39· Standing Out - A Career in STEM with Louise Towler
Podcast show notes
Today, I'm thrilled to be joined by Louise Towler, a trailblazer in the fields of science, technology, and sustainability.
Louise has leveraged her profound expertise in mathematics and software development to innovate in climate technology, notably through her startup, Canopy, which assists organisations in reducing their digital carbon footprints.
In our conversation, we explore Louise's journey from a curious child inspired by Marie Curie to an award-winning entrepreneur impacting the tech and sustainability spheres.
Join us as Louise shares her insights on navigating a male-dominated industry, her passion for technology and sustainability, and her vision for a more equitable digital world.
Here are the highlights
(4:20) Career progression from software development to quality management and web development.
(8:57) Reducing carbon footprint of websites through data reduction.
(16:07) Balancing work and family life as a female entrepreneur in STEM.
(21:08) Gender and ethnicity barriers in STEM careers and how to overcome them.
(29:09) Navigating a career in STEM with a focus on resilience and self-expression.
Connect with Louise
Find out more about Kanoppi
Learn more about Indigo Tree
Find out more about Louise’s Women In Innovation Award
Get the 5 Day Resilience Kickstarter
Connect with Ruth
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Ruth
Welcome to Frustrated and Exhausted, the podcast for women in leadership, where I help you fulfill your ambitions without sacrificing your sanity, or your resilience.
Hello, hello and welcome to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. Today I'm joined by Louise Towler. Now, Louise is at heart, a scientist, a mathematician, someone who has a deep interest in the world and how it works. She's also now an innovator and an entrepreneur.
Louise founded Kanoppi in 2023, developing innovative climate technology that enables organizations to measure their website's carbon footprint and identify improvements and where they will have the greatest impact. She's also the managing director of WordPress agency Indigo Tree, which is a digital agency with deep expertise in WordPress websites, technical SEO, and commercial performance working with clients across the UK. Louise has over three decades of experience in software and website development. And she is absolutely - and you'll see this when we speak - driven by a passion to deliver the very best combination of technology, sustainability and business excellence. And she has a real focus on accessibility and equity in that as well. She is the winner of the Women in Innovation Award in 2022/23. And she's spoken at WordCamp Europe in 2023, as well. You will really enjoy this conversation - Louise's take on what it means to be a woman in a male dominated environment is really quite something. And it's a great conversation. Join us now.
Louise, thank you very much for joining me on Frustrated and Exhausted today. I'm really excited about having this conversation with you.
Louise
Thank you for having me on really excited to be here.
Ruth
It's an absolute pleasure. So you've had an interesting and varied career so far. Tell us a bit about how you've got to kind of where you are now.
Louise
Okay. I've always been what I would call a bit of a geek, even when I started off. I can distinctly remember at the age of six reading Ladybird Books about scientists, particularly Mary Curie. And I was like, Oh, I'd like to do that. Not realizing at the time that of course, she was probably the one female scientist that Ladybird Books had written about. So I read the book about Charles Darwin and the book about Marie Curie and thought, that's great, because women can be scientists not realizing actually, that isn't a 50/50.
I've always been passionate about science, I've got a ridiculous number of science, O levels, including geology and meteorology, and extra human biology things and I just really love that figuring out what makes the world work. And I was also very good at maths. So I ended up going to university to do a maths degree. But then, just while I was in my teens, it was when computing really took off with home machines. My dad, while he bought the family, a BBC Micro, but it wasn't really the family's BBC Micro, it was MY BBC Micro because I immediately started buying magazines and downloading programmes and learning how to code that Micro. And those of you are old enough to remember that will know exactly what I'm talking about. So when I went to university, I did I did a course on computer programming, and then following University, as a female doing maths, everybody said, Oh, you need to be an accountant. You know, that's what you should be doing. And as I don't want to take any more exams, actually, I don't really want to be an accountant.
So I applied for a software job and ended up doing software development for a large company. At the time, I think they were called Itsicon. But I basically was programming some computer simulations that actually were oil refinery simulations, and it was really interesting. I used a bit of my maths to try and speed up the simulations alone. In fact, at the time, it was easier to buy a new computer to speed it up. I can remember when we were very excited. We had a new PC with 16 kilobytes of RAM. So that was fun. That everything had to fit on a 1.44 megabyte floppy disk. Remember floppy disks? Yeah, exactly. It's showing my age. So I did that for a while, then I moved jobs. I did more computer programming, I wrote a program that helped the company I was working for, do a lot of ordinance, analysing Ordnance Survey maps and matching them up with postcode address data. But then I, the company, it was big company I was working for. They had a quality management program, and they were going for what was it at the time called BS 5750, which was the quality management standard. And now it's called ISO 9001. And I ended up on a committee, and to various sort of twists and turns, ended up as quality manager of that organization. So I switched from doing software development, to doing what I would call more business analysis and sort of consultancy. And it was an exciting time, computers were just being put on everyone's desk as PCs. I was involved in training and talking to people who'd never seen a computer and asked before about what they could do with it to make their job easier. And the resulting changes to business processes. I did that for quite a while.
