What are you focusing on to upskill yourself?

I'm a firm believer in the importance of personal growth as a leader, to help reflect the organization's mission and vision, and to help the team get the best out of the set of skills and knowledge that they already possess. As the person in charge of a small group of employees, I think it is my responsibility to make sure that the conditions are adequate for them to perform in the best possible way, and in that way, the organization and all of us who make part of it, get the benefit.

Early in my career it was technical skills and certification. Then a bit later formal education (Masters Degree). Now it’s more about internal reflection and modeling my thoughts and actions to be like the leaders that I believe were the best role models during my life. I still read technology papers but more for my own insight than career advancement

Given that I also lead the product and design function as well as technology, I've spent the most time upskilling myself on the product side. I’m building skills around product-market fit and working with the UX team on validation to figure out how we can do rapid prototyping. We want quick product discovery so we can get feedback in. I've always had the benefit of working with a product lead as a colleague, so that's helped out in the past. But in my most recent role, it's been my remit to run with that.

Another skill I have spent a fair bit of time on is communication with the wider business. We have an interesting tool but a lot of our internal staff are non-technical and come from an events production background. That communication piece is key in terms of establishing how our product works, what our roadmap and strategy is.