Harriet Gaywood – On pursuing challenges, the importance of education and women in tech.
Picture someone who is a master cellist (quite literally received their masters in music). Then combine that image with someone who also pursued a degree in cyber security and works for one of the largest technology companies in the world. As you conjure up this image of a multi-faceted person do you think of a man, or do you think of a woman?
Enter Harriet, an extraordinary (super)woman who has carved a path not only for herself, but for other women in both China, as well as, the workplace. She has completed four masters degrees, raised two children (with support from her husband) and runs ultra-distance trail races in her spare time. A person one might describe as diligent, driven and always striving for growth, Harriet has defied typical norms to achieve where she is today.
Growing up in Scotland, she went to a school of about 20 people, which by the time she left had only about 12 people attending. “It was quite an idyllic existence – but very different from living in a big city like Shanghai or in China,” Harriet recalls. This is where she first learned to play the cello, beginning at just three years old, but ‘officially’ at five.
“I think one of the things that shapes you when you study anything intensely, is just the discipline of daily practice,” says Harriet. And that discipline paid off – providing her a scholarship to boarding school, which led to her undergraduate in music… eventually paving the way for her first visit to Shanghai.
“I think one of the things that shapes you when you study anything intensely, is just the discipline of daily practice.”
While studying ethnomusicology at Durham University she realized her view of the world was very ‘western’, as she puts it. Her teacher at the time had been to Shanghai and suggested she pursue an opportunity to study music in the city. After a four month summer visit to check out Shanghai – and more importantly see how she would fare in the city – she returned to the UK to apply for a year-long scholarship at the Shanghai Musical Conservatory. This was in 1995 – when there weren’t many foreigners, especially foreigners of her age, but it pushed her to really learn Chinese, and as they say, the rest is history.
From that year, she fell in love with China and was determined to stay longer. At the time it wasn’t possible to join the orchestra as a foreigner, so she did the next best thing… walk down Huaihai Lu knocking on doors looking for work (editors note: talk about determination)!
A small company offered her some work to do marketing and head hunting, which she did for a year before joining the British consulate to do communications and public affairs. Harriet describes her learning experience from that period as one of always needing to predict what could go wrong, which allowed her to not be afraid to ‘get her hands’ dirty in any situation, and always, always be prepared.
“Now we turn up to an event and just assume things will work; the backdrop will be there, there will be nice food… but I still don’t take any of that for granted when I think about what it was like in the late 90s. One time I had an interview with a minister – I really thought I had thought of everything. The interview finally starts and we were at the Shangri-La in Pudong and all of a sudden a window cleaner comes down and it was live so you sort of just had to manage the challenges and remain calm,” she laughs. Another time she had to check a new factory opening to make sure the CEO wouldn’t walk onto fresh concrete.
After her early employment days, Harriet would go on to spend 20 years – all in China – working for an agency where she became managing director. She wanted job stability – especially with two kids and also needed to consider their needs. On the topic of being a working mum, she says:
“The challenge is that when you go in through the doors at work – nobody really cares that you’ve got two kids at home. The working mother is interesting for me, but the reality is that businesses are commercial. There’s not a space for kids in a commercial setting and that is unfortunately the reality.”
“The challenge is that when you go in through the doors at work – nobody really cares that you’ve got two kids at home. There’s not a space for kids in a commercial setting and that is unfortunately the reality.”
Things are better [for working women] but even in 2019 I remember asking for time to work at home [to support my son] and it being an issue. But I do think if you look at the benefits of covid – if there are any at all – is just that recognition of working from home is possible. I do think you need a balance of both, and I think interaction in the office and with your team is important.”
It was around this time (COVID) when she hit a point where she also began thinking about the direction she wanted her career to go… and started to pursue another masters (after also receiving an MBA along the way), in International Affairs to learn more about geopolitics.
Harriet saw the degree as a means to also do more in tech (along with a cyber security course she also took). And in 2021 she received a call from Huawei asking if you wanted to join the international media team – an opportunity that tied everything she had pursued up to this point, together.
Here she brings up an interesting point – it’s not about necessarily waiting for the right job to come along, but also about developing skills. She’s always diligently studied, and pursued new areas that she wanted to learn more about in order to further her knowledge, honing that tenacity she grew up with while learning to play music.
“That’s the positive side of [discipline] when you work at it you get the results,” she says. “Both the positive and the negative is you never get perfection. You are always striving for more. No matter what you do, there’s always that sense of I need to be better at what Im doing.”
“We always talk about dreaming big, but that also needs to be slightly quantified. You can do anything, but you need to be prepared to do the hard work. It’s about mapping out the first few steps, it’s not about mapping out the whole journey. Asking yourself: What do I have? What are my skills? (hard and soft skills) What are the things Im actually missing and what could I easily replace? Not everyone can do an MBA.. so what are the easy steps you can take? And I think that it is about having people who can provide you with support or guidance and actually listening to that guidance. I think the other thing is not being afraid – not being too prescript with how that journey is going to look. Allowing yourself to go along that journey.”
As she continues to learn and explore a new industry, she hopes to encourage more women to do the same, citing that there are probably only about 5- possibly 10% of women in the industry. Even citing that things like AI or job application processes are mainly created by men and that the predictive analytics (male based behavioral patterns) can influence selection.
“You have so many women who are so talented, but they give up because it’s not working or they can’t be bothered with any micro-aggression. The glass ceiling is still very strong.”
“I think, what I find most difficult sometimes is actually just how can we get to that stage where instead of saying she’s a strong woman, we can say she’s a strong person. For our company magazine, this is the second time we have women on the cover. Last time it was a man and woman. This time we have four women on the cover for Women’s Day. But this has led to multiple conversations about finding women for the company… but this is the problem, women are falling out of the workplace. You have so many women who are so talented, but they give up because it’s not working or they can’t be bothered with any micro-aggression. The glass ceiling is still very strong.”
Super Women of Shanghai Series
Shanghai is a melting pot of east meets west, modern and old. For the international community, it is a home away from home. In the Super Women of Shanghai (‘SWS’) series, we interview the female movers and shakers of the international community, who made herstory in the city.
We hope that the series inspires females to define their herstory and move the dial to break the glass ceiling.
