to lead the business.

So ensuring that you’ve got that empathy and that understanding, and actually in the areas that you don’t, that you’ve got mechanisms within the business that you’re going to get clear feedback, and that people feel you’ve got that trust and safety within the business, that you’re getting the appropriate feedback to turn up in the right way, is really, really important.

So yeah, don’t get too caught up in the hierarchy of a business. But actually, how do you want to inspire and motivate people? And there is a proximity that you need to create in order to do that, I believe.

Toni
Yeah, thank you. And particularly thank you from my heart for sharing your story about your stillborn daughter. And just to anybody listening, if that’s something that’s touched you, just take a moment if you need to. It’s really important.

But I just thank you, Sarah, for being somebody who is prepared to speak up about it. Not everybody’s able to. We shouldn’t push that, but I do wish that society would normalize that because of how common it is. To anybody listening, if that’s affecting you, my heart goes out to you, and Sarah’s, I’m sure, does as well. So thank you.

Let’s talk a little bit about how your job has evolved. When you applied to Cisco, or they invited you to apply, did you know what you were taking on when you applied? Would you have taken the role if you knew? I always think to myself the same things I’ve done in my life — that if I’d known what I was taking on, I would have been too scared. But I’m so damn glad I did it. Would you have taken it, do you think, if you knew?

Sarah
So do you know, a very honest answer on this, Toni? It’s probably the first decision that I’ve ever made in my career where there has been so much more of an unknown, and I had a gut feel and probably took a bigger leap.

It’s different joining a new company than taking roles in a company you’ve been in for a long time. And I’m actually glad I didn’t know what I didn’t know, because maybe I would have tried that, you know, oh, I don’t know enough about that, so maybe I shouldn’t go for the job.

But there are all of those doubts that creep in, particularly for females. You kind of think, I can’t do 95% of the job, I shouldn’t apply until I’ve mastered it. So I probably would have talked myself out of things had I known.

And actually, I personally feel like I’ve flourished in the unknown because I’ve challenged myself in different ways. I’ve relied on different skills because I’m not the subject matter expert. I haven’t known the company for as long as many of the people who worked alongside me or for me had. There are different things that I needed to bring out in terms of my skill set to help me be successful.

And I think that’s really helped me push myself a lot more than perhaps I had done in a company that I knew inside and out, and probably had been there longer than most people.

So what would my reflection be for the audience? Maybe sometimes that leap and that unknown, and being a little bit more comfortable to work things out as you go, is quite liberating, actually. But it was a brilliant move for me, and I’m still delighted that I made it.

Toni
That’s wonderful. And one of the things I really want everybody to hear here is that it’s okay to do things when you don’t know what’s going to happen. I will say, you can always change your mind later. There’s no harm in trying something, realizing it’s not for you, and shifting direction. If you don’t try, you’re not going to know.

So I love that.

You’ve obviously been in tech a decent amount of time, and we’ve seen over the last 30 years the representation of women change, the voice we have at the table change. What do you think has changed the most, and what do you see happening today? Because obviously right now, I think we’re in a bit of a weird situation where women’s rights — we’re being pushed back in a box a little bit. That’s my view.

I’d love to hear it. How do you think things have changed over your career for women at the table, and what do you think is going on today? What are you seeing?

Sarah
So the first thing I would say, Toni, is the difference in representation. So although we still have a long way to go, the fact that there is better representation at senior levels is instilling greater confidence in the possibilities for the next generations.

So when I look in Cisco at things like our inclusive communities, our Women of Cisco, our Women in Science and Engineering, I see just how much bigger and richer a cohort we have now of amazing, amazing young female talent who see representation and see that possibility, and I think have more conviction at an early age to stay in the industry and have the ambition to grow in the industry.

That didn’t exist 29 years ago. Representation was minimal. And if I was to look at that point and say, who’s the person I aspire to be, there was nobody that I could say, that’s the path that I want to follow.

