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00:00:01
I'm Sophie, I felt the Motherhood Penalty, and now I'm fixing the future of work for women
192 Plays6 months ago
Sophie, mum of two, was a high achiever in recruitment before having children, when she felt then impact of the Motherhood Penalty when returning to work. She has since founded two businesses: MotherBoard - which help women showcase their skills in tech and Hey Flow highlights the importance women's reproductive health in the workplace. This is a story of grit, belonging and entrepreneurial spirit.
Find Sophie Creese on LinkedIn fixing the future of work for women or at:
MotherBoard: https://motherboardmovement.co.uk/
HeyFlow: https://heyflow.co.uk/
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Transcript
00:00:09
Speaker
Hi, I'm Amy. And I'm Emma. And this is the 5-Hour Club Podcast, where we navigate life between the school runs.
00:00:20
Speaker
Today we will hear from Sophie, mum of two who dreamt of owning her own fashion label before starting a career in recruitment. After her own experience returning to work after maternity and seeing how hard it is for women to maintain their careers in tech, Sophie decided to found not one but two businesses to support women in the workplace.
00:00:38
Speaker
This is a story of true determination, belonging and entrepreneurial spirit which we hope you'll love.
00:00:51
Speaker
Hello, hello. How are Sophie? How are you doing? Very good, thanks. how are you both? Yes, good, thank you. Good Christmas and New Year? Amazing. Okay, so let's get into it. So Sophie, you're a mum of a daughter who's seven and a son who's three and founder of two businesses, Motherboard and Hayflow, which we'll come on to later.
00:01:08
Speaker
But can you tell us what your life looked like before having children and how your career started? Yeah, so i i studied fashion at university and I honestly thought I was 100% going to become a successful label owner, fashion designer.
00:01:24
Speaker
um So moved to London straight after university and set up label with my with my very good friend, um living very much a carefree life in comparison having children and always kind of ah Well, always striving to make this label work.
00:01:45
Speaker
So that was my my sole focus, I would say, of my early 20s was how to get this up and running. And we lived such a fun life. It was working in fashion and trying to set up this label and having that kind of dream, entrepreneurial dream um meant that we yeah we were just living together.
00:02:06
Speaker
an enjoyable fun life. We got invited to really good parties. um We got to work with on some incredible projects. I got to work on projects with Marc Jacobs. We worked with stylists. We attended fashion weeks.
00:02:17
Speaker
Clothes have featured um in magazines. We dress celebrities. ah it was the kind of the early 20s London creative life dream, very, very different to um actually where I ended up in my career.
00:02:31
Speaker
um But our label didn't make any money yeah at all. So our our hustle was, um we still had to work, we still had to kind of pay our way and live in London. So I had a full-time job, as did my co-founder of the um the label.
00:02:50
Speaker
And that was how i fell into recruitment um because I needed nine-to-five job. And i was offered job retail recruitment. So it's still kind of related to fashion and a great commission, which helped fund the label.
00:03:05
Speaker
um There were incredible company benefits for someone in their early 20s. Like I got taken on an all expenses trip to Miami, all expenses trip to Mykonos, got to go to sample sales, best restaurants.
00:03:17
Speaker
like It was a really fun, I would say very... carefree life other than the fact that on weekends I was also trying to get a fashion label off the ground.
00:03:29
Speaker
um But as as with kind of all pockets of time, life ah changed by kind of my mid-20s. Got older, got engaged, um which was fairly young compared to my friends. I was, think was 26 when I got engaged.
00:03:43
Speaker
And the label just kind of, it wasn't fun anymore. It wasn't what... I wanted, it wasn't what my co-founder wanted. She wanted to travel the world. i was very much in this, I want to buy a property and settle down and think about children.
00:03:58
Speaker
um So that kind of made me feel like that was my lot in life. I i needed to focus on my recruitment job and to get that kind of really solid.
00:04:09
Speaker
um and ah And so that that was kind of, this I suppose, the start of my future career in a way, and was just kind of the focus on realising that that chapter was closing and that, recruitment was going to be the chapter that was the, I suppose, yeah the important one in that moment.
00:04:26
Speaker
It sounds like your 20s were a lot more fun than mine were, Sophie. and That sounds incredible. So when you were working at the time, like earning the money, were you running the label on the side? So was it just long hours?
00:04:39
Speaker
Yeah, so the way that it worked was evenings and weekends. And that also... was complicated. My now husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, he was working in hospitality. So he worked really late evenings and weekends, which was which worked out really well when in my nine to five job in the evenings, I would meet up with ah my co-founder or we do something after work. And then on Saturday mornings was always our time where we would go get stuff done that we needed to get done.
00:05:09
Speaker
But If my husband had time off on a Saturday, naturally, if eat that which was rare, i would want to spend time with him. So it meant that there was, it was just so hard. And like things like giving, if we had a stylist request,
00:05:24
Speaker
um And myself and my co-founder lived separately. If in different areas of London, like half of the half of our garments would be in one person's house and the other half would be in the others. And it'd be like, oh my gosh, we need to go and quickly drop off these things. It'd be tube stops in the morning to get to drop off, you know, and clothes for stylists and stuff. So it was...
00:05:45
Speaker
It was very full on. and But I think the energy that you have at that stage and also the the kind of the belief that you have when you're in your twenty s that, of course, we're going to make it.
