Having the right company culture in place is the cornerstone of every successful technology business.
It’s a philosophy that has served Georgia Howlett well in her role as cloud development manager at Pax8.
Only once they have achieved the right culture, Howlett said, can organisations start to build out their diversity and inclusion strategies.
“Having the right culture is key,” said Howlett. “Everything else, including diversity and inclusion, stems from there.”
After graduating in 2020 with a degree in business management with marketing at the University of the West of England in Bristol, Howlett applied for and was offered the role of sales development representative with Pax8. At the time, Pax8 had just launched in the UK and was looking to expand into the market, with Howlett joining a 10-strong team, which has since grown to 300 through acquisitions and organic growth.
“It was during Covid, so initially started by cold calling MSPs from my bedroom,” said Howlett. “I remember that I had all these Post-it notes on the wall and I would call companies up and try to sell them the Pax8 proposition.”
After winning several key partners, Hewlett was promoted to head up the SDR team, which had grown to 20 people. Then, in 2023, she was tasked with establishing and managing Pax8’s account executive team.
“My team is responsible for onboarding partners and getting them to transact with us,” said Howlett. “We will take them through the Pax8 Marketplace – our cloud platform - and our core value proposition, essentially to see if we are going to be the right partnership fit on both sides, where we can help them to grow their business, reduce their risk and improve their efficiencies.”
When it comes to developing partner relationships, Howlett said that it was key to get to know their business fully, how they operate and their goals, as well as what motivates them. It’s also important, she said, to match your value proposition with that partner’s needs, and to continue to support them.
However, Howlett said that there have been several barriers to establishing such partnerships over the last few years. Chief among them, she said, was partners being locked into vendor license agreements, preventing them from moving provider. Another big issue, she said, was the race to the bottom on price.
“At Pax8, our focus is rather on providing our partners with a strong return on investment outside of the upfront margins,” said Howlett. “That can be difficult, because we need to try and win a partner’s business first before we can show them the value that we’re able to provide in real terms by streamlining efficiencies and helping them to make long-term cost savings.
“But, we have had some good wins as a result of our approach, and because we always follow through and deliver on what we say we are going to do. Now that we have proved ourselves and more people know our value proposition, we’re really starting to see the benefits.”
Building trust
In terms of management style, Howlett said that her team works on the basis of trust. She said that this was vital in a fast-paced industry such as technology, by fostering a mutual respect, being open and encouraging feedback, thus enabling teams to prosper.
“I’m not constantly checking what my team is doing 24/7,” said Howlett. “That’s because I implicitly trust them to do their job to the highest standard and to continue to meet our partners’ expectations.”
Howlett is also a keen advocate for equity throughout her team as she believes that diversity of thought is central, particularly in a sector like technology. To achieve this, she makes a conscious effort to try to understand her team members’ primary motivations and to manage them accordingly.
“Diversity of thought is pivotal when it comes to innovation, in particular,” said Howlett. “That’s why it’s so important in the technology industry, where we are constantly having to keep up with the market, come up with new ideas and remain agile. Sharing different opinions and perspectives is crucial to challenging current ways of thinking, and driving creativity and, ultimately, progress.”
Added to that, Howlett said that it was essential to create an inclusive culture where everyone’s backgrounds and experience are embraced. Rather than treating everyone equally and giving them the same opportunities, she said companies need to ensure they have the right support tools in place that they need to succeed.
That requires, Howlett said, looking at and adapting recruitment strategies, HR procedures and employee resource groups. She added companies also need to embrace points of difference such as neurodiversity and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and view them as strengths rather than weaknesses.
Unconscious bias
Another key barrier to progress that has come to the fore in recent years, said Howlett, is unconscious bias. That’s because, she said, it has become increasingly unacceptable in the modern workplace as companies have come under greater pressure to crack down on the problem. To counter it, she said that individuals need to be more aware of their own biases within their decision-making.
It's also vital to provide employees with a space where they can feel psychologically safe, said Howlett. That will encourage two-way feedback between teams and their leaders, she said.
“As a leader, that means enabling your team to feel comfortable and confident in providing you with feedback,” said Howlett. “It’s also about getting the basics right, such as setting expectations and doing what you say you’re going to do, as well as instilling a growth mindset and acting swiftly to address anything that may be detrimental to the culture that you’re trying to foster.”
Howlett is also a big advocate for promoting women in technology as a cause. Given the current gender imbalance, she said that more needs to be done to break down stereotypes and sell them the benefits of working in an industry that offers clear career path.
“The technology industry, particularly in sales, is still very much male-dominated,” said Howlett. “There’s also a traditional perception that technology is all about coding, but the reality is there are so many other jobs that you can do now.
“Education about career prospects needs to start in the schools and universities. We also need to provide communities for women to come together and share their experiences, collaborate and feel empowered, and hold events, just as we have done at Pax8.”