Mums in Tech ft. Lucy Collins

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

I’m MD at Web Usability, a user research agency based outside Bath. We help brands make fast, confident and inclusive digital decisions through research with real people. I am also Co-Founder of CollectivAlly, an inclusive user testing platform that uses lived experience powered AI personas to test digital services and identify where they can be made more accessible. I am the second generation of the Collins family to run Web Usability, having taken over from my parents who founded the business 25 years ago and continue the vision of using evidence to create an equitable online world that works for all.  I am also a Mum of two girls, aged 1 and 4 and a dog called Zola.

If you could sum up what it’s like being a working mum in tech in one sentence, what would it be?

Ruthless at prioritising, fierce at protecting boundaries.

How do you find the balance between your career and motherhood?

I tend to look for harmony, rather than balance in life. Balance suggests you are aiming for an equal split between career and motherhood. Harmony recognises the ever shifting priorities that both business and babies throw at you and that at any moment one might take precedent over the other. To achieve harmony, I am fortunate to have great flexibility in my business. This is how I have built it and the culture that all my employees benefit from. I also have great support from my husband and our childminder, which is a privilege I do not take for granted. The most important factor I think is mindset. Once you’ve experienced matresence, I believe you learn not to sweat the small stuff. Things I might have agonised over before having children I either care less about or find I am more ruthless. This makes you very efficient and better able to switch between Mum and MD mode.

What has been your greatest challenge as a working mother in tech?

Always feeling like your time could be used in five different ways and not knowing the best way to use it. Tech moves so far. I am currently building an AI inclusive research platform alongside running an agency. I have such big ambitions for what I want both businesses to achieve in a world that has never moved faster. Yet I also know that my girls will never again be 4 and 1 and these are precious moments that I do not want to miss. As a result, I strive for sustainability in everything I do and feel content that while the evolution of my businesses may take a little bit longer, I will have been present for my girls throughout.

What skills have you developed as a mother that have helped your work life?

Prioritisation. There is never enough time so effective prioritisation is key. Whether that’s packing the nursery bags or planning a work task list, I will always have key tasks to complete for each day and love getting the pen out to tick them off the list.

Efficiency. I can get more done in a day than I used to do in a week. Far from dulling my mind, matresence has heightened my senses and made me a productivity machine.

Resilience. Like many women, becoming a mother was not an easy journey. For me it included miscarriage, stillbirth, trauma and extensive physical and emotional recovery. It has stretched my emotional range and allowed me to experience extremes of high and low I never thought possible. Coming through this had fortified me and made me a much stronger business woman.

When you were returning to work, what one thing helped you / would have helped you the most?

Running my own business, I took very short maternity leaves both times. I wish I’d had longer but that was not a reality the business could support. When I did return to work, being able to be honest about how I felt each day and showing up as much as I could made those days when you were bone weary from sleep deprivation or emotionally vulnerable feel manageable. I wish more woman could be honest about how hard it can be at work without that being considered a weakness.

What do you feel should be the top priority for employers who want to support working mothers better?

Flexibility. As a mother you are often the default parent. By it’s very nature, parenting is unpredictable and varied and for many women there is no flex in the system to accommodate this. This means when a curve ball is lobbed into the party (a sick child, an appointment, a day where carrying it all just feels too much) everything crumbles instead of being able to flex without you and help keep those plates spinning.

Any final words of advice for other mothers in the Tech Industry?

Matresence changes you in the most fundamental way. Mothers can achieve anything but only with a system that supports them. Be willing to challenge that system, where you can be brave to lead the culture and ask for the flex when you need it.

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