00:05:55
Speaker
You know, of course, this is going to become a really big thing. And therefore, um I suppose there was less. ah it didn It didn't feel like as big a deal to be doing all those things on the side.
00:06:07
Speaker
And do you think in hindsight, looking back to it, because obviously, you know, you were an entrepreneur quite early on. do you think that helped guide you to where you are now without skipping the gaps? Cause I want to hear it like, ah you know, what led you to now.
00:06:24
Speaker
yeah it's It's really interesting That's a really interesting question. Cause I've had a few people recently, like my non-exec director at Hayflow saying to me, she never knew my, my true background in fashion and my degree, et cetera.
00:06:38
Speaker
And I won an award at university for, um, a business that I set up, um, which was off the back of, i did a and volunteer trip to Honduras to work with indigenous kids.
00:06:49
Speaker
And it was, it was impact driven. So when I came back, I set up this and like small business called Darling Dolls that was all about being able to give this money back and so i creating these little dolls, had like worry dolls in them that were built, made from the Honduran indigenous people and stuff.
00:07:08
Speaker
And I, yeah, like said, I won an award for that at university. I, and I did make money from that a very small amount, but still it was an operating very small business. I'd never considered myself as entrepreneurial until literally just before Christmas, when somebody said to me, oh, you've been an entrepreneur since you've been way younger. And I really hadn't considered that. I thought, well, I know I'd had these two things that never got off the ground um that were just ideas.
00:07:34
Speaker
So, yes, I now do recognize that those things have helped me and I definitely have always had a flare of I'm not going to go down necessarily the most generic route to get to where i want to go but ah that's all in hindsight.
00:07:50
Speaker
a That's so interesting that it only just occurred to you because straight away when you were talking about that ination in initiating that label there are so many skill sets that are involved in that that I thought I thought you did know Sophie.
00:08:05
Speaker
No.
00:08:08
Speaker
ah was I wish I knew slightly earlier but then also like that it's quite um it maybe would have given me more confidence in my businesses to have known actually but then also maybe would have given me more fear that things might not go well so so okay I'd love to bridge it gap then so you were in your mid to late 20s you were starting to think about your future and And, you know, the stability that the recruitment, you know, ah career gave you.
00:08:38
Speaker
um Talk us what happened after that. When did the babies arrive? So quite soon after my husband and I got married, think I was it from engagement to having baby probably about two years.
00:08:50
Speaker
And still in my late twenty s I, we you know, it was very much planned. As soon got back from honeymoon, was like, right, I want babies. And that was that was the the focus, which meant that.
00:09:03
Speaker
I had never kind of accelerated that hard in my recruitment career. I'd done well. I'd been promoted. i was at that point, a senior consultant. I had a, you know, a um I was managing a a tiny team um and I was well respected, i believe in my job at that point, but there were people that were way more successful than me that I was looking at thinking, oh gosh, i you know, eventually I want to be able to earn that much money. And that's the benefit of working in recruitment, especially in those days, um in retail recruitment, you could earn a fortune, like the the economy was absolutely thriving.
00:09:42
Speaker
um So the the Yeah, I kind of got pregnant, and then still worked hard to thinking, right, I need to earn enough commission, I was on statutory maternity pay, which meant that I had to save and i wanted a full year off.
00:09:57
Speaker
So i saved 22 grand to be able to afford that full year off. And I, you know, worked out absolutely everything down to that mean, you know, how I calculated everything to make sure I could get that full year.
00:10:09
Speaker
And I saved really hard, which also I could do because of the job that I was in. um But don't get me wrong, I wasn't earning, you know, a six figure salary. I still was... um you know saving and making life choices to make sure that I wasn't spending above my means.
00:10:24
Speaker
and and And then fast forward to pregnancy. Pregnancy was good. I just and kind of, I worked hard and i I was still very much focused on my job, but at the same time thinking, I can't wait to off and maternity leave. There was a bit of a you know balance of both.
00:10:43
Speaker
um But I hadn't recognized at that point that My whole company was female, which was a good thing in one sense, but it was female and young. Everyone was in their twenties. Nobody really had babies except for the owner of the business who was a guy. And
00:11:02
Speaker
so I, I kind of, there was nobody in my position that had a similar lifestyle to me or, you know, that was about to have the same lifestyle. I think that was probably where um the red flags started in terms of what I was probably going to kind of go through in the, on maternity leave, et cetera, and then return to work.
00:11:21
Speaker
Well, that's, yeah, that's really interesting, actually, that you recognise that, actually, the culture that you were in when you became a mother or becoming a mother, it was very different to, you know, maybe what you needed when you came back to work.
00:11:33
Speaker
So can you tell us a little bit about what your maternity leave looked like within that job and and how your return to work was there? Yeah, so, and first i want to caveat caveat that, um,
00:11:45
Speaker
the I don't believe that and the people that were involved in my maternity leave, et cetera, were ever at fault. I think this is something that, and I'll explain kind of the link to Hayflow and Motherboard. I think that lots of business owners are a little bit clueless or especially where back then, you know this is um eight, nine years ago.
00:12:03
Speaker
um They small businesses like that that worked predominantly with young women. i don't think they realized the the impact that motherhood would have on a business, but also on that individual and how they would change. So um just before I went on maternity leave about six weeks before, two directors of this or the company that i was working for i'm left and set up their own business.