So that’s the first thing that’s really important, and it’s really encouraging to see that next generation and the way in which that representation at the front line has changed, and just the ambition and the future potential that we’ve got is phenomenal.

But I think there is a growing awareness now of cognitive diversity. So forget whether we’re talking about female representation — cognitive diversity is proven to improve the business outcomes and results of organizations. And that’s the bit that’s really, really important for me if we’re to authentically change the dynamics of representation.

Because the last thing we want is tokenism. We don’t want a metric that says there has to be this amount of females, and therefore we cordially invite that number of females to be in certain roles, but we haven’t actually delivered progress.

We have to recognize that diverse teams across a breadth of areas deliver better results, are more reflective of the companies and the communities that we serve, and from a business perspective, they improve bottom-line results.

I definitely observe — and I’ll choose my words maybe a little bit carefully — but when I’m in rooms where there is broader representation of females, we move to action quicker. There is less… that is interesting. I genuinely believe that.

I think there is more of a drive for action. There is more real challenge around assumptions and motive, and how we drive results. So again, I think just observing some of those different dynamics is interesting. But I definitely see my female colleagues being very driven to action, and I think that’s an interesting dynamic in equally represented teams.

Toni
One other question I want to ask you is, what do you see as your biggest challenge for you in your career in the next few years? Maybe immediately, or something you see coming? Because there’s so much going on right now in the world. So how is that impacting you?

Sarah
That is a really great question. But I think, as in anything, there’s so much that’s outside of our control. If we worry about what’s incoming and how that will affect us, that can become quite overwhelming.

For me personally, the biggest challenge for me is my own mindset, speaking very openly, and how resilient I am to the things that are incoming, how confident I am to challenge myself and believe that I still deserve the seat at the table or the seat at the next table.

And I’m a big believer that, certainly for females, that mindset and confidence is the delimiter in many circumstances between success and failure. External factors will impact everybody. I’m not immune to anything that happens to other people. Neither are they immune to things that will happen to me.

So yeah, I think it is that mindset, that resilience, and that continued confidence that I will push myself to grow to whatever level I’m capable of growing to. Candidly, having the balance and the awareness of where I want to get to and where that may plateau, or where I make different decisions in terms of what that means for me and my life choices, my family and things like that. My mindset is the big thing.

Toni
Yeah, I think it so often is. I mean, again, it’s one of the reasons I have a job. Because whether it’s nature or nurture — and that’s a very complicated question — the reality is right now in our society, so many women, our mindset gets in our way. We can be simultaneously pissed off and angry and doubting ourselves about the same thing. This is good. It’s special as well, I’m going to call it, and it can be so debilitating.

But the thing is, when we get over it, we do things like what you’re doing, which is incredible. And just thank you for being such an incredible role model to women in the tech industry. I really appreciate it.

Sarah
That’s very kind. Thank you.

Toni
Well, let’s move — I could talk to you all day about your career — but let’s move on to the quickfire round. Otherwise we will be here all day. What is the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Sarah
Most definitely the advice around having to move to London if I wanted to build a career. And I’m glad that I didn’t listen to that.

Toni
Oh yes, absolutely delighted you didn’t listen to that. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Sarah
So there’s two things that both came from the same leader, actually. The first was to back myself as hard as I back other people.

Toni
Hell yeah. Yes. I’m glad that leader told you that.

Sarah
So that’s a good point of reflection. The other kind of aligned to what we’re talking about was representation. Because I’d had this conversation about, well, I haven’t seen anybody else get to that level, so why could I be… You know, many, many people have had that conversation.

And this individual said, my advice would be, if there is a path that you haven’t yet seen anybody walk, maybe it’s your path to walk — but make sure you leave the gates open.

Toni
Absolutely. Lift the women up coming along behind you. If we’re strong enough to open the door, let’s make it easier for everybody else, is my view. We shouldn’t have to fight this hard, so I love that. Oh, that is a brilliant leader.

