IWD 2021: Elizabeth Blake - Empowering Women in Innovation

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

Tell us about your role. 

I am a member of the Micrima board and the commercial director for Micrima. We are a small startup organisation. I joined almost five years ago as the ninth employee and was then the marketing manager. As the company has expanded, so has my role; I am now responsible for sales, service marketing and clinical affairs.

What do you enjoy most about your job?  

At heart, I am a marketeer so having a new product with no one to follow their lead was the most enjoyable to me initially and creating new campaigns and activities like the virtual launch of our latest iteration of the MARIA® breast scanning system due to happen around the middle of this year is still so much fun.

Being in a startup company allows exposure to parts of the business you just don’t get in a large organisation and I love this, even if its allowed me to see areas I don’t want to expand into as much as the ones I do.

And what are the most challenging aspects? 

The flip side to being a small company means we all wear lots of hats. It can be a challenge to drive through the multiple projects you are working on at once and make sure nothing gets missed. It teaches you to be disciplined and stay organised while trusting the team who work for you to carry out their activities without the need for close supervision. I could not do what I do today without my great team and the extended company.

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

I think this is all about confidence but in 3 different ways:

• The confidence to know being male or female doesn’t make you better suited or more entitled to be there.
• The confidence to do it your own way and not try to do it as you see your male colleagues, we might approach tasks differently, but we can both reach the same outcome.
• The confidence not to hide the fact you are a woman, often we are still outnumbered around the board table, but being different can be a real strength.

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

Juggling home and work is always going to be difficult for women with or without children. Trying to dedicate the time to both is almost impossible to do, unless you have the right support from your family, something is going to have to give.

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

Less of an acceptance that some jobs are more male, I’m not talking about physical jobs here but the board room is a good example. I don’t think the younger generation have the same stereo-types or roles older generations had.

Also flexibility, especially in this last year with COVID they have had to be more flexible with studying and carrying this skill through to the workplace, which will be really valuable.

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

Sharing roles and responsibilities not just in the workplace but at home. I could not do the job I do if I had a husband trying to do the same. We work as a team to achieve our common goal and this is really important to me. Sometimes he takes a more pivotal role at home to let me do what I need to do and other times the roles are reversed.

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

This shouldn’t be about more women in the boardroom it should be about the right people being in the boardroom. If someone has the skills to add to your board, they should be included.

The tricky part is getting people to see this, as we become a more flexible workforce, as we are being forced to at the moment; I think this will help. Ultimately as the people at the top start to come from a generation with less of the opinion women don’t belong in a board room this will change.

I am currently the only woman on our board, but I don’t feel like I am treated differently in any way, we all bring something to the table that helps us move forward as a company together.

How can businesses evolve to be more gender-balanced?

Changes in attitude to roles men and women should do and the evolution to more flexible work patterns for all will go a long way in this evolution. 

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

Treat everyone as equal judge them only on the job they do and the skills they bring to your business.

What women inspire you and why?

I have to say I have worked most of my career in male-dominated industries so have had a lot more opportunity to see men I look up to and inspire me directly, but in the wider picture I find Michelle Obama very inspiring.

On the outside she appears to have it all, family & glittering career but I truly believe that is because she worked hard initially to give herself the right skills and has the support of her husband & family. They have a shared vision and know when one needs to be in more of a supporting role, but they do this equally so she can take a front seat when she needs to.