A Discussion with Women in Business and Science

For International Women’s Day, Reuben College invited 3 women from the worlds of politics, academia and industry to talk about their careers on 10th March 2022. Caroline Cake is currently Entrepreneur in Residence at Oxford Science Enterprises. She was previously CEO of Health Data Research UK and held positions as a Consultant with McKinsey and at Roland Berger. Ros Deegan is the CEO at OMass Therapeutics and held previous positions at GSK, Trevena and Bicycle Therapeutics.Baroness Nicola Blackwood is the Chair of Genomics England as well as Member of the House of Lords Science & Technology Select Committee. She was the previously an MP for Oxford West and Abingdon and chaired the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee.

The conversation began with a discussion of how each speaker got to where they are today, before moving on to discuss the biggest failures in their career. Nicola spoke about the challenges of starting working as an MP and having to set up a lot, and stressed the importance of honesty when making mistakes. Caroline spoke on trying to avoid failure when moving sectors, and learning how to change your mentality to accept that failing is part of starting a new company.

This naturally moved on to how their definitions of success changed throughout their ideas. Ros noted that at the start of her career, she was very promotion focused, but that has since shifted into concentrating on helping others to succeed, whilst Caroline acknowledged she still doesn’t feel close to being successful. When asked about how gender bias has impacted career development and how she’d been treated at work, Ros stressed that networking was paramount. The networks for men and women were different, and it’s important for women to learn networking skills and get to know people. Nicola added that politics is very gendered, and advocated for entrepreneurship training courses, as the innovation sector can be full of jargon, and educating people for going into the board room can level up the playing field.

When asked what the key skills for entrepreneurs are, all three speakers had strong suggestions. Ros chose resilience, as bad things will happen but you will need to get yourself back up and ask what comes next, where Caroline spoke about people skills and the importance of coaching your team continually. Similarly, Nicola mooted communication as something worth investing in, as these skills will be helpful in the long run.

One common experience is imposter syndrome, so our panel were asked how they manage that feeling. Caroline stressed that people don’t know what you don’t know, and that it’s important to keep a sense of your own self-esteem. Nicola agreed, saying that the most important thing was keeping the motivation to not fail and continue supporting the people relying on you. She also discussed responding to mistakes as a learning experiences. Most of the time, other people will forget the mistakes you make in the following hours or days, but it’s so easy to continue ruminating on it – it’s a more conducive choice to learn from these things as we move forward.

In response to an audience question about advice for young women at the start of their careers, the panel had some great suggestions. Ros spoke about an employer she admired who always seemed to have the right words and do her job well, and learning that she was very well prepared all the time when she saw the amount of post-it notes on her slide deck. This taught her the valuable lesson that you can’t assume that you can wing it, because if you want to be successful you need to prepare and practice. Nicola recommended picking up the phone to people you want to connect with, instead of doing online research, as people tend to give you more insight verbally then when you ask them via email. Caroline’s advice was to be proactive, rather than sitting and waiting for things to happen.

As for advice for women who are trying to narrow down their area of expertise, Caroline said that she never had that feeling she needed to narrow down, and instead followed what she was interested in despite not being an expert. For example, she left the role of CEO of a successful company to work on research for a cure for Alzheimer’s, even though her knowledge about the disease is limited, because she knows she has the skills to build a business. Meanwhile, Ros said that breadth of exposure is a good thing when you are young, and recommended learning a lot at the start of your career and taking the pressure off of yourself if you find you’re not being very linear, as being exposed to interesting people and networking is important.

Finally, and importantly, our panel were asked how they use their positions to make the environments they are in more representative. Caroline said it’s important to create opportunities and ensure a breadth of different backgrounds, using schemes such as internship programmes. By building an inclusive environment, you can start the snowballing effect because you make other people feel comfortable to speak up and take action to make the company more inclusive. Nicola agreed, saying there is a need to change hiring and recruitment structures, because the way we advertise jobs and the words we use can change the diversity of the applicant pool.

This conversation was a breath of fresh air. The stories, anecdotes, and advice from this panel show that the path to success is very diverse, and the key seems to lie in following your interests and trusting your instincts. However, preparation for any meeting and communication skills are key components to success. Add in a good pinch of resilience and acceptance of failure to make it as a future woman in business. Only when we build inclusive environments and change hiring structures can we lead to a snowballing effect and make the world of business more inclusive.


Rebecca Berrens is a Research Fellow at Reuben College, and a Sir Henry Wellcome Fellow at CRUK-CI, Cambridge and Biochemistry Department, Oxford.