Viewpoint 04: Jacqueline De Rojas CBE
Photo by Gareth Cattermole, Getty Images
This week’s viewpoint is with the incredible Jacqueline De Rojas CBE.
“We’re going to have to make sure that the people building tech in the fashion industry are also devoid of bias and making sure that everything is aimed at a parity and a world that’s equal.”
—About Jacqueline
Jacqueline De Rojas CBE is an absolute powerhouse and a true example of a lifelong inclusive leader. She is the President of TechUK, co-chair the Institute of Coding and sits on a number of Plc boards. She is also a tech ambassador for the Girl Guiding Association and on the advisory board for The Youth Project and the Accelerate-Her Group. It is such an honour to know Jacqueline and you can follow and be inspired by her and her incredible work here.
“In fashion, we need to make sure that we've got a supply chain that is also devoid of modern slavery and honours its key workers.”
— Examples of inclusivity we can learn from
“It’s really important that whoever designs, tests and implements technology is also diverse, so that we create a world that works for everyone.”
— Jacqueline’s Actions to create a more inclusive industry
“We do a lot of work at TechUK and because we are absolutely driven to make sure that we have equality…we are actively making sure that we increase our representation of Black people in technology…we have a returners programme for women…every single one of our thousand member companies are encouraged to have a Diversity Champion”
— What does a fully inclusive industry look like?
“Inclusivity for me is everything that we personally do to make a change and a shift.”
— Actions the INDUSTRY can take to make the fashion industry more inclusive
“Celebrate who we are and the various shapes and sizes that we come in.”
— Actions WE can take as individuals we can take to make the fashion industry more inclusive
“I think the first thing we've got to realise is that we're never too small to make a difference…we need to check our own unconscious bias first and start from there.”
—Transcript
Laura: [00:00:00.24] Hi, everyone. I hope you're all well and thank you so much for joining us today on The Inclusive Viewpoint. Our Viewpoint today is with the absolute force that is Jacqueline De Rojas CBE
Rachel: [00:00:12.30] We’ve known Jacqueline for a few years now and she is a true champion and inclusive leader.
When we founded The Inclusive Viewpoint we made a commitment to make sure we share viewpoints and perspectives from outside the fashion industry as we think in those moments are where you can learn the most.
So who better to ask than Jacqueline. She’s going to introduce herself very soon but for us she is a true embodiment of what a kind leader is and making sure that every room and every industry that she walks into, she’s opening the doors for others and has inclusivity at the heart.
Therefore, we are so excited to speak with her.
Laura: [00:00:46.32] Hi Jacqueline, thank you so much for joining us today. How are you?
Jacqueline: Oh, I'm good, thank you. And it is a joy to be with you today.
Rachel: [00:00:55.32] Awwww thank you! Made our day with that. That’s perfect!
Laura: [00:01:01.14] It is always so wonderful to speak with you and we are absolutely honoured that you have joined us today.
So before we get started, it would be really good to hear more about you as an introduction.
Jacqueline: [00:01:12.17] So my name is Jacqueline De Rojas. I am the President of TechUK. I co-chair the Institute of Coding and I sit on a number of Plc boards, being FDM Plc, Costain Plc and Rightmove, which I’m sure everyone will know. And I also am an ambassador, a tech ambassador for the Girl Guiding Association where we are completely committed to inspiring 500,000 Girl Guides and Brownies into tech and STEM subjects - Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths - and we do that through creating badges where they can earn, for example ‘how to stay safe online’ badge or ‘how to learn robotics’ through a Girl Guiding badge - that kind of thing. So the Girl Guiding is very exciting for me. And also I am on the advisory board for The Youth Project and for the Accelerate-Her Group which is focused on more female founders in technology. So very exciting. I’m more of a Tapas girl than a Full English.
Rachel: Wow! That’s definitely a quote, isn’t it!
You know why we asked you now when you’ve got so much expertise, so thank you so much for joining us.
So the first question we wanted to ask, on The Inclusive Viewpoint we really wanted to share examples that we can all learn from, so we wanted to ask if you have any examples you can share. It could be brands, the organisations that you sit on, leaders - anyone or anything who are really putting inclusivity at the heart and I know it could be in the fashion industry or any other industry that you work in.