00:12:31
Speaker
their own organization together, which was umm a ah real kind of big shake up within the organization. And um it meant that I knew that ah my advocate, the person that had had always helped promote me, had always supported me, um a really, in my opinion, probably one of the best people that I've ever worked for,
00:12:53
Speaker
and because she left, it meant that there was probably going to be a gaping hole, but I wasn't that far away from going on maternity leave. So my thoughts were, well, I'll just deal with this later down the line, you know, and focus on the fact that I was about to go off on maternity leave.
00:13:09
Speaker
So the last few weeks, remember its but um around that same time, the owner of the company said that we really need some new, fresh jobs in, like we need some new clients.
00:13:20
Speaker
And that was my focus. And um this is kind of important to the story because just before I went off, I managed to get a deal with a a company or at least kind of tee up this deal with this company that ended up being a half a million pound win for the organization, which is the biggest ever client that we'd got in a retained um type project.
00:13:41
Speaker
um So I got that sorted, went off on maternity leave, did all my deals as two, I had to get them as two of, I know this is like small details, but I had to get them to a a certain point in the recruitment process to be able to earn commission on them.
00:13:54
Speaker
So that's what I did. Got as many as possible, went off, and didn't hear much from anybody for a while. I went in once when my daughter was quite little, had lunch. It was lovely with the owner of the company. and That was great.
00:14:06
Speaker
And then just little niggles started. So i wasn't invited with enough notice to go to the staff Christmas party. i was an awarded and I was awarded a um an award at that Christmas party.
00:14:23
Speaker
And I didn't find out until I came back from work. And it also had a voucher, which I could have really done with at that time, which never made its way to me. um There were, I started getting messages from people that i that were close colleagues that were saying, i've heard that you're not coming back to work. was like, and and what in in what capacity would I ever not come back to work? I need to be able to earn the same, you know, as I did before.
00:14:46
Speaker
Just all these little things. And then the final thing, Just before I returned to work, id I was really motivated. I was like, I'm gonna earn loads of money and this is gonna be you know I'm gonna be great. I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna be focused.
00:15:00
Speaker
But my husband and didn't want to live in London anymore. And it's like, we decided to move out. He got job opportunity in Bristol. I couldn't get hold of it anybody in the organization for weeks to be able to discuss the fact that I was moving.
00:15:12
Speaker
And then the time that we were actually moving happened and I still hadn't managed to tell my team, my friends, my colleagues, I knew that it would get back to somebody. Um, and eventually i hounded, ah the owner of the business who I knew had to make the decision on whether I could work remotely. That had never happened before.
00:15:29
Speaker
Um, and he was in Vegas on a boy's trip and I had to have this really serious conversation with him whilst he was out, um, having fun on effectively a lad's holiday. And I just felt like I was no longer valued at that point. I just thought, uh,
00:15:44
Speaker
all these things just were just adding up. um And then I was, I was allowed to work from home, which was incredible. And um I had to do a pitch to say, i should say, I want, they wanted me to set up a new area of the organization. I was like, yeah, I'll do it.
00:16:01
Speaker
So I put tons of effort into um making sure that I was proving that I was really committed, that I could balance motherhood and my job. um And then when I returned,
00:16:12
Speaker
i for the first month I spent three days in London without my daughter, which obviously when you've got one year old is really tough um to prove my commitment to the job and to get retrained up and stuff.
00:16:24
Speaker
But as soon as I was no longer in the office, I was completely forgotten. I did not exist. I was forgotten on every Monday morning team meeting. um Even though I'd be texting and calling, there was no teams back then or like no one used those kinds of digital channels.
00:16:38
Speaker
So it was all phone calls. And just started to build up that i was I could tell that I just no longer belonged there. um And I left after six months.
00:16:48
Speaker
Wow. I mean, just listening to, and thanks for sharing all the details. So I think those things are really important to just share, really. All of those things added up to how you may how they made you feel, which was, you know this lack of belonging in a company that you worked really hard for, that, you know, you felt like you owed them something that you're coming back and you were determined. But, you know, that was a really tricky time for you already going back to work. And, you know, you're going back to somewhere where you knew that it would be great if it could be supportive, but it sounds like you just were left on the sidelines. And that's a really hard thing.
00:17:20
Speaker
or a hard place to be, I guess, especially when you are going back after having and children. And yeah, it's a really, I'm really sorry to hear that because it just, I can see in your in your face how determined and how focused you were and how much you wanted to be part of that.
00:17:33
Speaker
But it's almost like they weren't able to let you back in. And that's such a shame. Yeah. And I don't think it was there. I look back at it now and I don't, it was not, it was not intentional on their,
00:17:44
Speaker
path at all it was the the fact was I wanted to work remotely um the company was not set up like this is way pre-pandemic you know this we weren't set up to work remotely so therefore I don't think they considered how ah in the there was no talk of like belonging in those days or inclusion even and this is less than 10 years ago you know the this it was just show up hustle do your job well you enjoy the rewards that comes with that. It was that type of recruitment company.
00:18:15
Speaker
And also, why it was really difficult to leave because some of my best friends worked there. Like the godmother of my daughter, I met there. Some of my closest friends. um So it was also leaving...
00:18:27
Speaker
you know I know that you should never call a company family but it did leave feel like I was leaving some really important people in my life that I knew would support me through that but I needed something local and that was kind of the the shift yeah I think it like what really stood out to me there was when you said that essentially you had to pitch to show that you could balance motherhood And I feel like your story it just epitomizes that's the motherhood penalty.
