IWD 2021: Mel Rodrigues - Empowering Women in Innovation

As part of International Women’s Day, we interview Mel Rodrigues about her new media-tech company, Gritty Talent, her views on women in business and what a more gender-balanced world-view means to her.

Tell us about your role.  

I’m the Founder and CEO of Gritty Talent – a Bristol based company designing inclusive technology for the TV and Film sector.

Our mission is to close the diversity ‘talent’ gaps that exist in the media and wider creative industries. We’re doing that by designing technology that uses anti-bias algorithms to help introduce less visible and networked creative talent into the sector. 

As the founder of a start-up, my role is basically a lot of everything: running the team, doing the fundraising, inputting my knowledge into the tech design, driving sales and marketing… and my favourite bit - finding the emerging talent that we want to support via the app!

What do you enjoy most about your job?  

Designing new tech, especially a product that addresses the problem of inherent biases, is hugely motivating and exciting, and it means I am learning so much each day. It’s that energised brain-buzz that I love, when you have that feeling that you’re breaking new ground and discovering interesting things as you go. 

The collaborative process with the tech developers (an all-female team, interestingly) is fascinating just to see how they translate my ideas into a tangible digital product. I’m a life-long learner, and so this journey has been really invigorating, despite the fact that my head hurts with the amount of new information coming at me every day! 

And what are the most challenging aspects? 

I feel a huge weight of responsibility to make this idea work and for the technology to be a commercial as well as a creative success. We received an £100k grant from Innovate UK to bring the MVP (minimum viable product) to market in six months. A big part of that process is demonstrating how you are spending that money to ensure you ‘exploit the market opportunity’ fully. 

As someone from a TV/creative background, while I am used to working to tight deadlines, I sometimes feel out of my comfort zone when it comes to the fast paced, high pressure world of start-ups.

However there are some brilliant people who are supporting me to grow skills and confidence in this area. I have a really knowledgeable tech mentor thanks to Creative England’s Creative Enterprise Scheme. Every two weeks we breakdown where I’m at, explore pain points and set some clear goals.

I’m also very lucky to have a brilliant team at Gritty Talent, all with diverse skillsets and experiences. As a result, my knowledge gaps are often plugged by the wisdom of our Product Manager, Dan, or our Head of Talent, Cheryl.

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

A handful of trusted, inspiring mentors

I’ve already mentioned mentors – I think this is crucial. I actually have several mentors who I go to for different things. As well as my business mentor, I have a peer mentor, Marina, and we try to get together regularly (be it remotely) to share experiences and help trouble shoot for each-other. 

I can’t over-state how useful it is for gaining perspective and general wellbeing to have someone at a peer level to talk to. Being a founder can be quite lonely at times. Asking for help is sometimes perceived as a weakness, as the start-up world feels so competitive. I want to challenge that notion, because in my experience it has been through asking for advice and collaborating with people across the board, that the best ideas have been able to flourish and land.

A strong, but flexible plan!

Largely due to the pandemic, I have gone through four, maybe five versions of my business plan. But even without big world events rocking our foundations, I am under no illusions as to how important it is to have a plan with some really clear goals outlined. This is because as a founder it is very easy to get side-tracked; people want to collaborate with you and half-way down the track you realise you are serving their agenda. 

Your time is precious and you need to use it very carefully. So whenever people ask me to work with them on anything new, of course I am grateful and look at the opportunity positively. But I also assess it in line with my goals, and if it isn’t working towards those, I politely decline.

This has been one of my biggest and hardest lessons, as I am an instinctive ‘yes person’ – it comes from years in TV, when small miracles get performed behind the scenes every day. But my product manager in particular has encouraged me to deploy a ‘razor focus’ – the success of my fledgling business depends on it.

A clear understanding of your strengths and weaknesses.

This links to the two points above and is about knowing which parts of the puzzle you can do yourself, and which you need to bring in help for.

In the early days a founder finds herself doing everything: accounts, marketing, sales, HR… which is okay for a while, but very soon you need to delegate out the parts which someone else could do better! I was overjoyed when we got to a point where we were able to pay for an accountant to regularly do the books and forecasting. That stuff is so time consuming, and definitely not my natural skillset.

Every day I have a million things I could do. I am trying to get into the habit of asking myself “What is the best use of my time today?” And leading on from that “What can I delegate?”

There’s nothing better than handing someone a piece of work, and them coming back with the finished piece that is ten times better than you could have done! This happened recently with our intern,

Laura. We set her a research task to look at how emojis are being used to express identity, and who is missing from the emoji world. Her final report was fantastic – better than I could have done 

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

I have no doubt that the huge shock waves from the pandemic have set many women back on their career paths.

Women just entering the world of work or changing careers are facing a confusing time when the normal routes of work experience and paid placements aren’t happening face to face. The danger is that they will miss out on gaining the skills and contacts they need in those early years of carving out a direction.

I strongly believe it is the duty of employers and senior leaders to find ways to bridge these gaps – ensure that women are reached and enabled to apply for entry roles, and give flexible working options where possible.

For the generations who are already in the workplace but thinking of starting their own businesses, the barriers have also become higher. So many women had to give up working full time / at all or put plans on hold to home school or care for sick relatives. Getting back on track is going to take longer, at a moment when finances are at a pinch.

However, I also see this moment as a rare opportunity to leap forward. The government backed loans and various stimulus packages to get the economy going again mean there is finance out there for people with a strong business plan (especially if it aids the recovery from Covid-19) and who have the tenacity to go for it.

