Victoria is 68, founded her second business Next-Up five years ago and has developed an online platform to help employees coming up to unretirement, as well as running workshops for pre-retirement partners in professional firms. Victoria’s TEDx talk on a Generation of Wasted Talent has had 20k views.
A former director of EY on the London leadership team, she ran an award-winning comms and digital business for 30 years. She was founding chair of Women in Leeds Digital, now rebranded to WILD Digital, increasing the diversity of digital teams. She chaired the management division advisory board for University of Leeds and sat on Northern Ballet’s board for eight years. She is on HMP Askham Grange employment advisory board to help ex-offenders, is a Teaching Fellow of Lancaster University; and a Fellow of the RSA.
Victoria is an Amazon bestselling author, blogger and BBC expert woman commenting on news. She has coached chief executives and directors, mentors start start-up businesses, young people, ex-offenders and those transitioning into retirement. Next-Up’s podcast, Re-think Retirement, helps people with inspiration and ideas for unretirement.
What motivated you to pursue your current career?
I was asked to help a lot of people who had retired, to use LinkedIn - which they had ignored and hated till then! They realised there are no phone books any more, so how would people know what they are doing or how to contact them! As I helped them I realised how lost people were at this stage of life. Retirement isn’t always the dream portrayed and many were in a really bad place mentally. Yet no-one talks about it . I love that Next-Up is helping people to find purpose – which will help extend their active lives by ten years and reduce the chances of Alzheimer’s by 2.5x. We are making such a difference to society.
What accomplishment are you most proud of in your career?
I think starting this business at the age of 63 and becoming a tech entrepreneur at 67 – we seem to be encouraging lots of people to rethink retirement and stay active for longer, which is good for them and society!
What have been some of the most important lessons you’ve learned throughout your career?
The biggest lesson was that bosses don’t have all the answers and can’t possibly. You need an open structure in organisations where even the most junior members of a team feel able to challenge and offer insights. That way you are getting the best value from the brains and experience around you
Tell us why you joined the WILD board...
I joined because Sarah Tulip asked me, and who can refuse her? I was hugely flattered I suppose, because I am so much older than most people working in tech and I was delighted Sarah and Debs really got that diversity means wanting very wide representation – including age. But most of all, I worry that employers have not invested in training older employees in tech skills – so it’s no surprise that older generations don’t feel confident about ‘tech’. Yet tech is now just about everything we do. We can’t have our products and services designed by a narrow group of white men – they simplycan’t understand the issues and needs of a wide range of users. And that is how so many products and services are simplynot fit for purpose. I am on a mission to show older generations have skills that are useful and encourage them to get involved with helping design and test tech products.
What barriers do we as a Society still need to overcome when it comes to creating a more accessible inclusion culture globally?
We have a massive problem at the moment where employers are not employing people aged 50 and over. It is completelyludicrous when they are keen to work and could fill so many of our skills shortages. We have to change perceptions about age – honestly, 70 or 80 is still really young and older generations have so much experience to offer. We need all generations working together – we can all learn from and help each other
What advice would you give to someone just starting their career?
My advice would be to understand the organisation's goals and ensure your job contributes to the big picture is empowering. It not only makes the audience feel more purposeful in their roles but also gives them a clear path to being noticed and promoted.
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