Sarah Wood is co-founder and CEO of video ad tech company Unruly, that employs 300 people across 20 different locations and was acquired by News Corp in September 2015.
Sarah has been named Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the Year, Business Insider's #3 Coolest Woman in Tech, CEO of the Year at Europas, City AM Entrepreneur of the Year, and one of Ad Age's 20 Women to Watch in Europe. She is a member of the London Mayor’s Business & AccelerateHER Advisory Boards, is a Technology Ambassador for London and was awarded an OBE in June 2016.
Sarah is the author of Stepping Up: How to Accelerate Your Leadership Potential, published by Pearson, and is also an associate lecturer at the University of Cambridge, where she teaches a course in Mash-Ups, Memes and LOLitics: Online Video Culture and the Screen Media Revolution.
Tell us about your new book Stepping Up. Why did you write it and how did it come about?
Sarah: The idea for Stepping Up came from a number of conversations with Niamh O’Keefe, a fantastic CEO coach, and from my desire to empower a much broader set of leaders to rip up the rule book and step up to the challenge.
The book calls for more people to consider stepping up into leadership roles, recognising the need for leaders from more diverse backgrounds in today’s business world. Just as Unruly’s mission is to transform digital advertising for the better, Stepping Up aims to transform business culture for the better.
I also wrote the book to have a positive social impact. The royalties from Stepping Up are being donated to Yuwa, an NGO which works to give girls in rural India a better future through football and education. In purchasing the book, people are not only developing their own leadership capabilities, they’re contributing to the development of young leaders who are a world away, but who, like them, are burning to fulfil their leadership potential.
How do you personally lead?
Sarah: With energy, optimism and authenticity! Sometimes I think the role of CEO doubles as COO: Chief Optimism Officer - but you need an awesome team to provide the corrective realism needed.
This might not work for everyone, though, and ultimately the most impactful leadership is authentic leadership, hands down, every time.
How is the workplace changing?
Sarah: Well, firstly, millennials currently make up 35% of the UK workforce and are set to make up 50% of the global workforce by 2020 (KPMG's Millennial survey) - so if you’re not taking care of this group now, then you’re already behind your competitors.
What this means practically is ensuring effective talent management practices are in place. The millennial generation want to lead, and they’re impatient to get started. That’s why there’s an unfortunate expectation gap developing; a Deloitte survey this year found that nearly ⅔ of millennials say their leadership skills are not being fully developed (source).
Millennials expect their employer to have a positive social impact, and conduct business in an ethical and environmentally-sound way. This is great news for business, as companies with purpose are 400% more profitable than standard companies (Jim Stengel).
They’re also over-analysed and the subject of far too many ‘millennial myths’. The rising generation brings an entrepreneurial passion, a commitment to meaningful work and a willingness to collaborate, innovate and problem-solve their way through challenging business realities that will underpin the future success of the UK.
How do you cultivate a work culture at Unruly that promotes diversity in leadership at all levels?
Sarah: We’re lucky to have a range female leaders across the business, from marketing to operations and sales - having a diversity of role models is absolutely key to showing people there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to leadership.
Above all else, we’ve tried to level the playing field by developing a positive, accountable culture which rewards performance - where results are more important than who can shout the loudest.
We also make a conscious decision to hire people from a diverse range of backgrounds, as we believe a diverse workplace with diverse opinions and perspectives is key to being successful. We offer a range of flexible working hours and parental coaching to support the growing number of Unruly parents, and have rolled out unconscious bias training across the company - first to people managers, and then the wider team.
What advice would you give to people looking to step up their careers?
Sarah: Fundamentally, success at anything worthwhile can be a long road with hard yards along the way, so it’s important to define a career purpose that can motivate you and grow with you throughout your working life, as you take on different jobs, roles and responsibilities. Purpose should start with something that matters to you and the impact you want to make, something that gets you out of bed on the darkest morning. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have all the answers to start with; work out a direction of travel and the rest will follow.
Practically, I always advise people to find their CLAN - this isn’t about going on ancestry.com, it’s about: Choosing your company carefully, Loving what you do, Aiming high but appreciating what you have, and Networking with purpose.
Follow Sarah at @sarahfwood, check out the other interviews in Going Against the Flow series at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charu-sharma/ and join this movement to empower 1 million female entrepreneurs on goagainsttheflow.com.