00:18:55
Speaker
That's what it is. and and your because And it's not just even like losing, like if if you go back, and we know the motherhood penalty, you're losing out on salary, but there's so many other things. It's that sense of belonging, that that sense of, you need that sense of belonging to have that sense of purpose. And it all links in together. and And just because we become mothers doesn't mean we lose that fu fulfillment from work.
00:19:19
Speaker
um But, you know, to and I know you say it's like eight years ago, which in the grand scheme things is not that long ago. um um I think we are still at the stage where we do have to put in a business case for flexible working or, you know, to pitch to balance it, but to to be in a position where in 2025, we're still trying to justify can't be a mother.
00:19:41
Speaker
But wait just a minute. Like ah sometimes we have to work. We have to earn money. You know, this this is not just but yet we have to work flexibly. this and this is exactly why you know um the the the my my future kind of organizations were set up was all because of my own personal experience but um the reality of we're always making excuses and I sit here now and I can hear myself doing it where I'm like well it wasn't their fault they didn't know and but I was being given the opportunity to work flexibly I was given the opportunity i was working forward four days a week at that point I was given the opportunity to be able to work
00:20:16
Speaker
from home, so therefore I should be thankful for my lot and I should, you know, and I should have to pitch because I should have to prove. And even now when I hear myself, when i this is all I talk to organizations about, but when it's your own experience, you feel like I should be grateful. It's so true. I literally have just written down the word grateful.
00:20:35
Speaker
And there's two things to this. So there's the negative and the positive and the negative, obviously, if you're so grateful as an employee, um that you want to stay in that organization. So, you you know, you you feel a so grateful for that opportunity.
00:20:50
Speaker
But on the other hand, those opportunities are so little that you're kind of, you might be stuck. Now, is I think it is. I think it's that thing, isn't it, where you feel like you're so grateful that you've been given this opportunity to kind of work around your family, yet you're doing everything you possibly can to make that work. And sometimes the organisation doesn't realise that they also have a part to play in that.
00:21:11
Speaker
So obviously nowadays, we i mean, Yeah, it's only been eight years, but yes, we, you know, Zoom and all of those remote working options are more widely available out there. And I think that's what it highlights me was that, you know, even though it's quite a short amount of time away, actually, we have more resources out there to make this work for parents that they can.
00:21:31
Speaker
have these opportunities to work around their family. They don't have to be in the office. And we should continue to do that because I think your story shows that if you start taking those options away from people, then it strips back the opportunity they can have to go back to the place that they loved working before.
00:21:45
Speaker
So I think it's just highlighting that we need to keep going in that direction as opposed to working backwards again.
00:21:58
Speaker
So Sophie, tell us then, so youve you've obviously got to a point where you didn't feel that was the right company for you anymore. What happened after that? So I moved into tech recruitment at that point.
00:22:10
Speaker
I moved from re from from retail to retail tech recruitment. So I still had similar clients, which was great because it bridged the gap between learning the jargon of tech um and understanding it. Well, at least I understood the industry that it was in, but I worked for a um a very laddie company. It never really felt like it was my true fit, and but they were nice people that worked there.
00:22:33
Speaker
um And then the pandemic hit. So just before the pandemic hit, um I went for an interview at another recruitment company that was much more focused on impact. They were the first ever B Corp of their kind.
00:22:45
Speaker
um And everything they did was and was impact driven. They wouldn't work with clients that were linked to, you know, anything different. that wasn't in line with their values.
00:22:56
Speaker
um So that, so I moved there just as the pandemic hit. um And that was really where i suppose my real future started. um i hadn't recognized that at the time, but yeah, that was, that was where kind of the first step was to Motherboard and to Hayflow.
00:23:12
Speaker
Fabulous. Okay. So you've touched on this before about Motherboard and Hayflow, but can you tell us then what those are and, you know, what inspired you to start them? Yeah, so I'll start with Motherboard because so Motherboard is a not-for-profit. It sits within another organization called Adlib, um who are the people that really helped me set up and where I met my um co-founder um of Hayflow.
00:23:35
Speaker
So effectively, again, from my own lived experience, during this time, the but the rise of Jodie Brearley and the rise of Anna Whitehouse and the the rise of the InstaMum was happening.
00:23:49
Speaker
And so I was and I think, you know, a lot of credit to them for the types of organisations that have been created off the back of what they were doing, because I was totally inspired, especially by um Anna Whitehouse, who's a mother pucker, because she was talking about how ridiculous this all was flexible working, I felt my story was, although different, quite similar to her experience in returning to work.
00:24:10
Speaker
And um so I had this idea, was like, right, tech, no one's talking about women in tech. No one's talking about, oh, they were talking about women in tech. No one was talking about mums in tech. And during that first kind of couple of months of and joining Adlib, I had this period of time where there was nobody hiring, the world had shut down.
00:24:28
Speaker
was like, right, what what is this? I know that I want to do something for mums in tech and to bridge that gap. um I'd found that, just to kind of go back for a second as well, the previous company that i was working at Every time I tried to shortlist a woman that was part-time, my clients would say no.
00:24:45
Speaker
But these same clients were asking for short lists of women and were saying, well, there's no women here. And it was e-commerce and it was retail, et cetera. And I was like, well, you've got this incredible person that's working just once four days a week or they just want to school run two days a week.
00:24:59
Speaker
And um pre-pandemic, people weren't allowed to do that. So if you return to work, and this comes back to the grateful conversation before, I remember there was a woman that was working at Disney and she had a really great setup and she was like, I can't leave.
00:25:12
Speaker
Even though she was kind of stifled in her career and she was really ready because her children were in primary school and they'd made this great agreement that she could do drop-offs and pick-ups two days a week, which meant that she'd condensed her hours.
00:25:25
Speaker
um So actually, in a way, the pandemic really helped us all in that sense, um obviously held us back in others. But it was like every time I spoke to a mum or a woman that was that needed that extra flexibility, i was blocked by my clients.
00:25:42
Speaker
And I thought, right, so you're trying to be inclusive women. Your website is saying that you care about inclusivity. Your website is saying that you, you know, you you are leading the way in attracting women.
00:25:54
Speaker
ah You're not walking the walk. And no one else was calling this out. So I think when I then started to call out, I was you know, the reason why there aren't enough women in tech, the reason why there aren't enough people being progressed, the reason why your shortlist is so rubbish at engineering manager level is because all these women are dropping off.
00:26:10
Speaker
And then I saw some research, which was that 50% of women leave tech by age 35. And I was like, how are we not correlating this? No one was talking about the link to motherhood at that point. Um, so that's when I set it up. It was definitely the, I wanted, I spoke to loads of, um, women that I was representing one woman in particular who I placed in a, um, a manager's role who didn't tell me, um throughout the whole of the interview process that she was a mom, but I knew it because I could hear kids in the background every time I spoke to her.
00:26:39
Speaker
And she, when I put her application forward, she wanted like, I think she was on something like 50 grand and she wanted 55,000 10% uplift. tenmp percent uplift And then as I was going through the interview process, I realized all the men that was putting her forward, at the putting forward as well at the same time, were on 30, 40,000 pounds more than her.
00:26:58
Speaker
And they were not as well qualified. So when we got to final negotiations and she was the one, I said to this hiring manager, she can't be offered the salary that I previously put her on for, like that she's happy with that, but she needs to be earning the same as the men that I've put forward.
00:27:14
Speaker
um and when I gave her the offer um she was like you've changed my life completely changed my life and I think at that point I said to her like I know that you're a mum um you've never told me but I'm I'm representing the mums here you know we we need to club together and make sure that we are a bit of a force um and she was the one that was like we need you in the tech industry like no one is able to we can't advocate for ourselves because if we do we're going to see be seen as problematic So as an outsider, as a tech recruiter, I was able to be the one that was able to call this out and make companies kind of walk the walk.
00:27:50
Speaker
Like just well done for so many things and, you know, well done for supporting other moms in that position. Well done for setting up mother work because it's badly needed to have that conversation. so In the past, my passion was trying to get girls into STEM, you know, like via teacher and and and consulting and with Royal Academy of Engineering.
00:28:12
Speaker
But now I've realized like exactly what you're saying. There's such a massive drop off of women in tech like, and what's going on. And um we know that there's research out there, like really obvious research that women need a work-life balance.
00:28:27
Speaker
We also know that careers in tech can be flexible, like due to their very nature, but actually a lot of the proportion of part-time roles in tech are not part-time, like which is reflective of, you know, the dire number of, of of the and the lack of part-time jobs anyway, but especially in tech.
00:28:48
Speaker
and And to me, like exactly what you're saying, that there's a very obvious solution. Like, the again, lots of research says women are leaving tech because of lack of flexibility, because of a lack of a work-life balance.
00:28:59
Speaker
Why do women women want to stay in tech? Well, because of flexibility. and You know, it it's really, it's not rocket science. No, and as well, lots of women, there is so much research out there that says that women also leave the most technical jobs. So those that we we need in software development and i in data engineering and AI and all those things,
00:29:23
Speaker
they come back from maternity leave and they often get moved into what sometimes is described as glue roles, those roles that are absolutely essential for the business, but they are not the promotable roles. They will not get you to the top.
00:29:35
Speaker
And they're often non-technical. And so what happens is people stay in tech. So the figures remain the same. But the reality is those women have gone from technical roles to non-technical roles because they're seen as these nurturing figures that can run projects, that can manage people, et cetera.
00:29:51
Speaker
But those are not the top, jobs in terms of like the innovation and companies are guilty of doing that they don't often they don't realize it I've spoken to tons of leaders they don't realize they're doing it um they think they're doing the right thing um but actually it just leaves a huge gap in what is one of the most important industries um and should have way more women in So it's so interesting that you see this, you know, on a personal, like on the cold face, because for me, i just see the papers and I see the research and exactly like you're saying,
00:30:27
Speaker
like those women who we need in cloud computing. and and And there are some roles, there are certainly some tasks in jobs which are going to become redundant because of AI, who are gonna miss out, it's women.
00:30:39
Speaker
And at the same time, we have a massive skills gap. We have many people who are trying to sco solve this skills gap who are going to suffer, employers, who are going to suffer in terms of innovation,
00:30:53
Speaker
employers who are going to suffer in terms of of innovation for the future? Well, women, because we're penalized yet again, because for so many reasons, we need women in in data, we need women in tech, we need women in engineering. Like there's a reason why women are more likely to die in car accidents.
00:31:09
Speaker
there the you know and And women, if we think about the data, like only until the nineteen ninety s ah where women, you know, do we have clinical trials ah of women, you know, allowed in the research. So For so many reasons, we need the women in in these roles.
