The Power of Mentorship and Advocating for Diversity with Sophia Iqbal

Ever wondered how having a mentor can change your career trajectory? Sophia's experience answers that, highlighting the incredible value of mentorship.

The dynamic Sophia Iqbal joins us, sharing her fascinating journey through the tech industry, with all its victories and challenges. She's a beacon of resilience, having faced and surmounted many barriers common to early professionals, especially ethnically diverse women. 

Sophia's journey will inspire and motivate you, shedding light on the importance of challenging barriers and advocating for diversity in the professional world. So, are you ready for an enlightening and inspiring conversation?

Listen to learn:
🎙 The barriers that early professionals face
🎙 The pivotal moment of meeting her mentor
🎙 How to make the most of opportunities
🎙 The importance of advocating for diversity

Find out more about We Are PoWEr here.  💫

Transcript

Simone Roche MBE: 0:19

Welcome to the Northern Power Women podcast. My name is Simone and this is our Path To Power season, and every week, I am speaking to the most fabulous changemakers, trailblazers, individuals making a difference both in and across their communities, they are challenging the norm, creating more inclusive cultures. And every week, I’m always having these great takeaways. I'm scribbling away and finding these great little sound bites and I'm inspired every single week and I love taking some of that advice to go away into, whether it be my personal or professional or my business kind of portfolio, if you like. I love it every week and this week is no exception. I'm delighted to welcome Sophia Iqbal to the Northern Power Women podcast, who has got a range of experience in campaign and social media management, pr, copywriting, account management and event planning, which we all love. We all love bringing people together with a real passion for ED and I and creating these inclusive spaces for everyone. Sophia, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me. 

Simone Roche MBE Like I say every week, it's fantastic to have these conversations and I always look forward to hearing about like kind of like the ups and the lows and the roller coasters that we all have, so share with us some of your key highlights and challenges that you've encountered across your last sort of three years within the industry.

Sophia Iqbal: 1:48

So I feel really lucky. I've only been in the industry three years but I've had quite a few highlights. Obviously, with that comes challenges. In terms of highlights, I suppose I think the awards that I've won in the past three years have really kind of filled me with sense of pride. So, first of all, the Talk Talk Northwest Women in Tech Awards. I won the Rising Star category. That was really exciting because I wasn't expecting it at all to go on to be on the future list for Northern Power Women. That was amazing. So yeah, they're probably my two main highlights. I think I've had little highlights in between in terms of client work and, I think, client satisfaction here and clients who are really happy with the work that I'm producing. Being able to lead on campaigns so early in my career. So obviously all of these highlights are really exciting and it gave me the courage to kind of and the confidence to know that I can do much more and I'm still early in my career and I've got a lot of way to go.

Simone Roche MBE: 2:48

What about the challenges? How do you deal with those and who do you go to for support to help you through those?

Sophia Iqbal: 2:57

So I think the funny thing is with the challenges is they always do turn into highlights, because I think with me my first year in industry, I learned so much because I kind of got thrown into the deep end and that's not a bad thing for me. I think I learned really well when I kind of have to learn for myself and teach myself and obviously I've had really great mentors and the business that I've worked in and I've had really great managers. But I think the fact that my first year I was doing the content only for one of the companies and I did it by myself and I had the freedom to kind of do what I wanted with it and take it where I wanted to go, so that was really challenging and day to day it was quite stressful, but in that I learned so much. So everything that I've learned today is probably mostly from that first year. So that was a big challenge and I think the only way I've overcome that is kind of reaching out to people and getting help wherever I can. I always say that to people all the time, never be afraid to speak up. So those challenges have always turned into opportunities for me.

Simone Roche MBE: 4:06

I think that's such a positive way to look at it. We did a webinar not so long ago and it was about the failosophy. Sometimes it's that what you learn from kind of the failing and the failing fast and picking yourself back up or using it as that point of learning. But equally often it's not just the challenges, it's sometimes the barriers that are in the way, and you've been in the industry three years but what do you think are some of those barriers? That early professionals like yourself, ethically diverse females, pace in the professional world, and how do we not just overcome them but just knock them down so they're gone forever?

Sophia Iqbal: 4:44

Yeah, I think there's two sides to that. I think you know ethnically diverse people, women and men. I think we do face barriers and then also kind of being early careers that it's two separate things and then when you put them together it's a lot and it can be quite overwhelming for people in the early careers. I think for ethnically diverse females especially, it’s hard. I think the way it's overcome is really difficult because we can't overcome something that is, inflicted by other people.

Probably the way I see it is looking at challenging and kind of rise into the challenge in that aspect. So I suppose there's barriers, like microaggressions and institutional racism, because it's never kind of black and white in your face and I think especially in this country people have kind of discreet with their racism. So it makes it harder in the workplace. Because you can't call something out when it's not so evidence-based. So people are facing all kinds of discrimination in the workplace that they can't or they might not necessarily feel comfortable to talk about. So it's not up to us to kind of, change that, it's up to the behaviour of the people that are inflicted in it, or the only way we can kind of get past that is challenging it and it's speaking up and it's having that direct communication with your line managers or people in power.

And I think as well another aspect of this is mentorship and it's something that I've really took advantage of and I know we'll come on to that soon. But I think, especially for ethnically diverse people and early careers in general you need people to reach out to for that guidance, because you might not have that inside your workplace or even if you do it's nice to get externally.