And then I had a bit of a career break because I had children. And that's always the danger when you're in a sort of female career climbing the ladder because it's a bit of a showstopper. I ended up going back three days a week after my first oldest son was born. But then my husband had an opportunity to work in America. So I actually took a career break for four years and moved with him to America whilst well have my youngest son out there and came back. And at the time, it would have been very difficult to go back to that career in London with two small children. But in the meantime, my husband - bless him, wonderful man. He bought me a book on how to code websites, I can distinctly remember it was Christmas Day, the year 2000, because I sat at the family computer and coded a web page in Turkey and the kids were running around.
Ruth
I love that that was your Christmas present.
Louise
Oh he's very good at that. Yeah. On a par with the Raspberry Pi, he got that I sat at the dining table, and I tweeted the temperature of the motherboard by 8pm. On Christmas Day. My family weren't as impressed as I was.
But what actually happened was I came back to live in local estate where we live. And I walked into the children's school and said, do you need any help with your website. And the head teacher said yes. And a month later, somebody else came to me and said, my husband's got a website. It's been written in Flash, and he doesn't know how to change it. And I was like, oh, okay, I'll go and have a chat with him and registered as self-employed. And it's all done from there. So I now have gone from sort of doing computer programming to web development. And actually, now I don't get to do any of the geeky stuff at all, unfortunately. But because I have people half my age who are way better at web development now than I am. That was 20 years ago. But that actually what is a really good foundation is the analysis, the analytical, the understanding the business processes, and basically being able to take what is a set of client requirements and turn them into something that a software programmer or developer can actually action as a specification.
Ruth
And first in software, and I imagine now in running your own business, the people side of things that can you came in that second part of your career when you moved into the credit quality assurance part?
Louise
Yes. That was that was an interesting time. I think it was a good thing I was young, I don't think I'd have had as much fun nowadays as I think I'd have been a probably a little bit more aware of company politics than I was back then. Because when you're trying to get in a large organization, they were turning over 50 60 million through an ISO standard. I was raising defects against board directors. And they were sort of I think they thought it was the exuberance of youth, and they wanted it so they knew I had to push through, but I think now I would have probably handled it slightly differently. But being able to talk to people right from the sort of person in the middle of a large busy office, wondering how on earth and being worried about how this new process or this new piece of equipment is going to affect their job and whether they're going to still have a job and we reassuring them that it's not about replacing their job. It's about making the changes just more interesting because instead of typing in data, they can analyze the data, and then go to the board and having to present to the board every three or six months, a very high level that that sort of up and down and working out how to talk to people at different levels in an organization, I think is really important and the persuasion and the always finding the positive. So whatever you're telling someone, there's always some sort of reframe, well, yes, this is going to completely alter your job, however, you've now got the opportunity to learn this, this and this, and maybe, you know, do something a little bit more interesting.
Ruth
Now, you might not have, as you've put it, the exuberance of youth at the moment, but you certainly have a real, I always get a real sense of purpose, and kind of real drive behind what you're doing. And you're in the midst of a start up.
So you know, you're kind of got your existing company that has grown, you're employing, you know, quite a decent sized team. Yeah, and now you've got the new project as well.
Louise
Yeah. You know, having a company that was working really well. And then I had a brain worm and a side project, and its sort of accidentally turned into a completely new business.
So what actually happened was that I was talking to our engineering director about websites and performance and how we can speed things up. And basically, to speed up a website, you need to reduce the amount of data that is actually being transferred from the hosting server to the user's device, because the smaller the amount of data, the quicker it will appear. So I was also on a help to grow course, run by the Department of Business at Brunel University. And we were talking about innovation. And then I was also talking to the University of Hertfordshire about some R&D we'd like to do on accessibility. And when I basically had a bit of a lightbulb moment! I'm not the first person to think of it. But for me, it was, for me, it was, actually if we reduce the amount of data, we can reduce the carbon footprint of the website, because data is a proxy for electricity. And electricity is a proxy for carbon.
