‘I can’t be an old man in a grey suit’
Promoted to MD at a fast-growing company, Katy Leeson found herself in unfamiliar territory, writes Jon Robinson
THE managing director of one of Manchester’s fastest-growing companies has opened up about her battle to accept herself in the role, the influence its two high-profile founders had on the business as well as the importance of speaking out about mental health issues.
Katy Leeson first joined digital media agency Social Chain five years ago as an operations director but was quickly promoted to MD a matter of months later at the age of 32.
When she started the firm, which was established by new Dragons’ Den star Steven Bartlett and Dominic McGregor, had 30 employees and a turnover of about EUR2m. Since then the UK business has grown to about 160 employees and is aiming for a revenue of c.EUR15m this year.
In the last few years Social Chain became a public company, moved its headquarters to Berlin, Germany, and is now on track to record a group revenue of EUR1bn by the end of 2023.
Katy heads up the sizable UK operation, which is headquartered in Manchester, where it all began. She also recently joined the board of YourFlock, a Manchester-based remote working technology start-up which recently secured a six-figure investment.
In an exclusive interview with BusinessLive, she said: “I got made MD in that very quick period of starting at Social Chain which I’m very proud of. I struggled when I first started about having the title. I think the title scared me more than anything else and the expectation of what I had in my head of what an MD should be.
“I actually went to see a therapist about it so I could really live up to the role and do the best that I could and explore different things around what my expectations were versus the reality of what I could achieve.”
However Katy says she is now “very proud” that she is able to help “change the narrative” and has done a lot of work publicly about her role and being a female leader as well as being “open and honest”.
She added: “I share a lot of my experiences, good, bad and ugly and the feedback I get from other people has been amazing and I’m a big believer in ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’ so if I’m then sharing what I know and sharing my journey it can help other people feel like they can get there as well.”
Katy first joined Social Chain when its co-founders Mr Bartlett and Mr McGregor were still running the ship.
The pair have since left the business and gone on to invest in different ventures, including Mr Bartlett joining the next series of Dragons’ Den, but Katy said the culture they helped establish did not vanish when they walked out for the last time.
She said: “I have tried to carry that on in the wake of their departure. I have tried to keep, at the heart of everything we do, that specialness of what we do and the excitement of what we can achieve together and that drive to really do standout work.”
The MD has also vowed to “always keep the heart of what we do in Manchester” after the company recently opened a new office in London. She said: “A lot of our hub is built out globally from the Manchester office. A lot of the work that we do and the teams we have got are from Manchester.”
Katy has also opened up about her mental health struggles after suffering a miscarriage.
She said: “I suffered a miscarriage on Christmas Eve 2018. I didn’t talk about it and I kept it very quiet like it wasn’t the right thing to raise - not because work were not supportive because they really were - but it was such a taboo subject that I didn’t think it was something that I should say.
“It ended up with me needing to take a good chunk of time to look after myself.
“I did a podcast episode with The Miscarriage Association and one in three pregnancies end in miscarriage but we just don’t talk about it.
“The impact both physically and mentally is huge and it is traumatic.
“It took a lot for me to do that podcast episode and it was a difficult thing for me to talk about myself but actually doing it and getting feedback and knowing that I had helped other people was worth it.”