Why Women Are Losing Ambition At Work? McKinsey WorkPlace Report, Future Of Work & Human Connections

The future is here, so let's make sense of it together. Welcome to the Sonia Barlow show, the place for real conversations on lifestyle, technology and the future of work that keep us connected and informed. This episode we are discussing women in the workplace and the future of the workforce with Anastasia Petrova from DeepKey. Be sure to share your thoughts online by tagging Onyabala UK across socials. I can't wait to hear what you've learned from today's episodes. Anastasia, thank you so much for coming on the show. We have been connected for years now and it's so nice that I can be on the other side interviewing you and showcasing all the great things that you've done in the workforce, to be honest. Thank you Sonia and I'm quite honored to be invited and to be interviewed by you. Yeah, it's really good. I mean, do you want to give us a brief overview as to what you do right now and summary of what you've done to become a well known senior leader, especially in the world of technology? I am currently a Vice president for partnerships and strategic alliances at this software company called DeepKey. It is sustainability platform for real estate and to be honest, I, when I joined DeepKey had no idea what real estate is about and especially sustainability for real estate. My previous experience was around financial crime risk in software and before that I actually worked for banking and before that for manufacturing, mobile phones manufacturing, if you remember the phones called Nokia. So quite diverse background and it's a good question like what brought me here. Actually throughout my career the main focus on what I'm doing was around relationship management and building relationships and building connections and working with people, working with teams, with partners, with vendors, with customers. So it's very much based on first of all of course, understanding the business, understanding the product, if we are talking about software company, but most importantly understanding the ecosystem around this business and what can you do with the help of other adjacent technologies or services. So partners in a nutshell. So I think that curiosity brought me where I am because sometimes the headhunters are quite puzzled where to fit me. So I just like trying different things and understanding different products and how things work and how you can add value to different customers and what type customers are there in the world and what you can do for them using technology specifically. So I'm quite fascinated being in software business, I joined this side of business or software so I moved from customer side to vendor side. So in software business I'm since 2015, so 10 years now and it's quite interesting to see what actually triggers the customers. Buy technology, adopt business to technology. And it's very different, you know, selling to banks, technology to banks, or selling technology to real estate players or selling technology to corporates. But at the core of this is human relationship and that's I believe, where my strengths are and that's what I always try to harness. And it's actually quite well related to, to the topic of today. You know, building networks, understanding people, working with people, networking. It's all interconnected. Yeah. And thank you so much for sharing. I mean the interesting thing here is that I've always known you as somebody who is able to connect, able to build relationships or has a passion for that, for context. You know, we met, I'm going to say around 2014. Yeah, 2015, when I was at university and I remember going on this program called Sprint which was a wider mentorship program because as much as I had the confidence and maybe capability, I didn't quite have the connections for one. But also you don't know what to do with your skill set when you can do a little bit of everything. But you're biggest skill set is probably curiosity and wanting to work with people and just being quite interested in adding value. So very similar to kind of what I remember wanting around 2014. So about 10 years ago and then you came and delivered a workshop and at that point you were working for NatWest or RBS. Yeah. And I remember just being in a complete awe and for anyone listening, you know, taking a lot of confidence and time to reach out to you but also to ask the question of can you mentor me? But being very specific with this is where we need the help, which is something I learned makes a big difference. And since then I've only ever known you to be in customer facing roles and relationship management roles. But even the way that I believe our relationship started professionally is, is all about now in hindsight, assessing the situation, understanding the problem areas, defining solutions and then giving something a go to see if it works or not. And I think that's the most important thing that I've learned from you is not everything's going to work, but it's worth trying. Is that a piece of resilience and a key piece of kind of, you know, positive mindset that you've always had? I wouldn't say that, you know, I've always had positive mindset. Sometimes you do some things out of desperation. Right. This was the case when I started my business because I was made redundant and I couldn't find a job as Fast as I needed to do it due to number of obligations and responsibilities. So sometimes you do something because you have to do something and you can't just you're in charge and yeah, it's. And then your brain just starts working and thinking what can you do? And again, as I said, I'm quite a curious person and I like trying things. So if you call it positive mindset, maybe, but it just this always. I'm always eager to learn new things, to know new things, to meet people who are smarter than me, to learn from them and see what else is possible where I can actually apply my skills because I believe in transferable skills. I'm very fascinated and admire people who spend, you know, 30 years at one place in my workplace at the same company and achieve a lot and. But I'm just not that person. I always need to move on and try new things. So whether it's a positive mindset or some, you know, restless mindset, we can look at it differently. I think that's awesome. And the restless mindset, I mean I think it's just, just as important. But what I'm hearing from you and I've known of you and you've stated