Vanessa Vallely, OBE is the CEO of WeAreTheCity, a free resource centre for women in business including gender related news, the largest women’s network directory, events and awards. WeAreTheCity has 140,000 members and hosts The Rising Stars awards, as well as the WeAreTechWomen conference.
Tell us a little about your current career and how you came to do it?
I’m the CEO of WeAreTheCity. WeAreTheCity came about because throughout my 25 year corporate career, across nine different financial institutions, I observed a lack of women in my leadership team meetings. And I was also astutely aware that the pathways for women to get into those rooms were very, very difficult. When WeAreTheCity was born in 2008 it was just a resource centre to help women drive their careers forward and it remained that way for the best part of seven years.
Back then most women’s networks were very senior, very white and very bureaucratic to join. I wanted to create something which reflected my background growing up in East London, where everyone had a seat at the table. WeAreTheCity’s membership is now over 140,000 women and in 2015 I left my corporate career to focus on it. I built out a suite of services and products that would help companies attract and retain female talent, this funds the website so that the resources will always remain free.
How did you get started?
I left school at 16. I didn’t do very well at school academically, and I’ve recently been diagnosed with ADHD which explains a lot about why I was so disruptive. I got my first job in a bank and six months later ran into trouble when I called out the bad behaviour of someone senior. They didn’t directly sack me, just tried to relocate me somewhere very far away. I felt like my life was over.
But then I got a job at a tech firm. I realised the one skill I had was that I knew how to turn on a computer, which at that point hardly anyone did! I was working for a company that was shipping kit and software into the City of London and everyone was refusing to use it. I was a receptionist but I watched what the other teams did, shadowed them and eventually the training manager invited me to join her team. It meant I learned how the applications worked, learned how to book training, and a few years later I set up my own training company. I taught myself 21 different applications and programming as well. So by that point I was well and truly in the tech field. I went back into banking and hopped around for a bit - changing jobs every two or three years before ending up at Aviva.
Can you tell us a bit about what you learned at Aviva?
I joined Aviva Investors to run a very large transformation project but by the time I got there budgets had been cut and I ended up managing a very large team with not a lot to do. So we started creating processes and governance, we wanted to make sure that when the budget did come we’d be able to run the project really efficiently. At that time we had a new COO and when he first walked through the door nobody knew who he was, he was a bit dishevelled looking. Me being me, I walked up to him and asked if I could help him and that was how I met John Hodgson. He knew I ran WeAreTheCity as a side hustle and he was fully supportive of it, without him I don’t think the business would be where it is today.
I think what Aviva really gave me was the freedom to innovate. When you think of Aviva, you might think of a really old company that’s seen so many changes. But when I worked there you could come up with an idea and really run with it. I’m really proud of the leadership skills it gave me. I had the opportunity to work with talented individuals and not just grow as a leader myself but learn from them about the sort of leader I wanted to be.
What’s next for your career?
From a WeAreTechWomen perspective, there is a lot of work to be done. Although we're seeing some progress in the stats in general around women on boards, we're not seeing the same level of traction for women in tech.
And while those stats around women on boards are great, all the women look like me. I want to see more senior intersectional women making big decisions in our tech companies. I want to ensure that the right people from diverse backgrounds are around the table when we're designing products for society.
What advice would you give to someone starting their corporate career?
I would say the main thing that they need to focus on is their network. So, go to the opening of an envelope internally if it means that you get to meet people. I would say, make sure that they join their employee relations groups and don't just go to the one that they have affinity towards. Make sure that they go to the other ERGs, because they're a great place to meet people and learn new skills.
And finally, do you have a motto you live by?
A life without passions is a dull one indeed!