‘As women we have a duty to explain the diversity of roles in tech’ - Kocho CEO

Hannah Birch is the latest channel leader to talk about her career in the tech industry so far, and the misconception around tech in this Q&A with CRN

Hannah Birch joined Kocho Group as its new CEO in February, bringing with her decades of experience in leadership roles, including more than ten years as a managing director at Accenture.

Birch started in the channel in 1992 at Corporate Software Services, until moving onto the likes of Top VAR Computacenter, Ensono and Node4.

She speaks with CRN about how she first got into the industry, what has attracted her to stay, and why it’s important to spread awareness on the diversity of roles in technology.

How did you get into tech?

“I suspect like a lot of people, by accident.

“I joined BP, which was my first role in industry, and I was asked to be a business analyst on an Oracle ERP implementation.

“I was asked to be on the business side to help out with the scope of requirements and the design of the system being implemented.

“I found it fascinating what tech could do, going from processes that were manual, paper-based to seeing how quickly computing could give you an assurance of an outcome and what you could do with that and the insight that it could provide for you, I thought it was incredible.

“I decided I wanted to get into tech. But I didn't know how and I wasn’t qualified.

“But then I joined a company called Corporate Software Services, which at that time was the number one reseller for Microsoft in the UK.

“After almost three years I left to become part of Computacenter.”

Why did you stay in tech?

“Every day is different.

“I've got a very curious mind. Some careers, perhaps, are more repetitive than others and I wanted a career that would allow that change and growth and constant learning.”

You’ve climbed the ladder quite significantly throughout your career and now you’re C-suite level. What do you think has been key to your success so far?

“I'm not sure I've got a single answer.

“Curiosity and passion are really important.

“I am really passionate about what technology can do for a business, and therefore that makes me very curious.

“'I’ll talk to everybody from a London taxi driver to a CISO about what their challenges are, and then I think about how we can address those.

“Curiosity and constant learning is critical.

“My time through the industry thus far and growing up in the industry when it was very new, and everybody was shaping it as they went, to my 11 years at Accenture as a managing director, that scale gave me two lenses of entrepreneurial versus structure, and I think now I'm able to bring both of those to bear in the CEO role.”

What would you say to women who don’t see the tech sector as a viable career option for them owing to its sometimes complex nature?

“I do a lot of things on this topic.

“One of my roles at Accenture was heading up diversity and inclusion, and this included female streams.

“I've spoken quite a bit at schools, and going right back to the pipeline of talent coming in, one of the issues is people perhaps don't understand the diversity of roles in technology, and I think therefore, there is a misconception about what tech is all about.

“When you unpack it and explain to people that it's around reasoning, problem solving, or,if that isn’t your area of expertise, it could be around marketing or go-to markets, or thinking about how technology can be applied to a business.

“We all have a duty to explain it more as women, to young girls in particular, who are thinking about which options they'll take, or which university course or apprenticeship scheme they're going to sign up for.

“I don't sit in a dark room coding, and I think that perhaps sometimes people think that's what it's all about.”