Jacqueline: [00:03:05.85] So, in technology we are specifically very interested in diversity and inclusion and of course, because it is a noble cause - who doesn’t want gender parity or parity for all minority groups. But it’s not just because it’s a noble cause, it’s also because technology is something that we all depend on a lot more, especially since Covid-19, our adoption technology has gone through the roof overnight - we’re all Zooming or Teaming now or something else. And so, it’s really important that whoever designs, tests and implements technology is also diverse, so that we create a world that works for everyone. And let me give you a quick example of that - if, for example, I’m going to the gym and actually I went to the gym a month ago and there was a doctor that couldn’t access the locker room and the techies were brought in, her swipe card was changed a number of times, the techies were asked and it turns out that the job title ‘Doctor’ was programmed as a male job title, not a female job title and that’s why she couldn’t get into the locker room. So it’s a small example of why tech matters and why diversity matters in tech. Imagine if you, let’s extrapolate that to an example of a pilot and let’s say pilot has been hard coded to a male job title and in an emergency, the female pilot couldn’t override the autopilot, it would be a complete disaster. So we have to be really mindful of who is designing the technology so that we do create this world that works for all of us and I’m, I know I use small examples about, for example the one about the gym locker, but actually that’s where it starts and we have to be really careful that we are inclusive so that we get it right for us all..
Rachel: [00:05:10.82] Yeah, exactly. And I think just that example, like you said - lives are at stake. It’s that classic example of the seatbelt and the airbag in the car that have been designed by me and women have lost their lives as a result of it. So I think that’s so important.
Jacqueline: [00:05:26.37] Also, police stab vests are not built for policewomen who have breasts. They are all still manufactured for men. And so we have all these examples around us everywhere. It’s not just in tech where we are operating in a world that is not built for everybody.
Rachel: [00:05:48.90] Yeah I know, definitely. It’s so important to highlight that, so thank you Jacqueline.
So the next question is a bit more about you, so we wanted you to share some of the phenomenal work that you might have done previously, you’re obviously doing at the moment or anything that you have lined up to really drive forward an inclusive world. I know you touched on it with Girl Guiding but if you had any other examples that you could share, that would be amazing
Jacqueline: [00:06:12.07] We do a lot of work at TechUK and because we are absolutely driven to make sure that we have equality and of course with Black Lives Matter we are actively making sure that we increase our representation of Black people in technology which is incredibly low. Of all the ethnicity across technology, as a whole, we only have 15% and that’s really low and only 17% of women actually so it is really low and we have a lot of work to do. We have a returners programme for women. We have every single one of our thousand member companies are encouraged to have a Diversity Champion - someone who wakes up in the morning and worries about the diversity and inclusion in all its forms. I’m not just talking about gender, I’m not just talking about Race, I’m also talking about introverts versus extroverts. I’m talking about people on the neurodiversity spectrum as well. And people who are, who have, I like to think of people who have ‘special super powers’, you know autism in tech, especially in cyber - people with autism and asperger’s can see patterns, fraud patterns for example that are incredibly helpful and can see those patterns that us lesser mortals can’t see, so I am excited about people with superpowers like that and we do, we have - I’m going to say something like 100 different initiatives ongoing and parallel most of the time across our industry in terms of encouraging inclusion and diversity into the industry.
And actually, let’s face it you know technology is not just a tech thing anymore. Technology is in every business even in fashion. So we’re going to have to make sure that the people building tech in the fashion industry are also devoid of bias and making sure that everything is aimed at a parity and a world that’s equal.
Rachel: [00:08:24.70] Yeah I know, definitely. We’ll make sure to share all those examples you mentioned as well as I think there is so much we can learn from. And also I love the idea how you said you mentioned the ones we don’t think about like straight away like those different qualities like autism and disabilities - they all have to be considered so I think that’s really good to highlight.
So the next question, it's quite a big question, but it's what we're all working towards, but we wanted to ask you what does inclusivity mean to you personally and what does an inclusive world look like to you?
Jacqueline: [00:08:57.56] That is a big question. It is quite personal, isn't it? I come from a position which says that I don't believe that a big central power like government or companies are going to solve the inclusion or diversity issue. I believe that the biggest threat to diversity is the belief that somebody else will fix it.
Rachel & Laura: Yeah.
Jacqueline: And so therefore, inclusivity for me is everything that we personally do to make a change and [00:09:30.00] a shift. And that can be as small as being more tolerant with people who are different than us. They might eat differently, behave differently, work differently, dress differently, any one of those things and we have to check our tolerance around that. It's around who are we hiring? Who we are choosing to partner with, who, when we're in a room making decisions are we challenging with [00:10:00.00] the question, ‘where are the others if we all look or think the same?’ And that's really important. I think it's lots of different micro actions versus great big initiatives. It's how we as humans behave to each other that is going to create a culture of inclusion and inclusivity is a behavior. It's something that we can all play our part with. So I say hashtag bystander or participant [00:10:30.00] on this one.
[00:10:31.43] We all have to play our part.
Rachel: We'll get that trending Jacqueline.
[00:10:38.12] So I think that's such a good point. I think what I've learned from 2020 previously, people would say ‘you know, I don't see gender’, ‘I don’t see Race’, but I think like you said, it's about being active and say, ‘no, I do see gender’, ‘I do see Race’ and what am I going to do to make it an equitable society. So I think that's absolutely true.
