One woman making a difference
When Raikes went looking for key figures in cyber whose positive impact is greater than they know, and who can shed light on the sector. Lots of people pointed us towards Dr Nathalie Cole.
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Dear Readers,
We hope your week is going well. Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of The Raikes Journal. This will be the last Wednesday edition as we plan to move to Monday, Thursday and Friday from now on - paywalling the majority of the main stories on our Thursday and Friday editions.
This is all part of our plan to make this community interest company sustainable, and to be able to continue to deliver you something different, something interesting and editorially led, dedicated to supporting Gloucestershire.
We will also begin to reveal our partners, those businesses who have stepped forward to help make Raikes possible, because they share the view that a digital magazine that can showcase the county, support its businesses, charities and education and training provider and help foster community, is worth putting their money down for.
We can’t thank them enough or wait to share with you who they are and introduce you to more of what they are up to over the coming weeks. Please do feel free to send us your stories and ideas. If you are a paid-for member, you can also comment on our stories and help influence our direction of travel.
We hope you enjoy today’s edition.
Group subscriptions can get a 20 per cent discount here…
* Everything you read on Raikes is made possible by the generous support of our partners (who we will be revealing over the coming weeks) our founding members and our paid-up subscribers. A massive ‘thank you’ to all our other subscribers too. The support of all of you is invaluable! If you are not already, please consider upgrading to paid to support our community interest company (just £2.30 a week). To find out about commercial opportunities visit our About page. Email andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.
Why today’s main story?
As we say in the story below, when we went looking for influences in the cyber sector in Gloucestershire it was not just one person, but many pointed us towards Dr Nathalie Cole. Cole, the face of the influential Ladies of Cheltenham Hacking Society, seems to be more influential than she knows. So we decided to shine the spotlight on the former vet turned cyber security consultant. After asking her permission, of course!
Our chosen charity: James Hopkins Trust
This picture alone is a good enough reason to feature the James Hopkins Trust. But but aside from introducing those of you who are not aware of the Gloucestershire-based charity to its work - it provides nursing respite care for Gloucestershire’s life-limited and life-threatened young children (it has helped more than 700 children since its foundation in 1989) - we wanted to tell you how you can get involved and support its work. If you play golf, this could be right up your street. If you don’t, perhaps you have it in you and didn’t know it? Or perhaps you know someone who does. On Thursday May 16 the charity is staging its annual golf day at Lilley Brook Golf Club, Cheltenham. Tickets are £300 each for a team of four. Email fundraising@jameshopkinstrust.org.uk.
Your Raikes Briefing
🎉🥂💻If Gloucestershire College was considering a tactic to turn heads in its direction ahead of its apprenticeship open evening and draw people to its brand new website to see its vast array of training opportunities, then winning a national award for excellence wouldn't be a bad way to proceed. Which is exactly what it has gone and done. Last night (Tuesday, February 28) it walked away with the Digital Apprenticeship Provider of the year at the National AAC Apprenticeship Awards. Julie Tegg, director of employer training and apprenticeships at the college, and Mikela Lowthian, its apprenticeship manager for IT and cyber, were invited onto the stage at the awards ICC in Birmingham. The college currently takes on an estimated 700 apprentices a year and has 1,400 under its wing in total, from construction through to dental and business services, engineering, IT and cyber - 49 different programmes from Level 2 to degree level. The apprenticeship open evening is on Wednesday, March 6, from 5pm to 8pm. Find out more here.
🎓🙌🏽 This is a double-header of celebrations and announcements. We wanted to mark the latest graduation from what has become a leading force for change for business leaders in the county and beyond - QuoLux’s Lead programme. Pictured directly below we salute of the latest CEOs, MDs, directors and senior managers who’ve worked closely with QuoLux’s experienced coaches and facilitators to complete the B-Corp business’s flagship 10-month leadership and business development program.
And following in their footsteps, the leaders of tomorrow. Directly below we include a lineup of the next cohort to step forward to take on QuoLux’s LEADlight - a sixth-month programme for businesses 'middle leaders' to develop their skills, awareness and performance. We wish all of them the very best of luck!
One woman making a difference
When Raikes went looking for key figures i cyber whose positive impact is greater than they know, and who can shed light on the sector. Lots of people pointed us towards Dr Nathalie Cole.
By Andrew Merrell
Those who move in the cyber sector in Cheltenham will already know Dr Nathalie Cole’s story, but we thought it well worth telling everyone.
Cole was one of the first people Raikes went looking for as it sought out interesting people from the cyber sector who were making an impact and could shed light on an often uber-discreet world.
Regular readers will know we have spoken to and written about Sophia McCall of NCC Group and Security Queens, and got onto the inevitable and important topic of being a young woman making your way in a male-dominated sector.
McCall is forging herself an exciting career and if anyone is an example of how a young woman can make progress in cyber and have an impact it is her – but she would point elsewhere.
She would point to Cole and her extraordinary path, for inspiration and for her support. And she is not the only one.
So here we are, singling her out also, not least because her impact is wider than she seems to know!
Her journey into cyber began after a dramatic career change in her early thirties, from vet to software engineer then into cyber, and what follows is how she inadvertently became a ‘face’ in the county’s cyber sector and a force for change.
In a world where networks can mean everything, from opening up career paths to continued learning, Cole has helped forge one that is both cyber-focused, about community, in-person, influential and supportive - and a space in which female colleagues can meet.
That network is the Ladies of Cheltenham Hacking Society, of which she is chapter lead (and which does indeed embrace the humour in its DNA the grandiose name suggests). It is a group that McCall and others have called vital to their careers to date, helping them feel at home, giving them voice and a forum in which to learn. Especially those who have moved to the county from outside.