00:31:26
Speaker
But I find it so interesting that you saw it on a day-to-day basis. And and and that's the reality. And it's not going to change until we have these conversations. So again, well done for supporting the women and setting up, creating Motherboard and and showcasing because you you can't see what you can't be as well.
00:31:46
Speaker
So showing role models like, of course this can work. There's no reason for it not to, or those reasons actually are so negligible that's that's not a reason to not make it work. Because people don't like change, do they?
00:31:58
Speaker
And that's that's the reality of, um you know, with Motherball, because we're a community, we're charter, we're a not-for-profit. It's all about trying to create change, which makes it makes it easier when you're not making profit. um In fact, we probably make a loss.
00:32:12
Speaker
um it's It's about, like, you know, how businesses can get involved. and And actually, then you do start to weave out the people that... ah yeah they don't want to do it for the right reasons they might just they just want to they just want to hire somebody they don't want to hard part which is actually to be able to build the infrastructure of change to help women to thrive um and the community piece is is where it all began was making people feel like they had a voice but also our community is made up of everybody every every you know all genders
00:32:45
Speaker
um every age, every seniority, because so many people are really passionate about this topic, but they don't know what to do. um And they don't know where to start. So that's what we do. We help help them kind of at least make a start and understand that this is this topic has to be at the forefront if we want to be able to get more women retained, more mums in tech, et cetera.
00:33:08
Speaker
I'd love to hear more about Hayflow. So that's the motherboard and you've got lots going on with that. um So if you're not busy enough, you also have Hayflow.
00:33:19
Speaker
Yeah, so this actually feeds into having my second child. So I and went on maternity leave with my my second And I i knew as soon as I was pregnant with my second, that i definitely didn't want any more children. It was like, we were we were we were happy. and And after having him, i remember feeling the first two weeks, this like really strange, cozy feeling that I can't quite explain. And I was like, why do I feel like that? This really like...
00:33:46
Speaker
strange feeling and my husband was like that's just contentment like you're just you're happy with your lot and I was like that's exactly what it is so ah knew then when I returned to work um still working in recruitment had motherboard on the side that was probably at that point like half a day a week that I was doing on it um that I wanted to do i wanted to build on that but then a lot of the data that we were collecting people that we were speaking to we realized that Motherboards serves a very niche area. It serves tech and it serves mom's inclusion.
00:34:19
Speaker
um And yes, it's solving some really important issues, but there's way more to this. there's way more industries that are affected. And sometimes, you know, there's industries that are even and you know, worse off um around this topic. So we started to think consider the whole reproductive health spectrum. So we were looking at menopause when people were and we leaving. I was going through Claudia Golden's research, who won the Nobel Economics Prize in 2023. She proved the link between the motherhood ah becoming a mum and, um, the first big cliff drop off of women's earnings in the gender pay gap, the global gender pay gap. So i was looking into that, into that research and, um,
00:35:03
Speaker
interestingly she thinks it's kind of a byproduct of um the motherhood penalty i actually think it's a direct cause of becoming a mum um something that we are hoping to go to prove one day through our data um but um but yeah so she really kind of again like going off other people's brilliance and thinking right how can we improve on this um data and and what what more can we do how can we close those gaps and that's where hayflow was born originally was just going to be a spin-off but motherboard was just going to expand but then we realized it It has to be outside of tech. It has to be an industry agnostic um business. It needed to be a business to be able to get off the ground, to be able to get funding and all that kind of stuff.
00:35:42
Speaker
And also it needed to yeah look at everything holistically. So we just kind of worked through like what what what are businesses lacking? like What are our signatories lacking? Why do people say that they have a problem, but then they don't sign up?
00:35:55
Speaker
to the charter or we have conversations with them and they're struggling but we just can't quite convince them we will realize the gap was data we needed the insight but we needed insight from people from the employees of those companies rather than and generic research because if somebody reads some research and they don't see their organization in there they don't feel like it's a reality for them they have a great maternity leave whatever they go no we're good at that we we don't we've got a menopause policy we don't need to worry about that um so So, yeah, so we built that around, right, how do we build an insight company that's going to transform organizations to be able to work out where the gaps lie, how confident are managers, how um inclusive are organizations, um and then do the training. So it's the full solution of and transforming an organization because a lot lot of the old the the reality for women as as well and for managers that haven't gone through something or anybody that hasn't gone through something, if you you don't know what you don't know,
00:36:54
Speaker
So until we educate people and go, right, you haven't been through the menopause or you've you've you've never had really severe periods, but you're whatever gender you are, youve you've either not experienced it or you have experienced it, but not to the same level as somebody else. It's really hard to have empathy.
00:37:11
Speaker
And that's, and these topics aren't spoken about. So therefore we were like, we need the learning piece and education piece to be able to help people understand these very awkward topics um so that then they can give their employees the best chance of thriving, being promoted um and kind of unlock those opportunities for for women and make managers feel more comfortable talking about these things.
00:37:34
Speaker
I mean, it's just such an incredible story. It's such an incredible business, first each of all. And so again, important. But what I find just really interesting, it's just the evolution of how it all came about, you know, from from your early days in, you know, fashion and then,
00:37:50
Speaker
you know, clearly having that entrepreneurial transferable skills and to do like, how do you, how do you, it's so cliche, how do you juggle it all? But how, like, what does your day to day look like? Do you, do you do this every single day? Do you do it in the school hours? How do you do Sophie?