Gunnikiv in your bio, right. You've jumped from different places but also always focus on those skills and you're committed to progressing yourself and other people. McKinsey are saying that women face less career support and fewer opportunities to advance as companies showed declining commitment to women's progress. This might be because of the gender parity or the pace that means sluggish and then you have the lean in organization that in 2025 suggests that only half of the companies are prioritizing women's career advancement. And actually there's a notable ambition gap that's appeared so women are less interested in seeking promotions than men. These in 2025 when you have, you know, women in workplace reports and you have talented role models like yourself and you have this idea of a linear career or at least how you can climb your career ladder seems quite daunting given that we've. That this isn't new, right. It's still going to take 123 years for any kind of progress and to close the current rate of, of of the gap that does exist. I guess my question in a long winded way is why do you think that that gap still might exist when you yourself are somebody who is genuinely a role model to cite is somebody who has ambition and who has audacity and who has notably progressed in their career why do you think women now are feeling that the gap is increasing, but also are just lacking the motivation to kind of climb up the ladder anyway? It's a very interesting and challenging question, Sonia, because it also depends on who you are talking to. Fortunately, because of social media and different platforms, we now see or get access to more and more role models. And actually thanks to you and your network that you created and how you started. And I remember those conversations before you were thinking about it, how like the way your company treated you. Yeah, before you, before you left it. Uh, so it's, you know, how to put it. I know a lot of women who are quite successful. I know a lot of women who want to be successful, but something stops them. And then how we help them. So those who are successful, how they share and how they support others. And then I know a lot of also men who don't progress, you know, but we are not here talking about men versus women. It's about how can we help women to have more courage, more clarity about what they want to do with their career and like women just have more. I wouldn't call them barriers, but circumstances. What if I decide to have a family? Is my company accommodating? You know, again, I know a lot of companies where women are promoted on their maternity leave, but I also know companies where people return and can't progress after maternity leave. So why do we have this gap? So there are multiple reasons and first I think even job descriptions, job descriptions just not accommodating enough. They are not motivating women to apply because they have so many obligations. As you know, usually when there's a lot of statistics that about caregivers, so female as caregivers, they're very often it's women who are caregivers and looking after children after elderly. And in some cultures women just can't have career after they got married. You know, it's also cultural aspect. But if we are taking just UK or countries like UK or United States, Europe, it's also how the companies accommodate this career progress, how the companies bring into workplace those mentorship and sponsorship program, how we can ensure that we hear what women need. And sometimes, you know, career progression is not about going up the ladder, it's going sideways and getting broader knowledge, broader skill set, broader responsibilities and then going upwards will come with it. But letting you know, giving this opportunity for mobility, maybe even change countries, you know, you can be so enriched if you go and work in another country. You know it yourself, you travel so much. So there is a gap but at the same time it's, you know, very often we just try to look at the consequences or eliminate the consequences. You know, like I don't believe in quotas, for example. I believe that it should be the right person for the right role. But we need to look in the root cause. Like what prevents why women first of all don't apply for the jobs, why they are not comfortable talking about their promotion, why they're not comfortable talking about their pay rise, why like you did have courage and you came and spoke to me and I don't know how, but somehow I motivated you for something. But a lot of young women do not have this courage. Why do they not have this courage? And you know what fascinates me and puzzles me at the same time is that when we look at the school children very often. So first of all, girls are, and again, there's studies, proven studies about like all girls schools versus all boys schools, but girls quite successful, very proactive. They're like going into all these committees and they go to conferences. And my own goddaughter is already in UN organization and she's only 18 and she's like doing a lot of stuff. Then they come to university and again, they are leading committees and driving different agendas and doing a lot of stuff. Then they come to the workplace and that's where the glass ceiling occurs. So why, why is it so even in my company, if we look at number of female and male in the entry roles, they're about equal. And then we go into mid level, it's okay. Ish. Then you go into leadership, it's less. And if you look at our C level, I think currently just one woman, which is not so good. Right. But it's again, what is the reason behind that? Are there barriers, like real barriers, or is it something that is just overlooked and just somebody needs to look and make changes. So yeah, it's, it's. We can, we can talk about it for hours. Sonia, I'm, I'm perplexed myself. Why do we have this gap this Dan time, when there's so many tools and platforms that can support and enroll models and mentorship programs. And with. Yeah, one thing you've said that's really interesting to me is that you don't always have to progress upwards, you can progress sideways. And I believe that might be one area for us to not necessarily focus on in this conversation, but for anyone listening to think about is progression looks different depending on what role you have, what skill set you want to embrace and what your Work life balance looks like right for some people, especially in the world of tech. I mean, I've worked in