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Admiral Tech** DEFAULT postresults.contenttypelabel - en-GB **
Blog** DEFAULT postresults.publishdate - en-GB **
29/12/2020
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We spoke to Kirsty Williams-Henry a Senior Business Analysis at Admiral who has worked for the company for over eight years. Here she tells us about her role and what it’s like for a woman in tech. Tell us about your career so far and what led you to a career in Technology? I would say I fell into my career in technology due to my love of all things tech from a young age: I was the first of my friends to have a PC and I used it for almost everything! I pursued my love of technology at college by doing an A-Level in computing where I was the only girl in a class of eight. I found that I had a natural flare for technology as it aligned with my love for problem solving and the logical way my brain works. I soon realised that technology was the future and I wanted to be a part of it! I went on to achieve a first-class degree in Computer Forensics at the University of Glamorgan. After graduating I became a coder and developer for a company that had forty-three men working there and me, alongside one other woman who was not in a tech-related role. After this I joined the IT Graduate Programme at Admiral where I have found a home for the past eight years. On the Graduate Programme I got to dip into lots of different roles and ended up as an IT Business Analyst, something I would never have imagined myself doing prior to the programme. What does a typical day in your role at Admiral look like? No day at Admiral is typical! During a day at work lots of things could crop up, such as live bugs that might pull me away from other projects and diversify my day. Admiral is very good at allowing employees to try new things. Each day allows you to put a different hat on, you have a lot of freedom to explore. My day often involves meetings and discussions with Product Owners and Project Managers. I need to be able to understand systems from their point of view and how they would be using them. This means I can explain things to them and put guides together to aid their understanding. Most of my time is spent with the Developers and Testers within my team. I translate the requirements from those on the business side of the company to those on the IT side, enabling problems to be solved. Attention to detail is key as a Business Analyst - the smallest of details must be correct for systems to function correctly. Admiral have also been great at flexible working: they have been very accommodating to me and my changing needs and have also been great at enabling us to work from home effectively during the pandemic. If you could begin your career path over, would you change anything? I would never change my job role; I love it and feel like it is a great fit for my skillset. If I had to change one thing it might be to investigate different areas of IT and more specifically IT Security as I find it an extremely interesting area. How does your work impact Admiral and its customers? My role as a Business Analysist means that I am involved in the business end-to-end. I meet those in business Operations to see the reality of how the technology that I work on is being used throughout the business, as well as any problems that might occur. From there, it is about them collectively working out what they may want from IT and the system and then it is translated into something that the IT team can take forward and work on. Being able to see how the changes really impact those working within the business services and the call centres of Admiral really inspires me to work harder and is one of the most rewarding parts of the job. Do you have any advice for women that want to start a career in Technology? It can be difficult for those in Technology to put themselves into other people’s shoes whether it be the customers, those in call centres or those in business support areas, and I have found that the women in tech that I have worked with have been excellent at doing this. The language of development and IT can also be intimidating but I encourage people to spend a day with my team so that they can see that they would easily pick it up. No one should be afraid of Technology; anyone can do it if they give it a chance! I would advise women to find the part that interests them within Technology and run with it. For example, if you have a creative mindset, there are many creative elements to IT. You need to be an artist to write code!
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MBA** DEFAULT postresults.contenttypelabel - en-GB **
Blog** DEFAULT postresults.publishdate - en-GB **
07/12/2020
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Admiral career to-date I joined Admiral on the Future Leaders Program in the Spanish operations in 2016, after completing my MBA at INSEAD. Although my focus was Spain, I also worked on some projects for our Italian operations. With time, I began to take on more operational responsibilities beyond the project management and consulting-based work on the Future Leaders Program. I started working on a project developing a new distribution channel using brokers. I spent time understanding the broker channel and preparing an entire strategy for the product launch. Things went well and it now drives a lot of growth in Spain. I also worked with the Corporate Governance team from 2018 to late 2020, which was completely new to me, as my background is in mechanical engineering. At the end of 2019, I changed roles to lead the Loss Ratio area (Pricing, Analytics & Data) in Spain. A long-term career path Before joining Admiral, I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do but no fixed plan per se. Contrary to the quite rigid expectations in many consulting firms, the future of my career with Admiral was very open, which was both exciting and worrying at the same time. The Future Leaders Program is a transitory program, which prepares you to move into a more general management role. The role you move into depends on your location, your skills, and the opportunities that arise within the business. This openness and flexibility is one of the most attractive characteristics of the program. Since joining Admiral, I've been involved in some very different things. I haven't been restricted to one single area of the business and with each move forward in the company, I have gained additional ownership and accountability. Why Admiral I already had other offers from big-name companies before I even heard about Admiral. I had no intention of considering an alternative. But that all changed when I met people from the Admiral Group and started speaking to them. Firstly, I became interested in the industry which, although it did not look very attractive to me from the outside, became fascinating once I started to understand its complexity and how the different areas involved in it have to coordinate very smoothly. Secondly, I was interested in the possibility of progressing into a general management role. I knew that I wanted to be a manager and was eager to see where my skills could fit at Admiral to make this happen. I wanted to have ownership and P&L responsibilities after my MBA and the position at Admiral allowed me this. Finally, the management and the company culture won me over. There’s a lot of autonomy and people are given challenges and trusted to deliver results, in order to make things happen. This was very attractive for someone with ambition and the drive to create a successful career for themselves. Autonomy to deliver on your own projects One of the most exciting and challenging projects that I’ve been given to date was the development of our broker channel. Not only was it complex, but it was also vast. I was aware of the impact of this project. It’s now one of our main growth drivers in Spain, which is exciting as I have been able to work on it from inception. Through this project I was able to gain expertise and skills, move around the country, and work with diverse teams across the business - from legal to commercial and pricing. This project is the perfect example of why I joined Admiral. I was trusted by Sarah, our Spanish CEO, and the director team. They asked me to make it happen. I had the support and backing from the senior managers but was given the autonomy to learn for myself and deliver something successful. This ownership and freedom given to me is one of my favourite things about the role. Advice to MBAs considering Admiral I think it is important to take a step back and think of your long-term goals. Where do you want to be in 10 years? Ask questions, speak to as many people as you can. Find out where you could fit in with the future of the company. Working in lockdown This year has been intense. We have worked long hours and realised the challenges of working from home. But it's been a success. Together we have all faced many of the same trials, both professionally and personally. We have learned a lot and can now operate 100% remotely in our Spanish operation. We have seen a complete shift in the way our days are structured, and we have embraced new ways of working and managing teams. I don’t think we have ever worked as smartly as we are today. You can find out more about the journeys our MBAs have taken here or read more about our MBA Leadership Programs. Alternatively, follow our MBA Leadership page on Linkedin.
We've worked hard to be this well-rewarded
