MotherBoard Ambassador Spotlight: Alex

The ADLIB x MotherBoard Ambassador scheme for employees wanting to volunteer their time and join the mission of creating a more gender-fair and inclusive tech industry. As part of a series showcasing their amazing volunteers and ambassadors, Motherboard caught up with Alex Cosgrove, Head of Data, Insight & Analytics Recruitment at ADLIB.

Firstly, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your current role?

I head up ADLIB’s Data, Insight & Analytics team and have worked in recruitment for coming up to 15 years now. I’ve been working with companies from all sectors and sizes over this time helping them with niche & volume hiring across data science, data engineering, data strategy & management, business intelligence, insight & analytics. I’ve got a team of 4 here at ADLIB, mostly female.

I work with a lot of male heavy teams and pride myself in always doing my best to provide my clients with diverse shortlists to help remedy any gender imbalances they have. I work extensively in the Tech & FS sectors, that are notoriously male heavy, so always try to highlight how businesses can make themselves more attractive to female candidates and help them build diverse teams.

What motivated you to become a MotherBoard ambassador?

My mum worked in IT when I was growing up until I was around 11 years old, when she got married and had more children. She had several miscarriages and had to take some time off work. Following the last one, she was called in to speak with her manager and was made redundant. The business then hired a male employee 2 weeks later, so her role wasn’t redundant in the slightest. She took the company to a tribunal for sexual discrimination and they settled the day before the trial. She never got back into IT, put off by this and worked in more flexible roles from then until she retired.

This got me interested in employment law in general and I went to Uni to do a law degree. I didn’t end up as an employment lawyer, but in my capacity as a Recruitment Consultant, I can try and make an impact in this space and help employers create a more flexible and understanding work environment for mums in tech & data roles.

“I work with a lot of male-heavy teams and pride myself in always doing my best to provide my clients with diverse shortlists to help remedy any gender imbalances they have. I work extensively in the Tech & FS sectors, that are notoriously male heavy, so always try to highlight how businesses can make themselves more attractive to female candidates and help them build diverse teams.”

What does being a MotherBoard Ambassador mean to you?

It means I can get involved more in conversations with people who care about changing the status quo and wanting to have a positive impact on the working culture in their business. Having these conversations and hopefully watching positive change is an extra bit of fulfilment for my role.

What are you most looking forward to as part of being an ambassador? 

Helping make some positive change and watching MotherBoard develop even further and extend its reach.

“Being an ambassador means I can get involved more in conversations with people who care about changing the status quo and want to have a positive impact on the working culture in their business. Having these conversations and hopefully watching positive change is an extra bit of fulfilment for my role.”

Why do you think making the tech industry more inclusive of mothers and working parents is important?

The tech industry caters for the entire population. When tech teams are creating products, it’s really important to have diversity of thoughts. It’s no good having a homogenous team with one outlook and perspective. More diverse teams create better products which is good for everyone.

Also it just should be! Working mothers & parents are going to make an excellent contribution so why not make things more inclusive for them!

What do you think the priority should be for creating tangible change for working mums in tech?

Listening to current staff and their experiences, if there are no working mums on the team, why not? Looking at employer branding to understand if the business or team is an attractive and flexible place to work for working mums is a great start.

MotherBoard is a Business Charter, Community & Event Series, driving tangible change for mums working in the tech industry.

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