As you have seen this week there are many inspirational women within the Tech world and none more so than our very own Director Ruth Badger. Ruth who is best known from her appearance in BBC 1’s Series Two of The Apprentice, owns 3 Manchester based Tech businesses. She will also be appearing as a Panellist at the Women in Tech event run by UKFAST on 8th March 2018.
How does Ruth use her businesses to help get more women into tech?
Ruth comments:
“I have co owned Everything Tech Limited for 8 years and have always strived to create a balanced workplace in every business I have run. Women in Tech is an interesting topic for me as it is evident that it still appears to be a male dominated industry but this is changing! Out of my workforce within Manchester 30% are women and that number will grow in the next year! Tech is exciting, fast paced and a crucial element of commerce. Gone are the days of geeks sat in cupboards and now Tech presents a career which develops skills and innovation. I see Tech as a commodity now not a service and women are smart they follow where the money and progression is. One way we have managed to create a balanced workplace is through Apprenticeships and this has worked amazingly for us and all the staff we have progressed.
Everything Tech specialises in providing IT Support to Manchester based businesses.
A little bit of background information on Ruth and how she became the amazing business woman she is today.
Ruth Badger grew up in Wolverhampton where she left school at age 16 with only 3 GCSE’s to join a Youth Training Scheme within the civil service. Throughout her years of becoming an adult Ruth worked in various job roles to build up her experience. This included jobs with Yates, Wolves Football Club and the to a finance company called Purple Loans.
Ruth’s career began to excel when Purple Loans were bought by one of the world’s biggest companies, GE Capital. After starting her role with no experience Ruth quickly excelled and was promoted 4 times in just 18 months. This lead Ruth onto receiving 4 company awards including Employee of the Year from her performance.
Ruth still determined to better her success left GE Capital in 2002 to join the Executive Board of a North-West finance company called Compass Finance. At 24 Ruth was appointed to Head of Sales and Operations doubling her earnings. Within 2 years Ruth, transformed the company’s performance and turnover increasing it from 3.1 million to 13.1 million which led to the flotation of the business in 2004.
Then in 2005 as many of you know, Ruth applied for The Apprentice and was chosen from over 60,000 applicants. Whilst on the show, Ruth proved week after week that she was a top performer working for Lord Alan Sugar for 6 months in an Executive role.
Ruth has spent the last 11 years building her business empire.