So I thought, well, that's interesting, we could build something to actually measure the carbon footprint, and then you can reduce it. And then you can put that energy reduction and carbon reduction into your carbon reduction plan. So what was originally a conversation about just making Indigo Tree websites faster, turned into Oh, we could do something for our clients and give them something that they don't have. Now, we did a research project with the University of Hertfordshire where we worked with an academic and interviewed a dozen people, a dozen of our clients, who, who basically universally didn't really know anything about it. But were really interested in some of them, particularly the values based clients were very interested. And then I applied for Women in Innovation award from Innovate UK, and I was very fortunate to be one of the people awarded. And that came with £50,000 to put towards actually building out the tech, the software itself, and helping with other bits and pieces. So from sort of 2022 to now we've gone from having that award, I then applied for various other grants, I won't go into all the details, but again, a lot of grants and applications. And we've ended up now with what is essentially a WordPress plugin, that will take your analytics data and your page data and calculate the carbon footprint of your website based on your visitor traffic. And then we've got another module that will help measure the bottom colour traffic as well.
And the reason it's become as interesting and more time consuming for me is that now we've actually got an investor who's invested a significant amount of money and I've now got a separate company and, and employing a full time developer so I'm now I've gone from thinking, Oh, this will just be a little project that might help 50 Indigo Tree clients to suddenly thinking Blimey, you know, we're talking about 1000s and 10s of 1000s of people possibly using the application and I'm actually in the middle of another grant application at the moment to do something even more interesting with it.
Ruth
Wow. So it's, it's become something that's way more than I thought it could be. But it's been In quite a long journey to get there, how do you feel about that?
Louise
I feel excited. And I'm very fortunate in that it's come at the right time for me, I spent, I spent the best part of 18 years running a business versus a freelancer then as a small agency owner, and juggling kids, which was a real challenge, especially when they were teenagers, and having to be home to cook tea every evening. And when my youngest went to university, four or five years ago, really that at that point, it was like, right, actually, I don't need to have 10% of my brain ticking over the whole time going, what do I need to do for dinner? Who am I picking up? Where? What are they doing? When? What What else do I need to be doing is anybody put the washing on and all of that? So for me, I feel like it's the first time really in 20 years that I've been able to choose for myself what I do without having to consider anyone else. Although I do say my long-suffering husband is very, very good about it. Because I would say I'm very hard work at the moment. And he's, he's really, really kind about the fact that I'm not always there when he would like me to be. Yeah.
Ruth
How do you maintain any semblance of balance? You know, because anybody in start up mode and trying to kind of get investment and develop something is, you know, working really hard. And you've got the other business ongoing? How do you keep a balance?
Louise
Yeah, I think most people would say, I don't have a balance. I sleep that I, normally on Saturdays, I'm I get to the end of the week, and I'm like, by Phew this Saturday. And then I start again, Sunday. I do think the fact that I'm running two businesses that are quite different ones, the SAS, climate tech startup, if you want to use it, so that the other one is an agency. So I have very different days. Today, I've got to spend two to four hours this afternoon polishing a grant application, I'll just be in the zone. But a lot of Indigo Tree days, I will actually be in half a dozen calls with people, I'll be talking a lot to clients, I'll be discussing the designs of my team, we'll be talking about technical things, I'll be following up on prospects. So there's lots of variety. And actually, the context switching, it's like, oh, actually, I'm really tired. Let me see. Let me just polish that blog post for Kanoppi because that doesn't require quite as much adrenaline and nerves if you like, just to be, I can just sit for half an hour and have a little bit of a brain rest. So I do. And then I do a lot of other stuff, I watch webinars, I read blog posts, I love learning. And that for me is a rest from having to do the business side. But actually the business side, I enjoy it. I get up every single day and I look forward to going to work some days I'm tired and others but yeah, I genuinely enjoy it. It's it's fun. I'm hoping I will be able to look back and say I really gave it my best shot.
Ruth
I get a sense of freedom from that. You know, not having that 10% ticking in your brain for all the kids stuff. And you know, the washing and all the rest of it. How liberating is that for you now at this point in your life?
Louise
Yeah, it is liberating. I mean, there's other pressures in this stage, you know, yeah. You know, I've got a mother who I speak to her every evening because she's on her own. And I do have to bear in mind that I'm not around much my husband and yes, the kids have left home. But let's face it, there is always something. And that, you know, there's stuff going on. But it's that now I'm in control of my time a lot more. And I think it's having the autonomy to make those decisions, rather than being driven by external factors that you have no control over. I think that's what I find less stressful. In the end, it's on me if I don't do something well enough, or if I do something very well, that is completely on me and I can control that.
Ruth
What do you think's been the most challenging aspect of a career in STEM for you?
