Trudy started her working life after university training as an accountant with the firm Racal, a forerunner of Vodafone. She was headhunted by DEC and joined as a financial analyst, then headed a channel finance group moving into frontline sales, then becoming a UK board member, in fact DEC’s first female board member, managing components and peripherals. Her career progression was encouraged by DEC’s training and coaching from her managers, who saw her potential. After 10 years working at DEC, and when DEC’s fortunes took a downturn, Trudy moved on to Kodak as Marketing Director, then Vice President at Oracle. In 2005 she headed Sun Microsystems UK, becoming the first female leader of a major tech company in the UK. After this she worked for BT and Microsoft. Trudy was Chair of Wise, (Woman in Science Engineering and Technology) 2007-2024, is chair of UCAS and a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology.