Exciting times ahead for Women in Tech: a #LifeAtVeritas interview with Claire-Louise Green
I recently had the pleasure of catching up with Claire-Louise Green, EMEA Marketing Director here at Veritas and I asked her about how she’s progressed her career, what it’s like working in tech and how we can encourage more women to join the IT industry. Here’s my interview with Claire-Louise, I hope you like it!
Zoe: Hi Claire-Louise, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule today to answer a few questions. For our readers of this blog, can you tell us how did you get into tech?
Claire-Louise: After studying Business Management at Leeds Metropolitan University, I knew I wanted to locate to North London to be near innovative companies that were riding the tech wave of growth. I landed my first job at SDX in Welwyn Garden City in the late nineties, they were a private SMB telecom manufacturer. My role at the time was far from glamorous, starting on the bottom rung of the ladder inputting customer data into a spreadsheet. Within a year SDX was bought out by Lucent Technologies, and I had the opportunity to show I could do more and I wanted more responsibility. Five years later I became part of the leadership team and was seconded to run different teams in an engineering male-led environment. My first management role was running a hardware team of 24 engineers designing PCB boards for the IP Office boxes and phones. The team was consistently late in reaching GA (global availability) Dates for product releases. This was just one of my challenges. What was more prevalent was the fact that I was in some cases 10 to 20 years junior to the team members I was managing, I was early in my career and with little engineering or management experience. I had to deliver on all aspects.
Zoe: What motivated you to join Veritas?
Claire-Louise: The role fitted what I had just achieved and delivered whilst at Avaya running their EMEA Field and Channel Marketing teams. What convinced me to join was the technology and innovation that Veritas brings to the table and how it can articulate this into customer value. Also during the interview process, my first meeting was with the Senior VP of Sales Mark Nutt, this demonstrated to me that Veritas is serious about having a strong marketing and sales culture as the two go hand in hand.
Zoe: What do you enjoy most about working in tech?
Claire-Louise: I feel lucky at Veritas as we have such a rich heritage combined with the latest technology to help customers solve their problems. The technology is why I love working in tech and Veritas’ R&D solutions have positioned us as the Number One Worldwide Market Share leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant Backup and Recovery Software, Archiving Software and Management Software Defined Storage latest report. The new Gartner report follows Veritas’ position as a Leader in the Gartner 2017 Magic Quadrant for Data Center Backup and Recovery Solutions and the Gartner 2017 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Information Archiving. You can read more on this here.
Zoe: What is your greatest work achievement?
Claire-Louise: Oh, that’s a good question! I have two. The first was being promoted multiple times while at Avaya rather than moving to a new company. Secondly, my greatest project achievement to date is being the champion for End 2 End lead management process within Veritas, spanning multiple departments, geographies and workstreams. Within a few months, we have seen the impact it is making.
Zoe: How has your management style developed over the years?
Claire-Louise: I have learnt that being clear and setting the team on a journey towards a clear goal is critical to success. Setting SMART objectives and frequently revisiting them to coach, mentor and support the team to achieve them is essential. You can never communicate enough when you have a team across different cultures, time zones and languages.
Zoe: What would you suggest makes a good leader?
Claire-Louise: Listening to others, seeking feedback and being open to learning.
Zoe: Who are your role models and influencers?
Claire-Louise: One of the Sales VP’s in Lucent Technologies was a great inspiration on how he ran an EMEA team that were all in support of each other sharing the same mission. More recently I would say Wendy Clark – CEO, DDB North America, a former Coca-Cola marketing veteran.
Zoe: What advice would you give to women wanting to get into tech?
Claire-Louise: Be clear, articulate and come prepared to stand out from the crowd. Recently, I have asked candidates I have interviewed to create an infographic of themselves. This helps to understand how a person see’s themselves and their characteristics.
Zoe: What do you think the next years hold for women in IT?
Claire-Louise: Exciting times as more and more women come into IT and taking leadership positions.
Zoe: How do you balance your work life and personal life?
Claire-Louise: It is always a challenge but I have managed to find a balance by having a great team that I work within EMEA, and we back each other up. Also having two young girls aged 4 and 8, I want to show them that women can have leadership careers and still be there for sports day, school plays and family time.
So, that concludes my interview with Claire-Louise Green, if you enjoyed this blog then do stay tuned as there will be more interview style posts from other women in Veritas posted shortly. And if this has inspired you to join Veritas, well we have a couple of roles vacant in Claire-Louise’s team, so if you fancy working for her then check out our latest marketing roles and apply here. There are plenty of opportunities at Veritas! So, why not join our growing EMEA marketing team?
Finally, watch out for more #LifeAtVeritas blogs and podcasts coming soon!
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