Kate Cleal

Job:

Head of Delivery

Company:

Answer Digital

I head up the Answer Change Delivery capability, leading our Agile Project Managers, Scrum Masters, Product Owners and Product Managers in strategy, practice and ways of working. Responsible for recruitment and developing the Answer Delivery Academy. I also support clients directly in either a change consultancy role, or as now as a hands-on senior delivery manager leading a hybrid (client/agency) agile development team.

I am...

Resilient

Calm

Kind

The skills I use most in my job...

Communication skills - both internally within my team - keeping them informed, listening to their feedback and views, regular 121s - and externally with clients, stakeholders and client delivery teams

Servant leadership skills - people first and foremost supporting them in their career progression at Answer and their personal development and well-being

Change governance skills - keeping all the change delivery plates spinning! Whether at the "head of" level or in my Delivery Manager role. The usual suspects! - Budgets, Risk, Resource planning, Comms

The most interesting thing I've worked on in my career so far...

A pitch for the first 10 Downing Street website back in the day, the development of the first Oyster Card transactional website for Transport for London, the first point of sale consumer credit offering for Amazon and latterly the working with the team to safeguard data integrity for UK Mass vaccination programme.

What inspired me into digital and tech...

The thrill of the new, an opportunity to develop as the whole online world developed and inspirational leadership from some early mentor/managers.

My educational background is...

BA from Liverpool University studying Geography/Sociology/Psychology gave me a solid grounding in analysis and drafting skills. Then mid career an MA in Technical Communication at Sheffield Hallam - writing for the web etc. Professional skills honed on the job - first class training with the Civil Service and then sponsorship through both PRINCE2 accreditation and the BCS Diploma in Business Analysis. That gave me options to either follow a Project Manager of Business Analyst path - I took both! (not at the same time)

What advice I'd give to girls thinking about a career in digital and tech...

Remember that like life - things digital and tech are not an exact science, there is so much room for trial and error and humanity. The female perspective has so much to offer that is unique. Speak up, speak out. You might not be heard but if you keep silent you definitely won't be heard.