BEN HUTCHINGS, EMEA TALENT PARTNER

Ben has been in the recruitment game for over 7 years, 3 of those he’s been taking center stage as a passionate Internal Talent Partner with a thing for creating emotive and engaging content. Content that makes people go “I want some of that”!

Ben is keen to express that whilst working in a largely male-dominated environment he finds working amongst women as peers and leaders a very rewarding experience. Starting off his career as a Hairdresser (Yes, really!) Ben has seen first hand the passion and drive women in the work environment have and is excited to be apart of an initiative that will create a more diverse environment, whilst being firm in his belief that this is not about a battle of the sexes, but about educating and empowering those who can make a change.

RACHEL BAKER, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER AT ROCKET MAKERS AND MENTOR AT STARTUP WEEKEND BRISTOL.

Rachel is a young single Mum, so not your usual CEO material. However, she has built two startups, one in the UK and the other in the states and has 10 years’ experience in understanding the challenges of being a CEO in the tech industry and everything that comes along with it. She is currently Business Development Manager at Rockermakers. Bath Life Magazine recently interviewed her where she was asked ‘what do you hope the future for women entails?’ She hopes that one day we won’t even have to ask this questions specifically about women, but just about humanity as a whole. Rachel is a great ambassador for Women Rock, a mentor, advisor and speaker for women in tech.

ANDREW CARR, HEAD OF DEVELOPMENT AT SCOTT LOGIC, BRISTOL.

Andrew’s career has taken him to work in Telecomms and Banking including a good few recognised blue chip companies such as Airbus, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Nortel. He is very driven about getting more women into tech, and making it a more level playing field after working for Nortel in Canada and seeing how behind the UK was compared to Canada. His first manager when working in Canada in the giant Tech company Nortel was a women, his manager’s manager was a women, in fact in that management chain, going up 5 managers, 4 of them were women. Andrew has been in the Bristol/Bath tech scene for 5 years and has introduced a fair few females to the Tech Industry, encouraging people to try development, doing introductions to TechSpark, and has located, hired and trained 6 females himself who had never worked in Tech previously along side hiring numerous experienced female technologists. In his current role at Scott Logic in Bristol Andrew wishes to increase the diversity of the work force and is very actively looking to hire more females into the office as well as mentoring females who wish to progress their career in IT. He is also now super driven to change the way we sell IT as an industry, as he believes the problem solving nature of the industry is far more interesting and will appeal to a much more diverse workforce than the current image/way it is sold. In his spare time Andrew can mostly be found running social meet up groups, or talking about personality theories.

GEORGIE HOPKINSON, AGILE COACH.

Georgie is a proud ambassador for Women Rock, an IC Agile certified professional, PSM1 professional Scrum Master and certified BCS Agile Practitioner. Her interest in coaching started during her time volunteering as a ChildLine counsellor for the NSPCC. She has a genuine passion for coaching individuals and teams to increase motivation, team effectiveness but most importantly, increase happiness in the workplace. She’s fallen into the tech world through her passion for coaching but now thrives off the excitement of working in an ever-evolving industry of highly skilled professionals. She’s spoken at Agile MeetUps and is speaking at Agile on the Beach this summer to share her experiences and enthusiasm for working in an Agile way.

Why these ambassadors.

Before someone asks me why are their male ambassadors on a women’s initiative? Yes, Women Rock is my initiative to promote and support underrepresented folks in tech. I am doing everything I can to support this but like I have said in previous posts, I can’t do this alone. I support gender inclusion, and I believe this is about creating the perfect balance. The reason why I wanted male ambassadors was due to the fact that they have first-hand supported and continue to support this cause from the start, and also have supported me throughout my career, they are internal stakeholders in their company who champion diversity. This isn’t a woman only job! There are many issues in pure women environments also, I’m looking to promote equality with a 50/50 split of diversity. We are building this community TOGETHER.

I am really exciting to be working with you all, confident that as a team we can make a real difference. You will get a chance to meet all of our ambassadors at our first event in April.

#womenrock