My journey to becoming a woman in tech: Lauren Partridge
What best showcases Lauren Partridge’s leadership qualities is her positivity, ambition, and approachability. For her, whether in life or at work, there is always room to learn and grow through our successes and mistakes. Having an open mindset is pivotal to constantly developing as a person and in turn growing your career.
Her love for collaboration and learning from new people has opened the doors for her professionally. She started her career in aviation by chance through a friend and then worked her way up from the bottom of the ladder through her collaborative mindset to help transform processes and bring efficiencies to her customers and colleagues. Lauren rose to her first leadership position at the age of 23 and since then has spent eleven years in varying management roles within aviation and technology.
Technology would have never caught my interest in school – I have always followed a personal rule to ‘do what you love’ so throughout my education I pivoted to the subjects I enjoyed and this has been true throughout my career too. I like a challenge and to make a difference with what I do. When I was growing up, tech moguls in the media were typically male and this just wasn’t something I related to, so I subconsciously took it off the table. In 2011 after returning from travelling the world without a penny to my name, I needed a job ideally within walking distance and fell in love with aviation. The scope to learn and grow is massive and I loved getting my teeth into business problems, and how I could provide clients with enhanced solutions. Once I went into leadership, I loved the buzz of working with individuals as well as building high-performing engaged teams to foster growth and development.
Lauren joined flydocs as Head of Product Support in 2019 and since the team comprised only two women back then, she focused on diversifying and bringing in different perspectives. Today she leads a team of 24 individuals which includes 11 women and is a huge believer in everyone getting equal opportunities to voice opinions and be recognised.
Lauren has transformed the Customer Experience team and has delivered exceptional support to our clients. Being promoted to the Director of Customer Experience is a testament to her impact in inspiring a team of future leaders, especially women within the technology field. She has had a unique journey into tech with a lot of challenges as a woman in both aviation and tech, opening doors for other women in technology.
At the beginning of my career, I was tempted to mirror my male counterpart’s styles of leadership but I quickly learned that it is far too exhausting to pretend to be something you are not, so my rule became to always be my authentic self (easier said than done sometimes!) – I can get very passionate about certain topics but I am generally a peacekeeper so I play this to my advantage with a more collaborative and subtle way of getting things done. This isn’t the same for everyone so whether you are more direct in your approach or much quieter, if you are successful with your outcome then what’s the problem with how you got there? It is important to foster diversity, let’s face it, technology is solving real-life problems. If there isn’t a diverse voice pitching in on solutions, products and services will always fall short. We must invest in the next generation and ensure we are broadening the reach of this industry to include all genders and backgrounds. Businesses need to give careful thought to the image they put out there, how are they marketing themselves, how are they interviewed, how are they promoting fairly, and how are they structuring their workday to be inclusive. By doing this and holding themselves accountable we will ensure the youth of today sees what the possibilities are for them in the future.