Chief executive, Sapphire
Name: Annabel Berry
Role: Chief executive of Basingstoke-based cybersescurity provider Sapphire
Context: Berry has been CEO of Sapphire since 2015. She is also a public speaker and a director of Ladies of London Hacking Society
What are the key business benefits of having a diverse workforce?
It is proven that businesses with greater diversity are more successful. Why wouldn't any business leader want to to attract the very best talent and people they can to work within their organisations? It seems crazy to me that people still want to hire from a smaller pool of candidates who happen to fit in with the majority. We need diverse backgrounds, thinkers, cultures to enable us to be more creative and to have alignment with shared goals and to have long term, sustainable and thriving businesses.
What is your advice to women and girls thinking about a career in the channel?
Go for it! Without a hesitation. It offers such an amazing opportunity to be part of our thriving tech industry and there are phenomenal women working in roles everywhere in the channel.
What's your top tip for tech providers that are serious about tackling their gender or diversity deficit?
Work hard on your job adverts, it's shown that women most likely won't apply for roles where there's a long list of things if they feel they can't tick every box, whereas men will likely apply if they feel they only tick a few. Do you really need to list everything on the spec? Also, pay attention in interviews. We are conditioned to what confidence, ability and talent sounds like, depending on what our cultural norms are. Make sure you dig deeper and ask different questions in the process so that you give a variety of talent chance to shine.
