Workshop Wednesday

For this week we are partnering with GirlGeek Dinners (which we also run) for a talk by Emma Millington from Modular.

Meet Emma Millington.

CEO and co-owner of Modular.

At Modular, Emma looks after a team of developers, designers and creatives. Strategically, she steers the ship, oversees finance, ops and ensures client happiness is achieved. Modular, supports a portfolio of local and global clients with human first design and bespoke software development – mainly websites and apps.

But Emma did not always work in the tech sector.

Having read Ancient History at University she had grand visions of becoming the next Indiana Jones (well the female equivalent) with a rich and fulfilling career in academia, writing books about ancient society and delivering lectures on fascinating tales of human nature from the deep past.
But… life happened and at the end of her second year at University that path closed quite suddenly. Balls.
Post University, she found herself wondering what the heck she was going to do for a living.
What was she good at? Writing lovely essays about people from olden times. How was that going to secure an upwardly mobile lifestyle in the mid 90s – the point in history when “having a degree” was no longer a golden ticket to a myriad of well paid opportunities.

As a result her early twenties were spent doing jobs that were not really “her”, but hey, they paid the bills and she plodded on, a bit lost and unfulfilled.

Somewhere in her early thirties, life happened again. Really! Come on Universe! But… this time, as she emerged from the emotional ashes and debris, she was determined to make some changes.

Life and all it had thrown at her had changed her. She took stock. Shifted her focus. She had became braver. Tenacious. Ambitious. She no longer wanted to sit around waiting for the right job to come along.
For the first time, she started thinking about herself and what she needed. She started looking at roles she wanted to do, with organisations she wanted to work for. She started to focus on what she enjoyed, what would feed her soul and also make her feel valid and valued.
So, she set out on carving a career for herself.

Looking back, there were common threads that ran through each of her various roles – understanding people, building relationships, connecting people, putting order into chaos. In reality, each job was valuable. Enriched her skills and experiences. Even if it really didn’t feel like it at the time.
Over time, her experiences led her to becoming a CEO of Modular. A role she has now held for over 9 years. A role she loves, but one she never imagined she would hold.

Join us on meetup and hear in more detail how Emma went from dreaming of a life in academia to becoming CEO of a development company.

.. btw … They do have a role going and its also a great thing to talk to other members in the industry. Other areas will still be available for networking and working if you want to carry on as normal – we just won’t be available for careers chats etc – but you are still welcome and the Python Dojo and Data Science and Machine learning will still be running also.