Q: How do you cope with the contrasting and often hectic pace of juggling of your day-to-day turnover and sales with the slower paced long-term R&D? How do you cope with the balancing of priorities?

A: Through regular meetings with colleagues, understanding the flow of work and information through the business and paying attention to areas where problems may arise.

Also, I find that the trust I have in my senior staff to effectively manage and report back is key to my being able to get the most out of my day. I use the analogy of an ‘orchestra’ when talking about running the business – the conductor is monitoring all the aspects of the orchestra and understands the full picture and can see if there are ‘bum notes’. It is the responsibility of the conductor to make sure the whole entity works smoothly and in harmony and that is my job, made easier by my fantastic team.

Q: Was the access to funding the easiest part of this process?

A: Yes, this was a simplified process as it was a national call from Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency backed by the government for Covid-19 related projects and was streamlined.

Once we established our response to the call and received the £50,000 collaborative research project budget, we then began formulation and development of Viral Inactivation Buffer for the transportation of viral contaminated samples.

Q: Have there been any barriers to you within the industry to date?

A: No, none personally, industry barriers such as accreditation have been an issue in the past but compared to other STEM subjects, the biosciences have quite an equal gender balance among early-career scientists, but women are progressively less well represented at more senior positions along the career ladder.

I think diversity training and more understanding of career gaps would help this but I feel women in bioscience are growing in numbers.

Q: How did you find out about our business support offerings?

A: Through Gordon Brady, a senior business partnerships manager at the University of Bedfordshire’s Innovation & Enterprise Service. The team at the university, has been incredibly supportive of everything we are trying to achieve and has taken the time to talk through any innovation plans we had and make sure we are connected with the correct university academic.

Q: Why did you choose the University to work with & how did the support impact your business?

A: The people, the proximity to our facility and the support from the Innovation & Enterprise Service. The support is allowing us to look at new avenues of funding, to develop new products and to grow the business.

Q: Has your productivity levels or sales increased?

A: The products we are developing with the University are currently nearing completion and with the results we have achieved to date we have been able to initiate discussions with third parties who are expressing interest. This will result in increased sales as we are now contracted to fill 900,000 tubes per week up from just 25,000. An all-around good news story for this bioscience business and industry.

In the near future, our work with the University of Bedfordshire academics, on our systems project will also enable us to increase overall productivity and revenue for the business.

Q: Can you tell us about your female workforce?

A: We have a number of females in key positions within the company including our Laboratory Manager. I would estimate that 50% of our workforce is female and this is spread throughout the business, in admin, laboratory and manufacturing roles.

Q: Can you tell me a little more about what this funding has meant for you as a female business leader and any plans for the future?

A: The funding has given the business an opportunity to both learn and also to develop new products. The knowledge will become embedded in the business to the benefit of all the staff – male and female. It is our intention to continue developing these types of reagents to increase our portfolio, something that was not on our horizon 12 months ago.

Recently, I was invited to the three-day-long, Innovate UK and SEMLEP Conference to speak about my business, the funding support we received and the contributions to the economy, both locally and globally – this was a great experience and also provided us the chance to highlight to other businesses the support that is available through Universities – making innovation possible.

We have some exciting ‘hush, hush’ plans for a research centre of excellence in the future. Ideally, once set-up, the centre will house academics and business development staff from the chosen partner university and will aim to work collaboratively with regional, national and international industry players to provide specialist education, training and professional development for the current and future workforce, and to promote industry-focused innovation and research.

Q: Is there any advice you would give to female business owners or women working in the bioscience industry?

A:I have never considered that my skill set was greater or lesser than anyone else. I had tunnel vision for my goals and worked hard to get there. I have learned not to be afraid to ask for help, something I didn’t do in my earlier career. Honestly, I think that our industry is one where gender has not played a part for many years. The only time I have faced issues with gender bias has been in situations where I was dealing with other cultures or in countries where the industry was male dominated and then, only once, did I have to take a male colleague with me to represent me.

My advice would be just to work through any obstacles, and if one way doesn’t work, then try a different approach – you will get there eventually and you do learn over time when the sharp suit, high heels and big smile will help to get you through!