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 €2m.
Since then the 海角视频 business has grown to about 160 employees and is aiming for a revenue of c.€15m 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 €1bn by the end of 2023.
Katy heads up the sizable 海角视频 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.
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"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.
"In my head I just had this old man in a grey suit and that's what I thought an MD was and then, obviously, I could not live up to that because I can't be an old man in a grey suit.
"I just had this idea that an MD was an old man in a grey suit sitting in the corner of the room not speaking to anyone and that is not me.
"I care about people and I like to be involved and I like to know what's going on and involved in the work.
"I actually Googled an image of a 'managing director' and what came out of it was the same pictures - just loads of old men in grey suits - so Google was just telling me that I could not do the role as well."
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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."
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Katy first joined Social Chain when its co-founders Steven Bartlett and Dominic 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: "Working with them was absolutely incredible. The last five years have been the most amazing journey that I will probably ever experience.
"Walking in on that first day in November five years ago and the buzz around it and the office and the culture that they created but also the works that they were doing gave a level of excitement around work and what we could achieve that I had never felt before.
"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.
"I have honestly never met anyone like Steven Bartlett. He is just an amazing force."
On their departure from the business, she added: "It was during Covid so it was a strange time anyway.
"They had built something and created something but we all kind of lived it so for me it was a change, and a big leadership change like that is always going to create questions from people but I was so ingrained in the business and we had really great client relationships so very little changed.
"What they created, we managed to build on and we have really worked hard to keep that going."
Katy also said the business has matured in recent years and moved away from what first made it a success - running campaigns that would go viral on social media.
"We have matured as a business in the work that we are doing.
"When I first started it was all about campaigns that would give us notoriety and get a load of noise on social media.
"The work that we have now moved into and the relationships we have with our clients because of that model of bringing in experts from the marketing world has moved into actually solving business challenges for CEOs, MDs and marketing directors through the use of social media.
"We have grown up as well as the people in the business growing up."
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.
"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.
"The small London office is to tap into those agencies where there is a lot of media spend.
"Next year is all about how we can strengthen the client relationships we have got and win new clients.
"I want us to be known for doing work that is so authentic and really grabs the attention of the right audiences because we are making it in the right way."
Katy has also opened up about her mental health struggles after suffering a miscarriage on Christmas Eve 2018.
A #MindTheGap logo is displayed on her LinkedIn page and she has praised the way Social Chain supported her in the aftermath.
"#MindTheGap was about mental health leave - helping other people know that if you have had to take a break because of your mental health you should really own that space rather than be ashamed of it and have it as a blank space on your CV", Katy 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.
"I struggled on with it for a while and it got to Easter in 2019 and I just couldn't cope with the work.
"I just felt that I could not deal with anybody else's problems or work problems.
"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.
"There is always a reason for everything and I think I had to do something with it. I could not just sit back and let it go and having the platform that I have built through being at Social Chain enabled me to help other women who were going through something similar so in a weird way I'm really proud of it."