tech for the last 10 years. I started in tech, I build a tech business. They want to work sideways because they want to have a work life balance. They want to reduce burnout and they want to make sure that they are being rewarded for their efforts. And often when you're progressing upwards, your rewards might be financial. But you know, given the state of play, the jumps aren't as big as they used to be. But the cost of living is, is increasing. But you have a lot more responsibility, especially when it comes to people management. And now building a personal branding, you know, building your employer brand, there's a lot more hidden job tasks that are required from you that aren't necessarily in your description. And so you're thinking, okay, well per hour, per month, per year, what am I earning versus the effort and what does the reward look like and where can I actually progress? But a second point you made, which is really interesting and leans into the topics that we really want to speak about on this show a lot more is the idea of community and human connections and business networking. I mean, according to the news and the research, they're suggesting that, you know, people are tired of being online. They're going back into in real life events, conferences, book clubs, they want to go back to, and you mentioned Nokia working there. They want to go back to a Nokia phone versus an iPhone because they want to have less distractions. And yet we're seeing the increase of individuals being online or using the Internet or ChatGPT is a great example or you know, performing through AI. So there's definitely juxtaposition that's happening in the era right now. And as much as people want to build those networks, I do think there's a confusion between what is true networking and building business relationships, which you can tell us about in just a second and what is just increasing your follower count and being seen because those are two very different things. And yet we haven't quite figured out what a good medium looks like. Sonia, I would come with this question to you because I think you have a great combination of digital networking and follow up base and keeping this community up to date. Digital community and also in person and doing these events that you're doing workshops in person and you might be, I mean, you know, much more than I do maybe in this space. But what I would like to share here, you know, that I sometimes don't even know when I see it, all these digital networks or everything online. Sometimes I don't even know what is true and what is not. Is it a real thing or not? I start to challenge things. So I personally try to have a kind of balance because both digital community and networking has its cons and pros and I do believe in power of AI for certain things. And there's a lot of good that you can do with AI, especially on performance and productivity. But when we are talking about networking, I'm still very much about meeting in person and seeing people and reading the room and, you know, observing body language and just having those conversations and building real connections and relationships. But at the same time I look at the young people and I have a young person, young child and I, I see how much, how much important or how important it is having this, you know, community online and all these followers and become the influence and being like, having this feeling of achievement. Maybe because there's not so many opportunities to do it like in physical real life. I don't know, I just, I personally believe that physical connection, seeing people in person is very important. And no matter how, how many followers you have and how influential you are, it still won't replace the physical connection. But at the same time, completely understand what you're saying. Just to jump in there, you mentioned something about the physical connection and how do you keep up with it? I would also add, or at least I'd like to ask you, is how, how did you keep up with the physical connections? Because you were connecting on a workplace agenda and then being a VP means that you are liaising with a variety of people and you know, structures all over the world and then you have a life outside of that. So how do you manage the in person slash virtual connections without, without possibly being exhausted? Because as somebody who's built and run a community, I have to say that we really did slow down in 2025. And a big part of that was because it was exhausting. It was exhausting wearing many hats. It was exhausting trying to figure out where our funding was coming from. And we, you know, lost some funding. And so you had to really think about what good looks like in the next step. And then equally, it was exhausting having to constantly tell companies that you have something of value when a lot of the time they were like, well, if you work with us, you get the exposure. And I was like, what? Exposure doesn't pay the expenses. So you know, it's, there's a, there's a benefit of being seen and being visible, adding value, being authentic and obviously building Human connections online because you're able to learn a lot more from the world around you and shift your perspective. But when you're taking that offline, there is definitely a burnout element and I guess to some extent the broken rung at the first step up to being a manager or CEO or somebody who's running a community that many people don't talk about. That's why I was mentioning the balance, you know, especially for your business when you are, I mean, not. Not only for your business, actually, you mentioned that in my, in my role. Yes, you're right. It's, it's, it's how to, how to stay connected but not being exhausted. It's the quality, you know, it's the quality of connections. And it's actually in my business, it's much more important to have those personal connections and having just a quick coffee with people every now and then and just checking in how, how business is going if there's any, you know, opportunities and. But at the same, I use a lot of digital tools because I need to follow people and see what's happening with them because it also helps to maintain, maintain relationship because you know what's happening and they are quite pleased to see it that you follow. And it's all about presence online. But you raised very, very interesting questions. So a very interesting point about how not to burn out and grow the business. And I'm sorry to hear