Mums in Tech - feat. Beks Yelland
As part of our ‘Mums in Tech’ series, we caught up with Beks Yelland, Product Director at Arenko.
The purpose of our 'MotherBoard’ content series is to highlight incredible working mums within tech & data, as well as individuals and businesses that are supportive and progressive within their approach to creating more inclusive tech & data teams for women.
Firstly, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your current role?
I am now and have been for a while a Product leader in a start-up. Currently at Arenko this means I work alongside the CTO, CEO, CFO and CCO (commercial officer) to work out what we should be doing and how to win in our chosen industry which happens to be the highly complex Renewable Energy storage and monetisation.
Arenko has market leading software that makes it possible for our customers to manage and trade their complex assets in an ever transforming marketplace and tech landscape. Prior to Arenko I served as a Product leader in many different places with 10 years in media, 10 years in finance and most recently over the last handful of years in climate tech where I have found my happy place.
If you could sum up what it’s like being a working mum in tech in one sentence, what would it be?
Less so in recent years, but in past more male-dominated / toxic environments, I would find myself massively sleep deprived in a room surrounded by men with varying degrees of self-induced hangovers complaining about how it was impacting their ability to concentrate.
I couldn't join in because I knew instinctively that talking about my interrupted sleep due to my kids' sickness or virus would not ingratiate me in their discussion and wouldn’t enable me to be a part of their club, so I would often have to be the one to suck it up and be the person driving the discussion and ensuring actions and decisions were documented as well as taking the time to check back in at home to make sure I could relax and focus on my work.
The older your kids get the less this kind of day happens but now they all have mobiles what we get instead is full on bombardment with texting….. ‘can you put ££ on my card’ ‘ can I go to so and so’s after school’ or worse ‘when are you coming home’ 😭
“I have to segment my time, compartmentalise my brain and be as many things to as many people as often and as consistently as I can without breaking myself. It’s not an easy task, but with planning, delegation and honesty I have found that this is possible.”
How do you find the balance between your career and motherhood?
It’s tough, the obvious statement is that more often than not you feel like you are either compromising or not doing a good enough job of being a mum or if you lean into being a mum then the career has to take a hit. So I know I can’t always be many things to many people.
I have to segment my time, compartmentalise my brain and be as many things to as many people as often and as consistently as I can without breaking myself. It’s not an easy task, but with planning, delegation and honesty I have found that this is possible.
What I mean by that is, I make sure we always have help at home so we’ve paid over the years for either a full time nanny from the point we had three kids, or more recently since all my children were in school since 2018 we changed to have a live in au pair.
This obviously makes the logistics side of managing all the commitments, travel, getting kids out the house at the right time with the right books and bits and bobs so much easier, but it’s not a supplement for motherhood. So what this really gives me is time and energy so when I have got space in my day for my kids I can really be there for them — listen to them properly, which is more and more important the older they get.
The other thing this help at home means for me is the ability to carve out time for me, and for the last three years I have been going to the gym three times a week — something I know many of my friends who juggle all of this themselves would find impossible to do.
It’s a financial sacrifice, and we are likely not going to be able to have a summer holiday this year (so no holiday at all as we are not a three holiday a year family) but I think it’s one worth making as I am hopeful my kids will grow up still liking me and wanting to spend time with me rather than the can’t bear to think about alternative.
What has been your greatest challenge as a working mother in tech?
I have often been in highly complex B2B enterprise environments which means every day is really intense, lots of tech and domain knowledge to wrap your head around which is hard for anyone that’s not really really technical and only marginally tech savvy, but even harder when for the most of my adult life since 33 onwards I’ve been impaired either from pre baby brain, post baby brain, sleep deprivation with three young kids then now into perimenopause/menopause with only a small break in between. So I have always felt as though I’ve been operating with 1-2 hands tied behind my back.
I used to say “you should have known me before kids”… I was so on it. But for the last decade I just lean into the things I struggle with, am honest on my own limitations and blow the socks off people when I can and don’t remonstrate myself when I am just getting my job done!
“Being a working mum is just another way of being a mum, and the longer you do it, the more you get used to it. The guilt and the worry don’t ever really go away, it just changes and you just deal with it differently. k! ”
What skills have you developed as a mother that have helped your work life?
Oh I so wish I could say patience, but I absolutely cannot. I am not a patient person, nor am I particularly great at ‘suffering fools’, but what I have pulled into my working life from motherhood is curiosity.
When you have three kids who all respond to you (and life) completely differently, it’s really hard to keep up or understand what is unfolding in front of you. I’ve found that curiosity is the only way to avoid immediatey flying into judgement. I use this skill at work to be curious enough to better understand people's points of view, agendas or desired outcomes, rather than judging them.
When you were returning to work, what one thing helped you / would have helped you the most?
I think I was a returning mum to work at the worst time, but I am sure many people say that. I was in finance, there were no facilities, so I was pump and dumping in a toilet cubicle following 3 months maternity leave all postpartum as worked up to and including being in early stages of labour (it was no. 3 though).
I missed out on mum’s rooms, or anywhere appropriate to store breast milk if I had wanted to — we just had to get on with it — so it’s hard to know how to compare to todays world in terms of those logistics, I mean I was triple/quadruple padding to avoid embarrassing leakage scenarios, it was atrocious.
So I can only hope that facilities and gadgets mean these things are easier now — I hope they are — but if they are not, at least we live in a world where they can and should be asked for and provided. For that I am so grateful for my younger colleagues.
I also wish I had known what I know now that the guilt just like the worry changes over the years, the level of almost debilitating guilt I felt every day for months when I went back to work with my first only lasted for a month with my second (though I felt guilty for not feeling guilty!?! does that count) and for a few days with my third.
Being a working mum is just another way of being a mum, and the longer you do it, the more you get used to it. The guilt and the worry don’t ever really go away, it just changes and you just deal with it differently. k!
“You can have it all, as long as some of the it you are willing to sacrifice😉… Try to acknowledge and manage the guilt but don’t let it control you, accept it, deal with it and move on if you can. ”
What do you feel should be the top priority for employers who want to support working mothers better?
Being transparent about policies, limitations now and intentions for the future include working mothers in your planning on how to improve these and don’t think just because you have a working mother with older kids or grown up kids they know what the latest challenges are or needs - as things inevitably change so just ask the current mothers what they need.
Flexibility and willingness to continually be flexible is crucial but I would go further and make sure this is not just for working mothers but for fathers too. Inclusive rights and flexibility for all full time carers is essential to create a nurturing and thriving environment for those starting and growing their families.
Any final words of advice for other mothers in the Tech Industry?
You can have it all, as long as some of the it you are willing to sacrifice😉. For example you can have the job and the kids but you might not get the holidays or the brand new car if you decide to use some of your hard earned cash to pay for help at home.
Try to acknowledge and manage the guilt but don’t let it control you, accept it, deal with it and move on if you can.
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