00:38:09
Speaker
So I do, I work full time. I, At the start of setting up Hayflow, I worked every day. i wasn't sat at my desk every day, but on weekends, I'd be constantly messaging, planning, strategizing.
00:38:24
Speaker
im Now I would say 95% of my time is spent on Hayflow. and So Motherboard has, it's not taking back burner. It's always been part-time business.
00:38:35
Speaker
thing that I've done that's not for profit, et cetera. um But we got investment last year for Hayflow, which was huge because first of all, being able to get investment with the fact that we're a female founded company is statistically near impossible.
00:38:52
Speaker
um But yeah, we managed we managed to raise a pre-seed round last year to be able to build the technology for our next chapter. And I'm in this really strange in-between stage at the moment because we were starting to build a business that was very lifestyle. When we first launched, it was, we're going to work with SMEs, we're going to do some training, going to some workshops. It's all going to be quite slow-paced
00:39:15
Speaker
and and And so I suppose kind of, yeah, that lifestyle type business. But then because of Motherboard, I also speak at conferences and those conferences are often quite full of corporate people and techies and everyone was like, you've got to, you've got to capitalize on this.
00:39:33
Speaker
You know, if you don't do it, somebody else is going to, um and you're in, we were kind of in this market, which people had never heard of this type of thing before. And reproductive health is emerging and, um, as a topic, et cetera.
00:39:46
Speaker
Yeah. so we realized that we needed to catapult, um, the, the business forward as quickly as possible, which is quite scary because not a techie, um my co-founder Sabrina is incredible she has such a now we've worked out now that we have ah a tech team working on building our product product she has a programmer's brain um so thank goodness for her because otherwise I would just be an absolute crumbling mess I wouldn't know what I was doing um so yeah we just kind of we've we're now in this platform stage so we paused
00:40:17
Speaker
business operations except for some small um consultancy bits and pieces that we've been doing for the last few months and we're in this build phase which is basically where you're kind of in limbo you're not you're not selling the product quite yet because you're still building it still working out exactly what that's going to be at the
00:40:38
Speaker
how it moves forward every day, ten am m standups with um our tech team. And it's, and it's a very different world to what I'm used to, um which has been quite daunting at times.
00:40:50
Speaker
um So yeah. And then ah my one thing is, so I, so I, yeah, work eight to five 30 each day um is my, is my schedule. My husband is incredible and does all the drop-offs and pickups, except for a Wednesday when I pick up my,
00:41:04
Speaker
eldest and we I take her to tap and then she che gymnastics and I work from the leisure centre and that's our time we have an hour between the you know before the class starts um where we have a little bit of like you know walk home from school have a chat and have a snack and have a coffee whatever and then I work from the leisure centre um which she doesn't realise she just thinks I'm sat there having a cup of tea waiting for her or watching her whatever so I ah try to use every minute that I can um but also make sure that my weekends are properly family weekends now because i I felt like towards the end, towards the middle of last year, I started to feel like I was getting really tired and I didn't want to lose the passion for what I was doing.
00:41:48
Speaker
And I realized that working every minute, like you dream when you're, when it's your own company, you dream, you dream, your job. So you're working, even when you're, you know, when you're asleep, you're working.
00:41:59
Speaker
So it's kind of like, it's always on your mind, but remembering that that's fine. That's normal. It's always going on your mind, but you don't have to be physically working every second of the day to be a good entrepreneur and to have that opportunity for success.
00:42:15
Speaker
Wow. I mean, absolutely. I agree. I think it's it's very fine balance, isn't it, are sort of working towards your passions and things that you're really excited about and doing those and working really hard, but then also having that time to switch off and to, you know, be with your family and do, you know, do those other priorities that are important to you so you don't burn out because essentially this is a marathon, isn't it? It's not a sprint, you know. We're in this, but especially when it's your own business, you're in this for the long game, aren't you? So it's kind of where you want to be.
00:42:40
Speaker
So you need to pace yourself a little bit and just think, okay, Yeah, certain things can wait till tomorrow or, you know, till next week. So, yeah, I mean, incredible. It's great to hear how you sort of fit all of these things into your working week and then still find that time for your daughter, which I'm sure she absolutely loves to do and have for that at the weekend as well. So.
00:42:59
Speaker
It sounds like you've got really nice, we don't like the word balance here, but it's that sort of boundary set in times for yourselves to you know create the the life that you want in the business that you want as well. I try it and I probably fail every week because somewhere there is going to be some...
00:43:14
Speaker
push and pull isn't there and sometimes gets to the end of the week and I'm like I didn't tick off the mini to-dos which is you know on my board my Trello board quick wins and often they get shifted and at the moment you know the reality is I plan my week out and then something major will happen and it's like right well that thing that I previously deemed as an essential is no longer an essential and it's having that flexibility isn't it of knowing You might think at the start of the week that isn't essential, but actually the reality is it might it may get moved and to kind of release any guilt of of that, especially by the weekends that you can actually get some enjoyment time with family, et cetera.
00:43:53
Speaker
Well, that's it, isn't it? Yeah, it's about being agile, I guess. And yeah, we we're very good at pushing our to-do's, aren't we, Emma? So we that. We know that well. It's called prioritization, Amy. It's not pushing back. but that is It is. It's a no failing here. mean You know, you shouldn't feel guilty about these things. It's just smart working.