that you lost funding and. Yeah, but it's all about quality, you know, and I'm sure that if you have maybe less connections, but they're like of high quality and you nurture them and you make sure that you, it's like give and take also relationship. It's not only about giving. You know, like you say, the exposure doesn't cover expenses, so you can't just give all the times. It's also, you know, putting those rules of engagement and contracting as we call it in coaching specifically like understanding what you can give, but also what you want, what you want back. And that can be done, I think more successfully when you can read the person, when you can see the person. And by physical connection, I don't mean just, you know, see them physically in, in person, even, even having, you know, zoom team meeting where you can, but you can still see the person and talk to them. Not, not everything like online and it just like just following and putting some comments and then posting. So even digital connection can be beneficial if you actually spend some time and talk to people. And for me personally, it's about quality, not Quantity. I might not have, like, relationship with every single connection that I have on LinkedIn, but I have a circle of people with whom I'm staying in contact and I follow them and I see what's happening and from now and then I can reach out to them. And again, people traveling, so sometimes even my connections in the US if they're in London, I know that they're coming, I know that they're coming for the conference and I make sure that they, I meet up with them, you know, or even have maybe a quick conversation, quick chat. And it's surprising how sometimes they are quite pleased to see that I'm there and I'm reaching out and I'm interested in what's going on. And it's for business. But as much as for business, it's also very important to keep personal relationships and connections, you know, like we do. Or I also support a lot of entrepreneurs and it's not formal mentorship, but it's just, you know, catching up at even like, you know, providing a, just providing an advice at the right time, in the right place, and then see how they, how it helps them and then they grow. And again, you never know how it can, how it can turn around and what it can bring you. So, yes, I would say balance. Balance is key here. And both have it, cons and pros. But you need, you need to find this balance. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've been reading a lot of books as I write my next book. I've been reading take, I've been reading Never Eat Alone. I've been eating Conversation. I mean, reading Conversations on Love as an example. And you know, a lot of these books remind you of one, knowing how much your time is worth. And that doesn't mean putting a financial value on it, but what it means is this is what my time is worth. And so this is how my, how many kind of pro bono hours or extra hours I have in the month to help people. Two is to understand that not all help will have something in return, and that's completely fine. Helping people might be to learn to lean in, to listen. It doesn't always have to be a financial incentive, which I think social media distracts us from a lot of the time. And the third is that echoing your point, as you get older you have a smaller circle of quality, whereas in your teens and your twenties you might have a larger circle. And so those larger circles are definitely vague. But there was some research done from an academic standpoint that showed that the older you get, the more you Value your time. And so you want to build out those quality relationships that can help you. And obviously we know that 70 to 80% of opportunities come from our network. So opportunities don't just mean our next job. It could be a learning exercise, it could be an idea, it could be a recipe, whatever that looks like. So everything you're saying is you're echoing what the data is telling us, which is amazing. And you made a really valid point at the beginning was, you know, companies, when you're thinking about encouraging women, especially in the workplace, it's not that they're not capable, they don't exist, it's what are you doing with the connections? How are you building their confidence? How are you supporting them in their programs through mentorship and sponsorship? How are you helping them build a sideway community rather than just going upwards? And most importantly, how are you future proofing their career when there is so much extra we need to be leaning into, we need to be learning about as we, as we start to wrap up. I'd like to understand, given that you're in the world of tech, how have you seen technology change this idea of human connections and relationship building, you know, let's say pre pandemic to post pandemic being, being a really good kind of starting point. And my secondary question is how do you think it's going to change the way that we build connections and balance and stay balanced in the next few years? And I only ask you that because at the beginning in your introduction you did mention that, you know, you're, you work in a software and tech business. It's very different to what you did before. Now you're having to work directly with customers and understand what their needs are and make sure that you solve their challenges. That's very different to working with large businesses and creating connections there. You know Sonia, now that you ask these questions, both of them. So it's actually made me think that there is no big difference when you work for big corporates or software business. Because when you work for big corporate, like I worked for phone manufacturer for Nokia and it was, you know, making sure we can create a demand actually that people want to use our products, right? And same with technology now with software company, we need to make our customers want to use, to use our technology and show the value and like how technology. So the first question, your first question was about how technology helps to build connections and how it changed the whole framework of building connections and maintaining them. I mean LinkedIn, Facebook, they all came. I remember when they came, I was like one of the first adopters of Both Facebook and LinkedIn and Nokia was one of the first phones that we actually integrated it into into our interface. So it was quite interesting experience. And now it's just like for granted and people actually, some hate it