Following graduation from university, I entered the telecoms industry as a design and usability engineer, when mobile technology was only just becoming genuinely mobile. Teams were celebrating the arrival of a single shared handset that no longer resembled a house brick with a car-boot battery. I worked at BT, Symbian, then Orange, ultimately working at a senior level on service and user strategy for the first waves of smartphones. Along the way, I contributed to security and usability standards that still shape everyday technology. If your Bluetooth device does not require passwords and multiple layers of checks every time you pair it with another device, it is because, as Bluetooth Standards were being defined, I kept ‘banging on’ about technical functionality unnecessarily getting in the way of the user experience.
Before having children in the early 2000s, I was deeply immersed in corporate life and, like many, believed success and satisfaction meant climbing the career ladder. Through this, I have come to understand the realities of high-pressure environments, peer competition, imposter syndrome, and the demands of presenting in both small and large-scale, high-stakes settings. I also understand what it is like to be a minority in the room. I was frequently the only woman on senior management teams, indeed the only female manager.
After taking time out to focus on family life, I returned to work part-time and deliberately shifted gear towards what is often described as a ‘portfolio career’.
A portfolio career essentially combines multiple roles, projects, and forms of work rather than following a single linear progression, allowing greater flexibility, autonomy, and alignment with personal values.
Over the following years, I balanced paid work, voluntary roles, and business ventures around being the primary carer for my children, while continuing to seek challenge, learning, and meaningful impact.
In 2005, I founded C‑sections.org, a voluntary project created to provide clear, evidence-based information about women’s rights in childbirth, regardless of how they planned to give birth. Through this work and engagement with individual and women’s groups over several years, I went on to write Caesarean Birth: A Positive Approach to Preparation and Recovery, which has since been updated in a second edition. Building on this momentum, I co-founded a coalition alongside organisations including the Birth Trauma Association, working directly with the Government APPG for maternity care. Together, we were instrumental in influencing changes to the NICE guidelines on caesarean birth, strengthening informed choice, access to second opinions, and formal recognition of tokophobia. These changes materially improved women’s rights and clinical practice in maternity care, and remain a source of great pride for me.
In 2012, my husband and I founded Curvor, a small consultancy that develops mobile applications. This decision was driven by our desire to be more present as a family and to take control of the scale, ethics, and quality of the work we deliver. Running a small consultancy taught me firsthand about pitching, conversion, and the challenges small businesses face.
Alongside this, my portfolio has included voluntary work. Since 2014, I have supported Friends of Matthew Rusike Children’s Home, managing their website and databases. This role has given me insight into the unique challenges of the voluntary sector, particularly the complexities of working with volunteers, limited resources, and the emotional labour involved in supporting an organisation functioning in an ever changing political context.
Following my own autism diagnosis, I wrote Undercover Autistic: Navigating Your Diagnosis, reflecting on the diagnostic process and its aftermath. I was struck by the lack of positive, practical, identity-affirming information available to newly diagnosed adults, and I wanted to help address that gap, going on to offer informal mentoring for nearly a decade. Two years ago, I stepped back from Curvor as it became clear that the mentoring I had been doing for many years was something I wanted to pursue intentionally and professionally. I retrained as a coach and have since focused my continuing professional development on neurodivergent identities and neuro-inclusive practice.
Looking back, a clear theme runs through my career. I have always craved change, am drawn to complexity, challenge, and steep learning curves. Each shift has involved doing things that were unfamiliar, often uncomfortable, and sometimes frightening – though speaking on television and radio firmly sat outside my comfort zone, and is not something I would jump at again. What has remained consistent is a curiosity about people and systems, and a drive to use my training and lived experience to support others on their life journeys.