This has been a fabulous conversation, and I’m hoping everybody’s feeling inspired to go out and maybe get a bit uncomfortable. But how can people connect with you, find out more about what you do at Cisco? Where can we find you?

Sarah
Online? Yep, so LinkedIn is always the best place to find me. And I post lots of stuff about what we do aligned to our purpose as well. So that’s one thing that we’ve not quite touched on, but you would get more of a sense of what I represent and what’s important to me alongside industry through LinkedIn.

And have a look at Cisco and our Networking Academy, again to give you an idea of what we do to help with some of that skills piece. So if there’s anybody that’s now thinking, I’m a bit curious about AI, how do I get into some foundation of things? It’s open to everybody, accessible to everybody, so definitely worth a look.

And yeah, have a look at Cisco’s page and see. We’re more than just a networking company, and hopefully that will give them an indication as well as to why I love what I do today so much.

Toni
I love that you’re doing that. I love that you’re providing online information about AI, because I think it’s all kind of a given that we all know how to use it, but we don’t.

And yeah, I’ve always thought I know Cisco because my career in supercomputing and it providing some of the networking that goes in behind that. And so to me, you’re very much a hardware company, and WebEx — that’s what I always think of. So it’s nice to hear the other side of it.

What final thoughts would you like to leave us with today?

Sarah
So you touched on this at the start, and I think this is definitely something that I’d ask everyone to reflect on. I left school without having great results, and I definitely didn’t have a plan, and I didn’t have anything worked out.

And the bit that’s worked really well for me is just taking the joy in the journey and enjoying that. And ensuring that, you know, be stretched, be challenged. If you’re comfortable, it’s time to move on and do something bigger and better.

But don’t be worried about what the job grade is or the title. Just find the joy in the journey. If you’re enjoying what you do, you feel stretched, and you’re being rewarded, that’s growth. And for me, that’s helped me accelerate my career probably better than putting a stake in the ground to say, I want to be this grade.

And I know it might make people think, well, it’s easy to say once you’ve made it as Chief Executive, but that genuinely is what’s kept me moving forward. And that would be my best advice to everybody: find the joy in the journey. Don’t worry about having everything worked out.

I still haven’t. I still don’t know what the next 10 years… and that’s part of the excitement as well. And I’ll look forward to seeing whatever the next decade has for me in store. But that’s no more worked out than the past three.

Toni
Oh, what a beautiful note to end on. So thank you so much, Sarah, for everything you shared today.

I just want to touch on a few things as we wrap up this episode. One thing that’s really struck me about why I suspect you’re so successful is that authenticity. You obviously talked about specific things you do around authenticity, but you’ve also spoken just there about being stretched. So it’s not just joy, enjoying the journey, but literally being stretched.

And I always say, if you are ambitious and driven, the main thing you need to do is stretch yourself — be a little bit uncomfortable every day. And I think that speaks to the level of authenticity you bring to the table, which is why you are so successful.

And I just want everybody to hear that. Try and bring a little bit of discomfort in the stretch department. It’s not like doing something that’s bad for you discomfort. It’s doing something like, oh, this is out of my comfort zone. That is how you’re going to progress your careers.

And for those of you listening, the biggest takeaway from Sarah’s conversation today, in my mind, is you don’t have to have your entire career mapped out to get to the levels that she’s at. And she’s not done. She is not done. Sarah has admitted that she’s got a decade or more to go, and she is not done.

So you don’t have to have the perfect career plan. You don’t have to have ticked all the boxes when you left school in the right order. You don’t have to be 35 and have a particular title if you want to get somewhere by 45. And if you’re at 16 and you’ve still got something that you want to do, just do it.

You don’t need a plan. You don’t have to have all the answers. What you need to do is get a little bit uncomfortable and take that step in the right direction. And just to borrow Sarah’s colleague’s phrase, lift up the women coming along behind you as you do that.

Thank you everybody for listening. Let me know in the comments how you found today’s conversation, and if you’d like to hear more from Sarah. Thank you and bye for now.