Louise
It was certainly when the children were younger, balancing children and work. I still find it really interesting that most men that I see, don't have to do school runs, they don't have to worry about getting home for 5.30 to see the children. And I think that's a generalization. And I certainly see in younger generations, more of a 50/50 split. And I think actually COVID has helped with that. Because there is now that expectation that you can work from home, and we have people working at Indigo Tree who have school rooms to do in the morning, and, you know, they log on for 15 minutes, and then go and do a school run and then come back again. And that is very equitable, is not gender specific, if that makes sense. But I do think that there is still society's expectation. And people are quite surprised that I don't do washing and I don't do the cooking. And I think well, you wouldn't be surprised if a bloke said that.
Ruth
Yeah. That's, that's the difference, I think, isn't it? It's the expectation more than anything, isn't it? Now, you clearly always had that real passion for science and maths. What do you think stops more women and girls from going into STEM careers?
Louise
I think there's two things I think that actually even nowadays, parents assume that science and maths isn't for girls. And I think that parental assumption, I think the I still think you walk into toy shops and you know, girls stuffs pink and boys stuff is more interesting, quite frankly. And then I think it's all the subtle societal. When you think of a scientist, do you think of a woman in a white coat or a man in a white coat? On what do you see represented on television?
And then following that? I still think that I mean, I see horror stories on Twitter, sometimes also when I'm talking to people about you know, a girl who's really good at science or, or maths being told that, you know, well, they could be an accountant or this and it's like, Do you know what there are so many more interesting things. And, and to be honest, if I was living my life again, and was coming out with a maths degree, now, I'd be going into big data and AI, walking away with what you know, I'd be getting a job with a salary of hundreds of 1000s of pounds as a result. And I think that girls don't realize that they don't even know these types of types of jobs are available, you do not need to sit in the house and influence, taking photos of yourself to earn a six figure salary. And actually, I think the young lads and young girls don't realize that there are careers in STEM that can meet their needs of, you know, wanting lots of money, travelling the world. And actually, you don't have to put yourself on social media.
And I think you just don't see those careers represented. Well, for either gender and ethnicity as well, particularly. And there are just so many barriers at the moment, I think for young people. The other thing, I think that is a key critical point, is when youngsters are choosing their GCSEs. And I've been in spoken in schools to youngsters about this, because if you're not doing triple science, and you're not doing the maths, you can't do the BTech. So the A levels, and at that point, you have ruled out that type of career. So I think it has to start actually, really either in primary or right at the start of secondary school, having those role models of people who are really successful. And juggling and, you know, showing youngsters that, you know, science doesn't have to be hard, it can be fun.
Ruth
You certainly seem to have it a lot of fun!
Louise
I just think it's interesting understanding what makes things tick and understanding how the world works and just finding out new stuff. And I'm constantly staggered by how clever people are at figuring out new things that nobody's ever thought of before.
Ruth
Yeah, yeah. It's really like my son at the moment. I mean, who knows what will happen in due course but he’s like “I think I want to be an inventor mummy”. He's really young, but he has that real curiosity. And there's such a creative element to it as well. And I think, you know, we sort of associate creativity with, with art and music and things. But actually, you, when you think about science and technology, there is so much creativity,
Louise
If you've got an interesting, creative side to you, then looking at a problem from a completely different perspective, that can be really creative. And that's, it's those thoughts that just like, Well, why? and also just asking those really awkward questions. Everyone's saying, this can't be done. Well, why can't it be done? What's the actual root cause of the everyone going wrong? Oh, you know, we can't do this. Because often it's, it's something that actually you're just going well, why is why are you even worrying about that thing? Yeah, do something different, solve the problem in a different way.
Ruth
Now, obviously, your environment is maybe not right now, but generally speaking, quite male dominated, you know, coming through maths and science. That can be tough. You know, and in your role as an entrepreneur now, that's tough, as well. How do you maintain your self-belief, you know, when it gets hard in those sorts of environments.
Louise
I choose Ruth, people's opinion, I care about more.
Ruth
I love that. I think it's really helpful to surround yourself with people who are not just where you are now, but where you want to be. So you can see, you can see other people modeling the behavior like to where you want to be, but then also surround you have people who you trust to give you that tough love, as well.
Louise
Yeah. That sort of somebody who will say, Yeah, that's a great idea to raise. But you know, what, I don't think it's got a market? Or what about this? Have you considered that because it's really easy, especially when you have an idea, and you're really passionate about it, and you think it is going to, you know, solve all the world problems? And actually, you need someone to bring you back down to reality. And it's no good family and friends will always think you're brilliant, and will always say yes, that's excellent. But actually, you need people to who are can be really constructively critical. And that will make it better. And you have, but you have to take that in the spirit it's been given.
