Intrepid Woman: A Pro Bono Secondment Leads to a New Mission in Life

Contributed by Lily Dey, Author, Coach, Accountant & Technologist

In the fall of 2011, I knew that my career wasn’t progressing the way I had intended. I’ve always been ambitious, wanting to do more and more with myself, but I’d been stuck in the same role for too long and felt unable to break free.

I’d finally qualified as an accountant earlier that year – I was a late starter as I’d originally worked in IT for investment banks prior to that. …And I was single. …And I had recently stepped down as the Chair of Trustees for a local charity. In short, I was bored.

It’s easy to decide to get a new job, but the current market was unsuited for the ambitions I had. Instead, I looked within my current company for opportunities. I saw one email announcing a pro-bono secondment program, which sends employees on assignments with our partner NGOs around the world. The thought of three months abroad was too good to pass by. Soon, I was successfully selected and headed off to Tanzania to work for a microfinance organisation.

Working in a Developing Country

I’d traveled pretty extensively prior to my assignment, so it wasn’t my first time in a developing country or even in East Africa. I knew that transport, toilets, and food could be difficult, but I felt comfortable about dealing with that. During my time there, I had the opportunity to travel around the country and see the more rural areas, “real life,” I would privately think to myself. This, combined with being based in Dar es Salaam, helped me build a picture of life there.

There are undeniably huge plus-points to being an expat in a developing country. The standard of living is completely different: you hire people to clean your house, do your laundry, your grocery shopping, and you can even hire a cook that’ll have freshly baked bread ready for you every morning. You don’t have to be hugely well off to strip life of the more unpleasant chores and focus on the things that you do want to do.

But there are negatives too. Apart from the logistical issues that I mentioned above, which you just have to deal with, there are cultural and religious attitudes, which need to be navigated incredibly carefully. I was recording my secondment through a blog and wanted to take photos constantly, which a lot of men flat-out refused or seriously demanded payment for. I had one friend whose housekeeper was widowed, and the dead man’s family took possession of their belongings, house and the children, leaving her with literally nothing. She ended up as a live-in housekeeper. I knew another expat woman who worked in a telecoms company, a lone woman amongst many men, who quit her job because of the inability to do her job with an unwanted sexual undercurrent overtaking every meeting.

The thing that struck me about the latter issue was its similarity to stories you hear in developed countries: this is not specific to Africa; it is specific to women.

Priming the Pipeline

I was completely oblivious to all gender issues until the day I went to an interview for a university course in Computer Science. I had attended an all-girls school. I was one of two women in the room of 100. The ratio for the course ended up being somewhat better, with around 10 women starting the course although about half that actually matriculated.  As a first-year, I would tell people they were asking the wrong person when they enquired why more women weren’t studying the subject.  A year later, I was passionate about changing the status quo.  I was awarded a Google Global Community Scholarship for my efforts and went on to gain a Masters degree before joining the IT Graduate Program for a top-tier investment bank.

After a few years in “proper” IT, I moved in IT finance roles.  Having moved to a different bank, I left my induction on the first day and went to report to my first female manager.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the floor was half full of women, but it didn’t take long to realise that 90% of the heads in offices were men.  IT, finance, business in general… it makes no difference.  Same old story.

My personal focus has always been on increasing the numbers of women from the ground up: this is the main thing that will get us a sustainable number of women prepped for Board level positions.  But in the case of any male-dominated sector, girls are inevitably counted out from the age of 13.  Without a foundational education in the right subjects, how will we ever hit the highest echelons?

Focusing on Women

I’ve always been interested in women’s issues and had been maintaining a blog on the topic since 2008.  Traveling and meeting women, who are the primary recipient of microfinance loans, combined with getting to know the expat community in my social life, reinforced that view considerably.  I realised that this was really a passion of mine and set out to do more than just air my views on the latest topics, but actually work with women individually to help them achieve their aims.

One of the main issues that women face is that everything we do gets so hyped up.  There is a modern day tendency to try and find “the right answer” – a mystical, magical solution that can be boiled down into 5 bullet points and provides us all with the path to success. A lot of it is useful food for thought when shared in this way, but it’s not what we really need.

There are numerous contributing factors to why women fall behind men in the workforce, but the one I keep coming back to is confidence.  The truth is, the world is obsessed with images and ideas of how women should be, whether manifested via the ubiquitous bullet points or models on TV.  With so many things telling us, this is what you should be doing, it’s understandable to feel a bit unsure.

With this in mind, I am now on a mission to provide women with practical, sensible solutions to enable them to achieve their goals.  It’s time to clear out the clutter and do what we want – just like men do.

Lily Dey is an Author, Coach, Accountant & Technologist on a mission to empower women to achieve their personal and professional goals.  A Google Global Community Scholar and StartingBloc Fellow, she believes in stripping out the psychobabble and providing women with sensible solutions to move their lives ahead in a fulfilling direction.  Subscribe to her blog and newsletter at skirtsandladders.com.