CEOs: is it tougher for women and what does good look like?
20th March, London: Today Episode five of the new Auto Trader podcast Women in the driving seat, hosted by Editorial Director, divorced mum of two and award-winning motoring journalist Erin Baker is released today. The series aims to rip up the rule book on the female-empowerment narrative by sharing personal as well as professional experiences, examining the space where both collide, and the challenges, fears and successes happen.
Episode five covers what exactly it means to be a leader, what it’s like to be a leading voice in the EV charging space and how a lockdown tough spot lead to streamlining the CEO workload.
All episodes in the series feature a Podcast Pit Stop – a quick fire round covering the professional and personal including; Lark or owl? Circuit or circuits? Phone by the bed or phone downstairs?
Join Erin as she puts two inspiring, electrifying leaders in the driving seat.
Podcast preview
Fiona Howarth:
“How do you reconnect and tune into [my children]… I’d have one to one time with them… learn what they’re thinking about, but it’s really hard to do when you’re busy trying to juggle press, government meetings, team.”
“There’s a really healthy moment of, if I step away, you guys will grow yourselves into making a lot more of those decisions.”
“Amazing leaders surround themselves with other people who can help balance the load.”
“People in my team fill in, that’s been great because they know they can do it too, so for holidays or sabbaticals, you don’t have to be on it all of the time.”
“The Kraken tech platform was like a playground for me… it was like ‘shall we do this tariff [to encourage people to charge overnight]?’… a few days later we’d done the tariff, it was remarkable.”
“Everyone’s got a boss!”
“I did hit a really tough spot during lockdown… it was complete chaos… I spoke to one of my team and we spent 2 hours restructuring how we worked together.”
“The same way that you can reiterate a product, you can reiterate a team and how you work together.”
“What we are missing out on sometimes if females bringing female leadership qualities to the table.” [because they mirror male behaviours]
Vicky Read:
“It’s not a race, and you will arrive where you need to get to at the right time.”
“I thought, I can’t step away now so I’ve got to step in”
“I see my role in two halves – advocate for the sector externally… and then also creating the right circumstances so we can roll out even quicker and make sure it’s affordable”
[on importer syndrome] “All the time, you just have to ignore it.”
[on defending electric ChargePoint progress] “I see it as an opportunity to explain, to bring people along.”
“No one knows everything … asking a good question is better than pretending you know everything.”
“I don’t know what I do as me and what I do because I’m a female.”
“I think the title CEO is an odd one, what we’re talking about is leaders here.”
Auto Trader’s new podcast Women in the driving seat releases new episodes every Thursday.
Notes to editors
ABOUT ERIN BAKER
Erin Baker is an award-winning motoring journalist and Editorial Director of Auto Trader. She writes a monthly driving column for Vogue, is a World Car of the Year judge, consults for Goodwood and hosts She's Electric, a national roadshow bringing women and electric cars together. Erin is passionate about narrowing the gender gap, both in the automotive industry itself and between car brands and female consumers, through more targeted language, marketing and experiences. She is a divorced mother of two boys.
ABOUT AUTO TRADER
Auto Trader Group plc is the UK’s largest automotive platform. It listed on the London Stock Exchange in March 2015 and is a member of the FTSE 100 Index.
Auto Trader’s purpose is Driving Change Together. Responsibly. Auto Trader is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive culture, it aims to build stronger partnerships with its customers and use its voice and influence to drive more environmentally friendly vehicle choices.
With the largest number of car buyers and the largest choice of trusted stock, Auto Trader’s marketplace sits at the heart of the UK car buying process. That marketplace is built on an industry-leading technology and data platform, which is increasingly used across the automotive industry. Auto Trader is continuing to bring more of the car buying journey online, creating an improved buying experience, whilst enabling all its retailer partners to sell vehicles online.
Auto Trader publishes a monthly used car Retail Price Index which is based on pricing analysis of circa 800,000 unique vehicles. The same data that powers the Index is used by the Office for National Statistics to make the UK’s official measures of inflation more robust, as well as the Bank of England to feed the broader UK economic indicators.
For more information, please visit: plc.autotrader.co.uk
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