Women of Silicon Roundabout 2023

Introduction

The Women of Silicon Roundabout conference is the UK’s largest Tech event for women. Gousto’s wonderful Chief of Staff, Louisa Golden suggested that a group of us attend the event together, using it as an opportunity to get to know our own Women in Tech community while learning about the industry and networking externally.

About 30 Gousto employees signed up for WOSR 2023, from all areas of the business. Since we bought so many passes at once, we were also given a handful of free premium passes which granted extra access to workshops on top of the 250+ talks that were to take place on 22nd and 23rd November, which were allocated randomly within the group.

Preparation

In the months running up to the event, Catherine Pendleton and others at Gousto organised a series of preparatory events on topics such as active listening, elevator pitches, and updating our LinkedIn profiles ahead of all the networking we’d be doing at the conference.

We were encouraged to ask ourselves a series of questions:

• What do I want to achieve from the conference?
• It’s the end of the conference…you know it has been successful because…
• How do you need to show up?
• What do you need to focus on doing?
• What do you need to stop doing?
• What support do you need?

A few weeks before the conference, the speakers were announced and we all downloaded the Whova app and started filling our schedules with talks we were excited to attend. Those of us with premium passes discussed which workshops we’d most like to go to, and came up with a plan to divide and conquer so we could best share our learnings with the rest of the group.

We joined a Gousto WOSR WhatsApp group and discussed our plans for the days of the conference. Some of the group were travelling into London for it and would be staying together in a hotel near the ExCel Centre. A real sense of community was forming!

Amelia Capper had organised matching Gousto tote bags which we were excited to wear, both to promote Gousto and to create space for all the merch we were planning to find in the expo hall!

Finally, the day before the event, Gemma Mortimore shared the rules of the photo challenge and the competitive among us started to plan their approach.

The Conference

The first day of the conference was finally here, and I don’t think any of us were prepared for how busy it would be. There were three main conference stages: Future Impact, Plan and Implement. Speakers on these stages discussed what the future might look like, how to evolve current ways of working and how to put you plan into action, respectively.

There was an enormous Expo Hall with hundreds of exhibitors, including Deliveroo, Playstation, British Airways and Tesco, which we visited to learn about their Tech and company culture, but also to increase our stash hauls.

Within this room, there were three other industry stages, FinTech, Software and InfoTech, which hosted talks which guests could listen to with headphones.

Finally, there were 60+ workshops for attendees with premium passes, on topics from Imposter Syndrome and Confidence to AI and ChatGPT. These were more intimate and interactive and offered guests the opportunity to share their own experiences and opinions on a particular topic.

Our Takeaways

While we all attended the keynote events each morning, for the rest of the conference we each chose which events we wanted to go to, depending on our roles within Gousto, our personal goals, and our unique interests. We all had a very different experience of WOSR conference, but each gained new insights or perspectives on our jobs and the industry we work in.

Here are some of the team’s biggest takeaways from the event:

Eliza Plowden, Software Engineer

“The best piece of advice I got from the conference, and one that came up in several talks and workshops, was to do the hard thing. I attended two impactful workshops on imposter syndrome and confidence and the speakers all talked about learning to suppress the voice in your head that tells you not to do something and just go for it. It felt powerful to be reminded that confidence follows actions and that you have to force yourself to do things out of your comfort zone. I was also reminded in a talk about Neurodiversity in the workplace that Tech has always embraced difference and originality and that it’s important to try to bring your authentic self to work.”

Catherine Pendleton, Senior Data Governance Manager

“Attending the Women of Silicon Roundabout event at London Excel was an empowering and enriching experience. Connecting with fellow women from the Gousto tech team in a social setting allowed us to share our diverse experiences, fostering a stronger sense of community within our organisation. Engaging with industry experts on a myriad of topics provided invaluable insights, leaving me inspired and brimming with fresh ideas to implement in my role at Gousto. The event not only broadened my professional knowledge but also strengthened the bonds within our team, creating a supportive network that extends beyond the workplace. I return to Gousto energised and motivated, ready to contribute to our collective success.”

Jen Smedley, Senior BI Manager

“Really inspired by a speech I listened to called, “it’s getting hot in here” where the lady highlighted the environmental cost inefficient coding can bring and how we need to be aware of the carbon commitment cloud providers have made when choosing suppliers. I fully intend to incorporate this idea of a “sustainability” metrics into our wider Data Excellence Score.”

Mo Hussein, Head of Analytics

“[My biggest takeaway was] how important it is to have female role models in senior positions at your company.”

Louisa Golden, Chief of Staff

“I went to a talk where the BUPA CTO spoke about Agile and DevOps. She spoke about the importance of teamwork and told us that in the end of year reviews she asks her people to answer these questions:

1. What have you done to be awesome?

2. How have you done to be great at your job brilliant at your job and challenged yourself?

3. What have you done to make others successful?

4. What have you done to leverage the work of others?

I like the last two as I think it important that although you’re graded on your own personal development, it’s important to remember that we wouldn’t be successful without others. It’s something I intend to weave into my performance review writing.”

Wrap Up

A couple of weeks after the event, Cathy and Mo Hussein held a session to wrap up and to plan our next steps.

They shared some surprising numbers about the conference. Can you believe that 305 items of swag were gathered? Or that the team walked half a million steps in total?

Perhaps most importantly, they also announced the winners of the pairs photo challenge. The winning team was composed of Namoos, Rita and Subeida, and you can see their fabulous photos below.

What’s next for Gousto’s WOSR community? In the next few weeks, we will be sharing our takeaways from the event both internally at the Tech All Hands and externally on LinkedIn. In Q1, we will hold a series of Lunch and Learns to spread our new knowledge across the team, with focus groups to dive deeper into particular areas. Finally, we will look at the 2024 Conference calendar and decide which conferences we would all like to attend next year.

Conclusion

Overall, the Women of Silicon Roundabout conference was a great opportunity for Gousto’s Women in Tech to get to know each other and to create more of a sense of community. We all learned a lot from the event and are really grateful to everyone at Gousto who organised the tickets, preparatory sessions, merch and competition. Now, it’s time to put our feet up!