Yeah, feedback really matters. And just people being honest with you, like, you know what, that's not good enough. But have you considered this, this and this, and then coming up with a plan, and I think there's always a tendency, especially, I mean, especially with what we're building with Kanoppi, I want to put everything into it. I've already decided, well, you know, version number five, which is kind of like, version number two, number two hasn't even been started yet. And version number one is just about to be released, you know, so but I think you have to, you have to have a real resiliency, that final 10% to get something over the line. You just need pigheadedness and determination, quite frankly.
Ruth
I think goes a long way, doesn't it?
Louise
But then it's a bit like that with, you know, having kids and being a mum, sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and go right, you know, yeah. Stuff it. And here we go. And I think that I think that having that real, I know where the end goal is, I know what I need to do. It's just about putting your head down, gritting your teeth and getting on with it. And actually trying to have as much fun as you can along the way.
Ruth
And that really matters. Yeah, I think we can forget that sometimes. Louise, today has been brilliant. So just one last question to wrap us up. What advice would you give to women navigating a career in STEM today or thinking about it?
Louise
I would not worry about being the only female in the room. Stand out for all the right reasons. I'm not sure about how to navigate I mean, I still get mansplaining a lot and I find that a bit boring. But I'm now old enough and grey enough to sort of hold my own. I think for the young women it might be harder but I would try and try to be foreful without being accused of, of being really - I think it's very difficult the words that people use to describe strong men are not the same words as people use to describe strong women. And I do think it's tough. I do really basic things like I will always wear something bright, when I'm going out to an event, because in a room of grey T shirts and suits, I will stand out in any photos, I make sure I know what's going on with the football and the cricket and the rugby and any motorsport, just so that if you're having those conversations and making small talk, you can at least sound like you know what you're talking about a little bit and try and join in. And I would, I would just try and be as knowledgeable as possible. But I do think it's tough still, especially as you know, if you if you want to have children, at some point, you're going to have to consider how that will work. But I think a lot of men nowadays, a lot of younger men are more sensitive to that. But in the end, you just need to be really resilient. Because actually, any career whether it's in STEM or anything else to do well, you probably have to be a little bit better than the blokes. Yeah, unfortunately, without pointing out to them.
Ruth
Very difficult.
Louise
I'm not very good at that. But I try!
Ruth
Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been such an interesting conversation and some fantastic advice and inspiration, I think, for people listening. So thank you so much.
Louise
Thanks, Ruth.
Ruth
I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. I really loved what Louise said about standing out in a crowd and actually really embracing the fact that you're potentially the only of something in the room, for her that was often being the only woman in a room. But actually playing on that difference, the bright colors, making yourself memorable to people. So that stands you in good stead in terms of building your reputation, whether that's in a business or in an organisation. But really making yourself memorable to other people, however you choose to do that. So rather than being the only and shrinking, be the only and use it to your advantage.
I think as well her career path itself that sense of other people expecting her to go Oh, you did maths, be an accountant and actually saying no, that's not where my interest lies. I'm really good at all of this stuff. And my interest lies there. That's what I'm going to do. And making that choice for yourself as opposed to what other people expect of you.
And the way in which then in doing that she's been a been able to pivot her career to fit around her family at different points. And you know, now, she admits herself, you know, the balance might not be great at this particular point. But her kids are older, she's chosen at this point in her life, to really go for it, she's had this idea. She's innovating and developing something that could have really huge impact. And that she really believes in and at this point balance for her is more about working with her husband, her support network, to make sure that what needs to get done gets done, but that actually she can focus at this point in her life, on developing this product that she is really passionate about. And I think there's a lesson in that, that the way things are now at this point, and you know, there's lots of work going on to try and change this to make things more equitable, but sometimes balance doesn't look like 50/50 every day. Sometimes that particular point balance might look like 90/10. Timing is everything and working with your support network is also everything and finding ways to do and achieve the things that you want to attain that fits for you. And your family and your life is actually probably more important and that's something that I really think is important - it's not that you can't do a certain thing it's just now might not be the right time. So it's working things are my not may be the right time, but you might need to rework the way you normally manage things in your household in order to make it possible for you.
I found that a really inspiring conversation and there's certainly things that I'm going to take away personally from that. I hope you do too. Take care. Have a great week, and I'll see you again next week.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted! Hit the Follow button for future episodes. You can also follow me on Instagram at Resonate Leadership and LinkedIn at Ruth Alexandra Wood. I’d absolutely love to hear from you. Frustrated and Exhausted is brought to you by Resonate Leadership and the wonderful team at the Podcast Boutique. I'm your host, Ruth Wood. Take care and speak to you soon.