We were successful in our Innovate UK grant because we were developing a technology that helped the TV industry build back better, with more resilience post-pandemic.

If we can make best use of all the financial and strategic support around us, and support others too, I think a lot more women can succeed in enterprise in the next few years.

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

Through my tenure running TEDxBristol in my spare time and day job working with young people via the BBC Digital Cities project, I got to understand their perspectives and motivations – and was hugely inspired. 

People in their 20’s right now did not grow up with many of the securities and benefits some of the older generations had (free university education; affordable mortgages; the promise of a ‘job for life’ etc.) As a result, this new generation coming into the workplace has had to think much more dynamically and creatively about how to grow their skills and find their niche. 

Through TEDx I met lots of entrepreneurs in their 20s who were going for it, and not waiting until they were older to be leaders and influencers.

This generation is also incredibly tech literate and good at solving problems and being imaginative with technology. So we need to stop thinking of them as ‘green around the gills’ and see them for the potential and diversity of thought and experience that they bring to the table now.

Yes, they have lots of learning still to come, but as I have found, learning on the job is one of the best ways!

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

I am looking forward to a moment when it will be utterly unremarkable that we have all types of women in leadership roles. When we will not bat an eyelid at the fact that there are female Prime Ministers, Vice Presidents, CEOs, Surgeons, High Court Judges, Army Commanders, Astronauts etc.

Even better, that these might be women from diverse ethnic backgrounds; they might be old or young; they might be wheel-chair users; they might be gay or bisexual – and it wont be remarkable.

Until that time, days like International Women’s Day are useful in shining a light on all the pioneering women (and men) creating a more gender-balanced world. So ultimate success will be not needing to have a day, or a month, to highlight these stories, as diversity will be a normal part of the fabric of everyday life.

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

Right now we still live in a world where opportunities are uneven and positions of power and influence tend to belong mostly to men from privileged backgrounds.

I would like to see these men show true leadership and enable women who have great potential to join them in the C-suite, rather than it sometimes feeling like an up-hill battle that women have to fight on their own to prove their worth. 

People with budgets and decision-making powers need to look at the roles they need to fill in their companies and help women have a realistic chance of being successful in applying for them and progressing through the business.

This could be through training, mentoring or flexible working. It starts with asking women in your organisation what support they need in order to do their best work. Then this needs to be acted on.

It is going to take time – you need to get good at what you do before you are able to successfully take on a senior role – so this is not about tokenistic hiring, as that will ultimately fail.

But we won’t live in a gender-balanced world until everyone in an organisation, but particularly the C-Suite, takes an active part in the process of talent nurturing, mentoring and career progression.

How can businesses evolve to be more gender-balanced?

Through our research for Gritty Talent, we’ve done a lot of work around identifying the hidden barriers experienced by women, and other less-represented groups at work.

Some of the key barriers revolve around language and perceived culture.There are already lots of studies that show women are discouraged from applying for jobs in tech and finance because of the masculine and highly technical language used.

So my first point is that to attract more women (and people from diverse groups) you need to use language and imagery that is inclusive and enabling. Your job specs, values and website need to all make candidates feel like they would be welcome in your company, that their gender, ethnicity, age, disability etc are not a barrier.

Linked to this is also the visibility of jobs. If you want more women to even know about the opportunities you have on offer, you have to go to where they are. 

At the moment we are working with the TV industry to move job ads into more wider reaching spaces in order to be visible to a more diverse range of candidates – this is something any company can and should try to do. Once you have more diverse employees on your books, it becomes about retention. What training, career development and support can you offer to help them progress in the company rather than get ‘stuck’ and at some point ultimately leave?

All these strategies cost money but in the long run they will not only save the company money in repeat recruitment costs, but enable the business to be more profitable.

Countless studies now show that the most productive and profitable corps are those with high team satisfaction and greater diversity across the board.

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

I would actively encourage people to step out of their bubbles, and try to work and socialise with people who are not that similar to you.

The pandemic is making this hard in some ways, but by the same measure, we have learnt to connect to people remotely and this has sparked ideas exchange and collaborations across the globe! Just look at the conversations and links happening online via ClubHouse, Twitter and even Tiktok!

If you are someone who has a certain amount of privilege (i.e. you’re white, middle class, and male or female) then you can start using that privilege to bring people up. Include different perspectives in conversations, challenge the ‘status quo’ if it seems to disadvantage some groups of people. Being successful in your own career and championing others are not mutually exclusive goals.

In fact you’ll only ever do your best work when surrounded and supported by others, so see diversity and supporting colleagues as not just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing.

What women inspire you and why?

So many women inspire me in so many ways. I’m a particular fan of women who use their voices and creativity to push for change and uplift others, sometimes at great personal sacrifice. So top of my list right now are US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, filmmaker Ava DuVernay, and closer to home, and very sadly someone who recently passed away, Bristol’s Fi Radford.

Despite being at retirement age, she made it her mission to campaign for climate action. She was a formidable powerhouse of positivity and charm. I was so lucky to have known her and worked with her for just a brief time.

She brought the house down at the Bristol Old Vic in 2019 with her TEDx talk “What Did You Do During The Climate Crisis, Grandma?” I hope she’d be proud of the fact that the technology we are building is going to help reduce the carbon footprint of the TV industry. A little bit of her positive magic dust has definitely rubbed off on me!