00:44:09
Speaker
um Okay, before we move on to our final few questions, it would be great for you to sort of share where, you know, where we can find you at Motherboard and Hayflow and for people who don't know you and how they can get involved.
00:44:22
Speaker
Perfect. Yeah. So motherboardmovement.co.uk is the website for Motherboard and then hayflow.co.uk for Hayflow. Best place to find me on is LinkedIn under Sophie Crease. My surname is quite unusual.
00:44:35
Speaker
um So therefore I'm usually quite easy to find. um And I spend a lot of time on there and post, you know, I need to actually, I've had a really, a real lull for a month of posting. um And I need to get back on posting, which I'm going to do this week.
00:44:50
Speaker
um So yeah, find me on there. That's the easiest way to to find me and contact me that way. Fabulous. Well, thank you, Sophie. And so that let's end on our final few questions that we ask everybody, which is for everything you know about your life and career now, what is one thing that you would tell your younger self?
00:45:08
Speaker
I think that every time it feels like it's getting too hard, whatever that is, that when I was returning to work first time round, my drop in earnings because I was no longer earning commission, you know, and then I had to reaccrue it and I was working part time and all those things.
00:45:23
Speaker
It felt like it would. it would just never get easy again. And then with childcare costs and all those things, not living with near family. And then the same every time that I'm trying to kind of learn something new or stretch my brain um where I feel like I can't do this, like even setting up Hayflow, like going through companies, how, like knowing how to set up a company and,
00:45:45
Speaker
like things like what we're dealing with people's personal data like how do what what does that you know what does that mean and oh my gosh like that would have put me off if I had not had decent um support around me at that point so i think just knowing that things aren't as complicated as they seem and everything will always get better just like get through it power through and then the feeling of like I can't do this or it's too much, or it's too hard, will go.
00:46:13
Speaker
um ah found that as well during, um had a... a weeks on end when I started Hayflow where every Friday i was like, I can't do this.
00:46:26
Speaker
It's too much. I can't do this. It's too stressful. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm having to Google everything. i And every Monday I'd feel better. So it's just that like reminder that everybody is going through that. And I look at all these incredible business owners that have like sold their unicorn companies and stuff. They all had no clue when they started. They just didn't.
00:46:46
Speaker
hustled so I think it's just the reminder that no one knows you just got to yeah I should have just known just to go for it and not to kind of second guess everything and worry about everything it's it's a really hard thing not to do isn't it it's that we have that and I know I particularly do where it's kind of Just that fear of the unknown, not knowing her and just feeling that, what why should I be doing this? Or, you know, somebody else could do this. Or, you know, I should know more than I do. But it is, it's ah it's an easy thing to say in hindsight, isn't it? When you look back and go, actually, achieved that really easily. And it actually, it wasn't that hard in the end. But at the time, it can always feel harder than it is.
00:47:21
Speaker
But yeah, I think that determination and grit actually makes you a better founder too, because it just means that everything that you come across, you'll keep pushing forward and you'll keep going for it because you've, you've struggled with other things in the past and you've got through those. So I think it just makes you a better founder. So it makes your critical thinking better. Like you're able to just go, okay, that's,
00:47:40
Speaker
move these things along quicker next time so true and it's not even founders it's it's anyone if you're you're becoming a manager or you're a consultant you are going to be learning the majority of your learning is going to be learning on the job so we're all in the same boat and thanks for your advice for younger Sophie because that's great advice okay then final question if you could do or say one thing for yourself tomorrow what would it be See, I always love the pause of this one. Everybody pauses.
00:48:12
Speaker
It's my question that gets everybody. We've dumped her. Do you know what it would be? i I started, um this is going to say, I've never consistently exercised.
00:48:26
Speaker
I was always very slim when I was younger. And then, you know, you have babies, whatever. I have just realized how, so I started Metcon program gym class a couple of months ago on a Monday and I'm usually exhausted on a Monday but I've been going every single week and it is so intense and these women that are there are so fit and I felt completely inadequate for the first few weeks and now I'm really seeing the difference in the difference in myself the difference in um like brain clarity um I'm now doing more exercise than that I'm ah eating healthy all those things so I think it would be a reminder to make sure to prioritise
00:49:04
Speaker
things like exercise, things like downtime, and because I know that once those things go, and and I've seen so many people write about this on LinkedIn this week because of it being the first week back from January, that people like, as soon as things get busy, people deprioritize. And actually that's the time, if you're busy, add in an extra gym class or something like start doing meditation because if you can get it right when you're really busy then when it gets quieter or when things you know get even busier then you've got that routine in place so I think just a reminder to never like not forget that that actually prioritize yeah kind of moments of um for yourself
00:49:48
Speaker
for my son Absolutely. Yeah, I can agree more. I mean, I, I completely understand you and And this week, it's been really hard to get back into those routines. But I think it's I really noticed those differences between even if it's just a 15 minute workout that I can do at home.
00:50:02
Speaker
It just changes my mindset for the whole day, the whole week. and I think it just makes me work more effectively and I think like you say if you can build those things into those busy periods and you can then you can enjoy them when you're not so busy but it's really important thing to remember so yeah great well thank you so much Sophie for sharing all of your wise words and entrepreneurial skills and your story and everything that you're doing now I think a lot of people will be listening and take a lot away from what you've shared today so thanks so much i love what you two do so i really appreciate being invited onto your podcast and yeah it's been such pleasure oh thanks so much sophie so lovely to chat here thanks so much bye