and close it and go away from, from the social media platforms that help us to keep connected. So I think it's not even like pre pandemic versus post pandemic. So the platforms were there before pandemic and then people did both. It just, I think during pandemic it was too overwhelming because the whole physical connection and that's where we're again talking about the balance. The whole physical connection was removed and people got really overwhelmed. So the statistics shows that after Covid people started to leave the social platforms because it was just too much for them. But for some it was, you know, some people started businesses and it really helped them. They connected with the whole world and then grew their business. So I repeat myself, but it's all about balance and there's a lot of benefit in understanding platforms and using them for your benefit and benefit for community that you build. Of course we know a lot of horror stories and it's a lot of very negative research or researches that show very negative side of social media and what it does to young people. But you know, technology is technology and it won't stop the progress. It's how we use it and how we can protect for example young people from the harm that can come from it. But it's like with any technology, it's all education. And that's why it's important also to have those, you know, it's a totally different topic how to stay safe. But I wouldn't say that we shouldn't use them or it's bad for us. I mean it's so, it's so good using AI. As you mentioned, I personally use AI a lot, not for building connections or relationships but for productivity. And again it helps me because then I teach other people and I say look, that's how I use Perplexity or that's how I use, I don't know, ChatGPT or that's how I use Gemini, like we work with Google Suite or some people tell me about their copilot experience and that's how again we connect and we share and we learn from each other. So it can be really positive. But it's all about balance and it's, you know, people have so much fear about, you know, that AI is like taking jobs and destroys some stuff and it will like still in artificial intelligence, the artificial is a key word at the moment. I'm not talking about like future future but at the moment we just need to use it right and learn how to use it rather than, you know, say something is bad. It's, it's just human nature I think being, you know, if we don't understand something, we just say it's bad for us or it's not suitable or appropriate to accept it. But it's again it's maybe my curious and restless mind. I want to learn more and I want to learn how it works and yeah and how it can help me with my connections at the moment, as I said actually learning AI and learning these new technologies and how you can network in more productive way and more efficient way that how helps me to meet new people and actually explore new horizons and see the art of possible. But it's all about balance. I will repeat it again. Such a great point to start ending on if you can. Can you give us a few resources that you use to stay up to date with the future of tech or keep your mind wandering. So you mentioned ChatGPT. You mentioned being an early adopter of tools like LinkedIn and Facebook. Are there any podcasts or books or people that you're interested by? I listen to a lot of podcasts and Sonia, your podcast I would highly recommend to people subscribe and listen your blogs about AI. I learned a lot so podcast. There are so many podcasts and I personally listen to daily tech news show Hidden Brain. You know ethical AI by Jenny Garrett and her daughter. They do it together. Very interesting. It's actually about they interview, they find people all over the world and interview them how AI can be used ethically. And actually AI and equity, I think it's a equity in AI. That's how it's called. But yeah, there's so many podcasts about books. I do not read books on technology specifically but I would recommend something like the Power of Mentoring by Andy La and it's also covers a lot of technology. There's again there's so many resources and as I said, sometimes books can be a bit too dry for me. So podcasts, blogs and just yeah, going to events and listening to people fav. Thank you so much. So, so far we have discussed the power of networking and how it's helped you progress from working Nokia to becoming VP of Deep Key, but also understanding a lot more about yourself, your skills and your value. Add that curiosity has really led your career and so yes, there are stats around the lack of ambition, the increasing gap or the challenges that women face in the workplace. But if you go back to being curious and challenging yourself, but equally putting in the relevant structures and systems as companies to help women move sideways as a form of progression, not just upwards, you can see how that can benefit them, close the gap and obviously build out new structures and systems, especially when we're thinking about future proofing our work. And lastly, keep on learning. Anastasia, you've mentioned learning from people, blogs, podcasts, books, but the point being is find a resource that works for you and it's about quality over quantity. So at no point have you said you need to have a million followers or people on social media for you to be an expert. What you have repeatedly said is you have to work hard in your craft, communicate with people and, you know, solve their challenges and build that community so that you can lean off one of one and so that you can lean off each other. But most importantly, future proofing your work looks like leaning into new trends and knowing that they're no different from five to 10 years ago. It's just about how are you going to use them to create those efficiencies and to really stay insightful. So, thank you. Thank you so much. Is there anything that I've missed out or you'd like to end with? Not really. I believe you made it. Your summary is great. You summarized it very well, Sonia, so thank you so much. And so thank you so much for this opportunity to speak to you here. Well, thank you for everyone listening. You've been listening to the Sonia Barlow Show. If this episode resonated screenshot it tag it, tell me hellonyabarlo.co.uk and share your biggest insight. Anastasia's details are in the description. Please connect with her on LinkedIn and outside of that, we'll see you next time. Stay connected and stay inspired. Thank you.