Interview with Lisa Perkins

Lisa Perkins was born in 1974 in Birmingham, she is the youngest of six children. She says: “My sister’s the eldest and we have four brothers, they were all born within a space of ten years and then there was a ten-year gap before I arrived on the scene. So I had a peculiar experience of being sort of an only child, but as part of a big family, it was a bit strange.”

At the age of eight Lisa and her parents moved to Malawi while the older siblings stayed in the UK (they had jobs). Lisa adds: “My childhood in Malawi was the most idyllic childhood, very carefree, very nature oriented, without any of the trappings of any of the technology at the time, which is a bit ironic given what I ended up working in.  So it was a very happy time.”

She adds: “My mum and dad were phenomenal. In the sixties they left England with £5 in their pocket, three children under the age of five, and got on a boat to Ghana.  They just went for it and they went for the adventure. Dad lectured in Accra, at the university in Ghana, and then from there after about six years they moved to Malta and he lectured there before he returned back to Birmingham. He was given the opportunity with funding from the Overseas Development Agency to implement a degree programme at the University of Malawi as the Dean of Engineering and he took the opportunity to have another adventure and created the electronic and electrical engineering degree programme for the university out there.”

Lisa’s father was an engineer who started as an apprentice with the Post Office as a telecommunications engineer, Lisa says: “Later on in his life he put himself through night school to gain his degree qualifications, and then he transitioned to academia lecturing in electrical engineering and telecommunications at various different universities across the world.”

In addition, several of her brothers also worked in technology, she explains: “Three of my four brothers were involved in technology; two worked at BT for some time during their career in telecoms, and another was very much in the IT area working  with Apple.”

Speaking about her first memories of technology, Lisa says: “My dad was one of the pioneers of optical fibre. He was working in conjunction with many partnerships with BT and other academic institutions on the research associated with optical fibre.  I remember running through the house picking up peculiar objects asking if these things were optical fibres. …. At the time for me it was less about gadgets in the house, but much more about hearing this language from my father and his colleagues who used to come to the house for meetings, etc.”

On returning from Malawi at 15, Lisa attended King Edward’s grammar school or girls in Birmingham where there were no fees to pay. To study for her A levels, Lisa moved to a local sixth form college. She leaned towards science and technology, explaining: “I was pretty consistent across all subjects at GCSE level and could as easily have gone into history/geography A levels, but I ended up going into applied maths, physics and biology.

“When I was choosing my A levels I was already aware of the imbalance in the industry regarding women in technology, and in a very subconscious way I think I reached for that, not because I was particularly committed and passionate about moving to a technology domain.  In point of fact, the experience that I had at King Edward’s Girls’ School wasn’t a very happy one and created this connection in my head. Obviously this is all with hindsight, I understand what has gone on, I didn’t realise this at the time – but I think I reached for technology as a way out of being in an environment that was heavily female, because my experience being in an all-girls’ school for two years was particularly unhappy.”

Lisa highlights her maths teacher at school as an inspiration for her, adding: “She liked challenges and she was quite resilient and she was a bit of a force of nature.”

Lisa was accepted at Aston University and for her degree, Lisa, not being sure what she wanted to do, opted for a combined honours degree, she explains: “I did combined honours in the two subjects that I loved at A level; maths and biology.  I thought that I was going to go for a teaching degree and I was anticipating that having two subjects would differentiate me as a teacher. What transpired was that the maths at the degree level was nowhere near as enjoyable as the A level because it was far too ethereal and not related, it needed to be applied and real and mean something and have an outcome, rather than just prove that zero doesn’t exist or does exist. So my first degree was something that I just had to try and get through.  I knew very early on in my first year that I had made a poor decision, but because I’m so obstinate and stubborn, I wasn’t going to let it beat me.”

After completing her degree, Lisa started her Masters at Aston University which involved six months study and exams followed by a six-month industry placement with BT. She says: “At the time there was this very strong narrative around women in technology and the MSc was supported by EPSRC with incentives for female candidates, so I took that option. I started to let go of the teaching angle, but I always thought that was maybe temporarily and I would come back to teaching, and I’m still thinking that.”

In 1997 having completed the industry placement with BT, Lisa applied for a permanent role and joined the company working in early internet telephony.  She says of her decision: “I went with the flow, I didn’t have a very specific view on what I definitely wanted to do, it was a case of I’m going to try this and let’s see what happens. … I had come from a heritage of BT engineers, my grandfather was an area manager in the field, my dad started his career there and by the time I joined BT I already had two brothers there, so it felt like a safe bet.”

During her early career in BT, Lisa worked on cutting edge technology including voice over IP from both residential and business perspectives. In 2008 she moved to running the first broadband platform. She says: “That was 2 meg download speeds and everybody thought it was the bee’s knees.  The opportunity then emerged with this new technology to drive speeds of 128 Mb ; I remember thinking who on earth and for what purpose are people going to need these speeds. Prior to the 2Mb broadband  there had been a dial up solution and it was kilobits. You used to log in and then open an email and go and make a cup of tea and come back and hope that it had opened. We just couldn’t roll it out fast enough, the demand was absolutely sky high. Prior to rolling out the superfast broadband, I was responsible for a feasibility study in terms of what was the art of the possible through to actually rolling out the first two trials.”