And so following on from that, the next questions are really [00:11:00.00] focused on what you said, actions and impacts, which I know you know an awful lot about. So you we wanted to ask you as somebody who doesn't, I know you're a massive fashionista, you don't work in fashion day to day. So I guess from an outside perspective, is there any actions that you think the fashion industry could take on an industry level to really drive forward that inclusive industry?
Jacqueline: [00:11:26.12] It's a really interesting one, isn't it? Well, I mean, I believe that we [00:11:30.00] dress the world we don't dress for a niche person or persona. So I like what I'm seeing in terms of “curvy’s OK”. And we embrace women and men of all different shapes and sizes.
[00:11:50.93] That to me is starting. It's really important that we do that because for years and years and years we've had this perfect size. [00:12:00.00] [00:12:00.89] I don't even know whatever size it is, it seems increasingly smaller to me as I look in shop windows and online. And I think we have to get away from that and celebrate who we are and the various shapes and sizes that we come in. So certainly I would be encouraging the fashion industry to be inclusive and targeting everybody, and it's in their business interests to do so, surely, actually, [00:12:30.00] but also make it something that's comfortable and normal.
[00:12:35.51] To have a size that looks great in size 20, as it does in size 10, is how do we dress? How do we dress the world is a great question. And I think it's something that we have to see more of online versus just see it as the anomaly. I'd like to see more of that.
Rachel: [00:12:57.08] Yeah. And like you said, make it the day to day practice. It is [00:13:00.00] just the norm. It’s not just a one-off like you said. It’s that consistency.
Jacqueline: [00:13:04.52] I think it is. Yeah, I think it is. And also, I think when I think about the fashion industry, the sustainability aspect as well. So, you know, not only have we had Covid, we've had Black Lives Matter, but we have got, you know, the climate change issue as well. And we are the first generation to understand that we can do something about it, [00:13:30.00] but also the last generation that can do something to arrest it. And I think that's the point around fashion. We can stop this cycle of violence around fast fashion and look much more towards sustainable fabrics and sustainable recycling inside the industry as well.
Rachel: [00:13:52.86] Yeah, well, I kind of like which we learned more about is that sustainability is so linked with equality because the majority of garment [00:14:00.00] workers are women and they can be subject to violence and it’s so like hand in hand, if you want sustainability, you need equality. So I think that's such a good point. It needs to all work together.
Jacqueline: [00:14:11.90] And you're absolutely right. You know, modern slavery is a thing and we have to be very cognizant of what that means and and celebrate. It's really interesting that Covid-19 has thrown up different norms [00:14:30.00] and different things that are important, so key workers who are now super important and were not so important pre pandemic and, for example, cleaners. And they're right at the top of the risk register on most businesses now, because we all have to make sure that we are in a safe, clean space. And I think in fashion, we need to make sure that we've got a supply chain that is also devoid of modern slavery and honors its key workers.
Rachel: [00:14:59.52] Yeah, and [00:15:00.00] like you said I think it's making sure that everybody feels valued equally like you said you know like the manufacturers, the pattern cutters, the packaging. Everything is valued equally. I think that is what inclusivity is at the end of the day, isn't it? So that’s really important.
So I think you touched on this earlier but like I know you believe it and we believe it as well, but we all have the power to create the world that we want to see and the fashion industry that we want to see. So is there any kind of ideas or actions that us as individuals, [00:15:30.00] us as consumers can be doing day to day kind of drive forward that inclusive industry?
Jacqueline: [00:15:36.27] I think the first thing we've got to realize is that we're never too small to make a difference. And I took that from the Dalai Lama and it's such a wise set of words because every single action that we take buying that unsustainable dress creates a lot more of that being intolerant with [00:16:00.00] a person who's not like us. It has repercussions far larger than we can imagine. So the opposite of that is that we challenge ourselves and our own bias. There is a ‘check your bias’ online. You can you can do that test online and see what your own unconscious biases. And we all have it. We're programmed as humans to make judgments every single second. So we need to maybe check our own unconscious bias first [00:16:30.00] and start from there I think because that's highly practical and you won't be aware of what triggers you and your own intolerances until you test it. So I think that's probably a really good place to start.
Rachel: [00:16:43.47] Yes, that's a perfect action. I think we can share that because I think Harvard has a really good one, doesn't it? So we can share that.
With unconscious bias, what's really interesting is that we all have it. But I think someone said once, it's what we choose to do with it. It's recognizing you have it as a step. So [00:17:00.00] I think, yeah, this is something we can all do straight away if we haven't already so that's brilliant. Yeah, that was all of the questions we had Jacqueline. So thank you so much. You always leave us so inspired and with a lot of homework to do, in a good way. And I want to say a massive thank you for being such an inclusive leader and we hope we can catch up again and say thank you so much.
Jacqueline: [00:17:21.64] Thank you for having me.