IWD 2021: Denise Huggett - Empowering Women in Innovation

As part of International Women’s Day, we interview Denise Huggett on her role at Hugslock Systems, her views on women in business and what a more gender-balanced world-view means to her.

Tell us about your role.

I am Director of an SME based at Dorset Innovation Park. We design and manufacture Smart Access Covers, including the patented iNTACT access system. Day to day, I focus on developing our client base worldwide, everyday management and particularly on the marketing aspects of the company. Inevitably within an SME, everything I do is very varied, being a tech company and not actually coming from a tech background means I am constantly learning things from our engineers and designers. 

What do you enjoy most about your job?  

Definitely meeting people in all sorts of different environments which makes the current climate more challenging. Running an SME is unique in the diversity of people you meet and where you find yourself. I really enjoy being thrown into an environment where I have to learn quickly, working off people’s attitudes and feeling the buzz of the really enthusiastic business people you meet at different conferences and meetings.

For anybody running an SME I would say make the most of every meeting or event you are invited to, there’s a lot of support out there, a lot of enthusiastic interesting and inspiring people, plus you never know where opportunities will lead. Chance meetings have led me to make friends and have amazing opportunities such as tours of state of the art manufacturing facilities, visiting the House of Commons and working with some huge companies worldwide. 

And what are the most challenging aspects? 

Prioritising and making sure you don’t spread yourself too thinly on a personal and business level. There are always a million things that need your attention. Add to this homeschooling and zoom at the moment and life is very interesting.

I have even locked myself in my bathroom in the middle of a meeting for some quiet between children and a dog. The current climate is challenging but also interesting, meetings are often less formal which I feel leads to more creativity and sometimes even more connection than there is around a table in normal circumstances. 

The other challenging aspect is learning all the time, if I don’t know something I ask lots of questions of our engineers and designers, or just do the research, this always takes time.

What 3 things do you think you need to progress as a woman in business?

The ability to trust your intuition, ground yourself in any situation (Just take a deep breath and deal with it one step at a time) and to be really good at listening to everyone at the table/video call etc even if they rarely say anything.

It only takes one sentence for a problem to be solved or an idea to come to life. These are probably not unique to women but our natural intuition and ability to understand a situation can really be a help, particularly in tense situations.

What are the biggest challenges the future generation of women in business face?

Not unique to women, I think it’s the challenge of the fast pace of digital change and smart technology, choosing how it fits into our lives and what we do with it.

For women in particular, technology should make our lives easier but we need to be careful to choose in what ways we do this, find downtime, know when to meet someone in person, trust ourselves and get the balance right.

We are going to be able to multi-task more than ever in this digital world, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us all the ways we can use technology to our advantage but creating that space between home and work, personal and business, our needs and what we have to do, that is going to be hard. Many of us I know are already feeling it.

What can the next generation bring to business that previous generations may not have?

Judging by my children, it’s the natural, holistic way technology fits right into their lives that I didn’t have growing up. Nothing seems alien to them, they just adapt and learn. I think this will be visible in the businesses of the future and technology will be used in a much more thoughtful way to make lives easier rather than having it just because it is fashionable.

When visiting younger businesses, I have noticed how much they strive to get the balance too by providing areas where technology isn’t a focus, support to their staff, great outdoor areas, things that provide comfort and a focus on mental health. So I think there’s already a change coming in from younger generations in business, even SMEs. 

What does a more gender-balanced world-view mean for you?

I was discussing this recently with a male friend. For me it is a balance between getting rid of assumptions that women and men are a certain way, learn certain things a certain way etc and making the most of the abilities men and women have. It is such a delicate balance.

I don’t have any big ideas other than we need to keep trying, to support women, and men, as parents, to consider experience and qualifications first. I struggle sometimes too with assumptions we have all been brought up with around gender roles; none of us is a blank slate-but as long as we continue to recognise that we need to work to make sure men and women are treated equally, we stand a good chance of doing so.

How can we enable more women to take a place at the board-room table?

The only way this can be done is by those already at the table recognising skills and talent, male or female, and supporting those on the way up. There are still a lot of people not doing that. When someone who is experienced takes time out for me I am so grateful and it has cemented friendships.

How can businesses evolve to be more gender-balanced?

By constantly looking at what they are doing, learning from their mistakes, recognising differences and making the most of those differences in a positive way, regardless of gender.

That’s hard for an SME and SMEs need government support to offer some things like parenting provisions, childcare etc but essentially it is about provision and changing attitudes within a company, in the same way as I see younger companies changing attitudes around mental health.

What advice would you give to young women and men starting out in business today in context of promoting a more diverse world-view?

Don’t underestimate yourself or buy into gender norms, just be you and work hard. There will always be setbacks, but you will look back at them proud that you got over them.

What women inspire you and why?

Most of the women who inspire me are women in business locally. People like Sarah Powell-Pisareva who I met when we moved onto Dorset Innovation Park and is currently working for BCP council, Lara Brennan a Partner at Mazars, and people like Jayne Codling who works for Innovate UK EDGE.