Through her career at BT Lisa has moved across different roles and different elements of the business, she says: “Because of the size of the organisation there was just so much opportunity to go and try different roles.  I was able to move around the business, extend my experience and develop new skills in different parts of the organisation, moving from the core technical part, out to wholesale to run the broadband platform, global to work on different projects, retail on others, it meant that I had a superb opportunity to try things and work out which elements motivate me and how do I develop on those. BT was very supportive from that perspective in terms of encouraging and enabling that to happen.”

From this experience, Lisa quickly realised that her strengths lay in management. She adds: “My strengths lay more in managing, organising, delivering, making things happen, than the pure technical elements. I started my career in the IP design, and coding working on the televoting platform, and I wasn’t particularly happy. When I moved into working on the voice over IP platforms, that was where I had my first taste of actually helicoptering out of the detail of the tech, having a good appreciation of it, but much more about applying it and making something happen and delivering something. It built from there and I realised that in order to do that you need to manage effective teams and over time I determined that was something that I was able to do  successfully and was what I was more interested in. I enjoyed building  cohesive teams, helping people develop and achieving goals together as a team; that motivated me.”

In 2011, Lisa was appointed Health Delivery and Service Assurance as part of BT’s Global Services working on the health programme. 

Lisa says of the role: “I had responsibility for all of the contracts that we had signed with the NHS that we would deliver on. My role was an assurance role to try to cut through some of the angst that had developed between the two organisations in terms of the NHS’s faith in BT to be able to deliver on their contracts and commitments.

“It was quite a painful role because internally I had to review in detail the plans that other people were responsible for.  This was a little bit alien for me because I’d come from a background of being in charge of all of this delivery, and then to move to a ‘I’m going to mark your homework type scenario’, I found quite frustrating.

“But it was a very good learning in terms of diplomacy, negotiating and coaching.  I didn’t stay in that role for too long. It wasn’t the most motivating role and I needed to be in the thick of getting things done, not being the sideline colleague.”

Next Lisa was appointed CIO in Group Services. She explains: “I had responsibility for the IT transformation for various of the Group functions.  It was all about helping BT to be more effective and more productive.  I had responsibility for everything that wasn’t HR or finance.

“That was my first real exploration into IT transformation programmes per se, in various different domains; it was a whole new learning experience.  It gave me really good insight into how BT works and all of the various different functions and departments.”

From 2015 to 2017, Lisa was CIO Director of strategy and operations at Openreach.  She says of the shift: “When I moved into Openreach the budget that I had responsibility for was higher than that that I’d had in Group. It was that transition from being a director in Group CIO and not having a huge amount of leverage or priority by the business, to being in Openreach with significant challenges in the customer base that needed solving. It was a more challenging role with more responsibility and more impact.”

In 2017, Lisa became Director of Research and Realisation at BT Group Adastral Park research facility. She says of the move: “Throughout my career, with maybe one exception, I’d always felt that three years was a good time to spend in a particular role.  There’s a year of really getting to grips and really understanding what the art of the possible is and building the right strategy.  There’s a year of delivery and implementation and then, in my experience you get to a point where It is time to move on to try experience new roles and develop new skills.

“With the power of hindsight, I can see that that’s a pattern for me in terms of how I’ve progressed my career. During the third year I realise that I need a new challenge and I need to find something and move on.  There was an element of that in my move to this role but there was also a huge attraction for the R&D role from many different angles.  The managing director , Professor Tim Whitley, was a huge draw because he was reputed to be just such an awesome leader, a real inspiration and such a fantastic person to work with. I’ve worked with some really great people but Tim really was a real inspiration.”

Of the role itself, she adds: “It was so exciting and appealing to me because it felt like this it brought together all of the things that I’ve enjoyed across all of those different other roles. It’s a very large, diverse and impactful role. What I love about it the most is that the impact is that it’s not just how do I support BT to be a successful company and to grow and all of those things, but, through our skills programme, I have the opportunity to impact the next generation by inspiring them to want to take up tech as a career, and to stick with their STEM subjects.”

In her role, Lisa manages Innovation Martlesham, a tech cluster. She adds: “I have the opportunity to help businesses to be successful. We collaborate with other players across industry, thirty-plus different academic institutions. We look at the art of the possible in terms of the research, innovation, what we can do to find and the best solutions to solve real societal problems. This was highly appealing and has proven to be hugely motivating; this role is without doubt the best role of my career.”

Lisa is a Visiting Professor at the University of Suffolk, she explains: “I have given some lectures, but predominantly it’s about being actively supportive of the university and with what’s going on at the university.  We’re currently working on how I get more involved and start taking on more lectures. I am starting to get into that teaching domain.”