McCall is not the only one who thinks Cole is doing something special.
"Nathalie is making much-needed waves in cyber security and is a breath of fresh air,” said Illyana Mullins, Gloucestershire-based and cyber community lead for techSPARK, director of Tech Forward Ltd and founder of WiTCH (Women in Tech & Cyber Hub).
“She stands out as she is more than happy to go out of her way to help and is a great role model for those looking to get into cyber security.”
So Cole is a champion for her sector, for community and pushing for positive change. Raikes’ sometimes off-the-record conversation with her covers some of the immense challenges facing an industry resulting from women being in a minority. It is not difficult to understand why she is so passionate about supporting change.
“When the entire UK tech industry is only around 25 per cent women (including non-technical roles), and this figure gets progressively lower when you look at cyber and technical roles it sends a message to young girls that tech teams are for boys,” said Cole.
Government stats suggest the UK cyber workforce is currently around 17 per cent female and on technical/engineering teams it can be significantly less than this again. According to Cole there is not formal data, but her estimate would be as low as 10 per cent or less.
“Frequently you're the only woman on a technical team, and many teams don't have any women at all,” she said.
“But if you alienate men in making change, that is self-defeating. It is about collaboration. You have to develop a culture that benefits everyone.
“The Ladies of Cheltenham Hacking Society is partly about building a space to show what can be done. It has a clear consensus and rules.
“It is a genuinely creative space and we want it to be a genuinely inclusive space. It is women centric, not women exclusively. We want to be able to turn to people to say ‘see, it is possible’.”
Cole’s take on the sector is perhaps different because she comes from an industry far removed from the digital world.
“I was a vet for a number of years. I really enjoyed it, but the emotional responsibility of it was enormous,” she said, failing to add she was Honorary Veterinary Surgeon for Riding for the Disabled Association until April 2020, no less.
So she put herself through a crash course as a software engineer. And as she raced up the learning curves she enjoyed it more and more, but could not get away from the feeling the culture needed attention.
Sometimes it was just needing to be able to talk and share without being judged that was all she needed to chase that feeling of ‘imposter syndrome’ from the room, but despite working with immensely talented colleagues she knew she could not always do that, which is how she eventually came to find herself fronting the hacking society’s events. She knew if she felt like that others did too.
As for the gender imbalance across the sector at the root of the need for a culture change, she believes it will take a seismic effort yet.
“Diversity is a huge buzzword. Companies will all tell you they want equality, that diversity makes companies perform better, even makes for more profit, but not everyone knows what inclusivity actually is or how to deliver it.
“It is something we need to keep talking about and working on,” she said.
But by encouraging more women to succeed - and men - through the hacking society, she is having more impact than she may realise.
Outside of the society, she sees training for senior staff to make them more aware of what change looks like and what it can deliver as absolutely key, to ensure procedures change and culture changes.
“My mentality has always been to try to make things better for the next person. But when you sit on a steering group, listen and take things up the food chain you need to feel you have been heard to feel like there is a change coming.
“A situation like that, when you don’t feel like anyone is listening, can be really, really scary,” she said.
All of which makes her sound nothing like the infectiously enthusiastic person she comes across as.
Salus Cyber, one of the exciting cyber firms headquartered in Cheltenham, in Eagle Tower, supported the most recent hacking society gathering.
We asked its director of operations, Chantelle Bowring, for a line on why Salus wanted its name in the frame and what it was like being part of the community.
“It was a pleasure for Salus Cyber to sponsor the Cheltenham Ladies Hacking Society event recently. The enthusiasm from everyone at the event, especially Nathalie, was incredible.
“It's great to see a leader in the industry taking the time to make such as positive impact on the community and creating a safe space to openly discuss technical topics and get to know one another with delicious pizza and a beer or two!”
We also wondered, if McCall cites Cole as inspirational – who does Cole point to?
“Jane Frankland definitely inspired by career change,” said Cole, without hesitation. That is a story for another day.
Diary date ideas…
Thursday
💻☕ Gloucestershire Business Show has an embarassment of riches today. There is ‘Business Startups - Getting on the Right Tracks’ at 10am, a discussion on ‘The Arts & Business’ at 10.15am and a debate on ‘Climate, Business & The Future’ at 11.45am. Perhaps the headliner of the day is the discussion on teh future and legacy of Gfirst LEP at 2.15pm. The venue for all of them and more - the University of Gloucestershire's Business School, Oxstalls. You can find our more here.
Friday
🎼 A Night at the Opera. This is billed as London Concertante presenting some of the finest opera arias and overtures in a sensational evening of operatic music - all staged in the stunning location of Gloucester Cathedral. Due to take plce from 7.30pm to 9.45pm. Tickets are priced from £23.46. Find out more here.
* Everything you read on Raikes is made possible by the generous support of our partners (who we will be revealing over the coming weeks) our founding members and our paid-up subscribers. A massive ‘thank you’ to all our other subscribers too. The support of all of you is invaluable!
🔓 You’ve been reading a free edition of The Raikes Journal, for which we are grateful. Please do spread the word about what we are trying to do - create a real, journalistically-led, community-orientated, Gloucestershire-focused digital magazine. If you upgrade to paid, you will get on average eight extra members-only editions every month and will be able to see beyond any paywalls, as well as read Raikes’ rolling Top 100-plus Businesses in Gloucestershire series. You will also be allowed to comment on stories, make suggestions for what we should be writing about, vote in our awards, and might even be invited to our roundtable events. And you’ll be supporting the rebirth of high-quality journalism in Gloucestershire on a website championing the county you love — all for just £2.30 per week (Ask us about 20 per cent off for groups of two or more subscribers).