Of her proudest achievements, Lisa says: “One of the things that I’m most proud of is that in collaboration with the University of Suffolk and other stakeholders across the region, we established the DigiTech Centre at Adastral Park, which is a centre of learning to inspire next generation and for apprentices to learn at and develop their skills which is pivotal.  It is a £9 million institute that we’ve physically established that I think it will go on to serve many future generations. It is a great example of what collaboration can bring with the right combination of well-intentioned people to do something positive.  The students are coming out from there with skills around cyber, AI and smart technologies and so on and so forth, network engineering, software engineering.”

“Another thing that I’m very proud of is the fact that I managed to double the size of the tech cluster, we went from 80-odd companies to 150 companies and they have become part of that DigiTech Centre. They support the facility. I’m proud of establishing this thriving ecosystem that is driven by collaboration and partnership for the good of all.  So the DigiTech Centre is just one example of that manifesting, because the university benefits because it’s able to offer a differentiated level of learning to its students that distinguishes it from its peers, the students get to learn in the heart of a business ecosystem, their learning is much more applied, and so they can make that transition to a business role effectively. The businesses in the ecosystem, BT included, have the opportunity to home-grow talent with the skills that are most relevant and that are of critical value to them and their future business.”

Asked if there is anything she would do differently in her career, Lisa starts by saying that she would go away to university rather than staying in her home city. She adds: “I feel like there was a lot of me just going with the flow and being open to trying things, which is not a bad thing, but maybe not really thinking about it as deeply as I should have done, and certainly as I’m encouraging my children to do now.

“In my defence, there is significantly more information around now about all of the different types of careers that there are, and there’s much more diverse choice of subjects that I didn’t have when I was at school.  Fortunately that’s the benefit for today’s generations; there are more options, there are more choices, and I think they’re much more savvy about what they do and don’t want to do than I was.

“If I take that knowledge that they’ve got and the choices that they’ve got and if I went back in time, I would probably have made a completely different choice. Not to say that I haven’t enjoyed my career, I absolutely have enjoyed my career and particularly the last six years, I have really enjoyed the experience and the impact, and I’m going to take that into the next stage of my adventure, that’s a recipe that works for me and makes me happy.”

Speaking about BT’s commitment to enabling skills, Lisa explains: “We’ve run a schools programme for about ten years. The aim is to make sure that from a schools perspective we’re reaching out, and we’re working with children who are in their early learning curve, particularly girls, because you have to get to girls early because if you wait till they’re 13, they’ve made their minds up.

“We start at year two, when they’re six, seven years old. We use different activities such as the Bee-Bots and it’s fun learning. They’re setting an algorithm, a set of instructions, to move their Bee-Bot across a map to get from A to B. It establishes that baseline of  what an algorithm is, what a technology can do, the impact that it can have. The interventions blossom from there with a whole programme across all of the age ranges, appropriate to what they’re interested in.  For example, the 16-year-olds come and do their work experience or have placement in the work to understand application of technology and the types of careers and roles that you can have.”

As one of the few women in BT, Lisa reflects that she has always had support and adds: “I was on a panel session for Women in Tech, and we were talking about bias. As I was preparing I reviewed a load of research and information around all the various different types of bias, and I thought I’ve encountered that, I’ve encountered this, I did have that.  However, for whatever reason I’ve been able to navigate successfully despite the fact that I have actually encountered all of those different types of bias along the way. I don’t have any form of bitterness or angst about it, it’s more from an observation perspective, a learning perspective, and the ability to make sure that it doesn’t happen into the future for the next generation.  Despite the fact that I did face all of those challenges, I don’t think I ever really felt that I was being curtailed in any way, or if I did, I found a way to manage it.”

Asked if we will see a 50:50 split of women to men in technology, Lisa says: “I think it really is realisable, but it takes active work, it’s not just going to happen naturally.  We need interventions such as the BT schools programme which is starting to see the benefits of that. It’s taken a long time, we’ve established this programme over many years, we’re now starting to get a much better balance of applications through the apprenticeship scheme, we have a richer pool of more diverse applicants to choose from than we did ten years ago.

“It is a case of really feeding it from the grassroots all the way through, but it is also active sponsorship, proper support and camaraderie across the network from all, not just women for women, but ensuring everybody really signs up to the fact that a diverse organisation really is a more productive organisation. The closer as an organisation you can be to the customers that you serve, the better. That thinking embedded right up front from research through to product development to delivery, needs that diversity of thought and input to be successful.”

Advice

Asked what advice she would give young people, especially girls, who might want to have a career in technology, Lisa says: “One of the things that I’m really keen for students to understand is the wider variety of different roles that technology can offer. It’s one of the areas that we work on with our programme; creating visibility.  There are some myths and maybe some stigmas around what a role in technology looks like and that you have to be stuck to a computer coding away.

“One of the things that we’ve learnt is particularly important for the girls is demonstrating the impact that you can have with technology and the problems that you can solve and the difference that you can make to people’s lives, and the societal issues that you can create solutions for.

“My advice is don’t be afraid to try lots of different things and see what works for you, but use every opportunity to learn.”

Interviewed by Jane Bird

Transcribed by Susan Nicholls

Abstracted by Lynda Feeley.