 So I was actually part of a mentoring scheme last year called Media For All and it was for ethnically diverse people who were in the industry and we're facing these barriers, but they didn't have anyone to talk to or even if you weren't facing them, you caught potentially in the future. I think that was a position that I was in. I've always worked for really inclusive businesses, but there's always a chance that in the future, it might not always be that case. So it's nice to have someone and you my mentor she was only a couple of years older than me, but it's someone to relate to and it's someone to talk to about those issues that other people might naturally understand. And I think, in terms of like overcoming or challenging, as I'd like to put it, it’s reaching out to people, getting people on your side, communicating directly and not letting anything kind of sweep under the rug, because then obviously that's not getting fixed and yeah, so communication, and so is definitely the thing.

Simone Roche MBE: 7:30

You just highlighted there, It's lots of things, not just one thing. There's not just one direct rate to fix this. You talked about discrete racism there as well. The fact that because it's not evidence base, you can't just call that out. So that's where that's where that you need your allies and your mentors and your cheerleaders around you, don't you to kind of help you go through that?

Sophia Iqbal: 7:51

It can be really lonely to kind of be early in your career, be diverse in any aspect and, as you say, you need allies, you need people on your side and you need people to relate to. So it can, you can feel more comfortable tackling these issues

Simone Roche MBE: 8:04

Absolutely, and talk to us about your role models. You've already talked about having a mentor. I think that's really interesting that you talked about your mentor In the last program that you're part of, only being a couple of years older than you, and I think there's something really, really powerful about relatable role models. I a firm believe that everyone can give all gain, everyone can give back, and pass on those knowledge, skills  and I think it's just time, isn't it just giving time? So I think there was something about that having someone that is just a little bit ahead of you and not ahead of you in a race, just ahead of you and potentially in experience. So talk to me about other mentors and role models that you have had a real kind of impact on you and your journey.

Sophia Iqbal: 8:50

So I'm such a massive advocate for mentorship and I think there's so much you can learn on both sides. If you're a mentor or a mentee, you guaranteed to kind of get experience and advance your own personal self. So, yeah, I'm big on mentorships. I've had a few. I did the MEFA Mentoring last year and that was really helpful for the aspect of being diverse and having someone to relate to. I've also had another mentor who is quite a bit older than me and he adds a completely different perspective to the girl who was only a couple of years older and it is really important to have those different perspectives, I think, because you have someone who might only be a year or two older than you but you they can relate to and you can have shared experiences. But then you also have someone else who's really experienced, got loads of wisdom and can teach you so many things. And my mentor, Leon, was just being like absolutely incredible for the past year and it's funny because I didn't meet, I met him really accidentally. I met him at an event and there was nowhere to sit at this event and there was one seat next to him. When I said, oh can I sit there? And it was we just hit it off instantly and it was. It was a really like random moment of meeting him, but instantly I knew that because we hit it off and because he had so much experience, I knew that he could help me and so I instantly just asked him to be my mentor and for the past year he's helped me so much in terms of  just navigating the industry because and another reason my mentors are so important there's so many people like myself who sorted in the industry and I didn't know anyone and I come from a working class family. I'm the first person in my family to graduate. I didn't have people around me whose mum's cousin has a business and can give me a work experience, and there's so many people who are like that and they don't have those connections in the industry. So that's why I think it's really important to reach out and I'd say to anyone who is in that position and doesn't have mentors and doesn't know anyone literally reach out like you have nothing to lose. And that was kind of what I did. I reached out to Leon and said will you be my mentor? And since then, like, my career has just not took off, but it's advanced so much in a way that it wouldn't, I think, if I was alone and I didn't have that guidance. And so, yeah, I'm absolutely massive on mentorship.

Simone Roche MBE: 11:14

As are we role models and mentoring. I think is it just the heart and the DNA of everything we do and we do these, I think you've been part of them, that we've done the monthly speed mentoring and it's where we do these virtual events and it's designed for exactly that. You have these one conversation. You might not be sure which direction it's going to go in, but sometimes it's just that talking to someone, it is literally sitting next to someone in the only seat and having that conversation and almost a bit awkward. You just never know where it'll go right and your relationship has been a year. Sometimes these relationships might only be a couple of weeks or a couple of hours, but I think that importance was at your first mentor, Sophia.

Sophia Iqbal: 11:53

So, yes, it was around the same time that I got into the MEFA mentor and so luckily, I had both of them at the same time, and I've recently just joined the Blue Mentoring Scheme for Women in Industry. So I think you know all of these schemes are literally amazing, but you can have multiple mentors at one time and I think having those different perspectives and the different levels of experiences is really important and taking advantage and also like not having an ego and understanding that you're not going to know everything and other people can teach you so much and you need to be teachable, you need to be that sponge and just taking everything in, because it's the only way you are going to get anywhere, I think.

Simone Roche MBE: 12:32

And  if you had that empty chair moment, or onto the programme before then would you have ever considered? Would you have thought, oh, I must have a mentor. Was that something that was on your radar when you were going through uni or college or just entering the workplace? Or was this just a bit of fate that all came together?

Sophia Iqbal: 12:58

To be honest, I always want to talk about this story with Leon, it literally is fate, and  I think people start out in the careers whether in uni or you're going into your first job you don't actually understand the value of having a mentor and even if you don't want to call it a mentor, just having someone to talk to for everything that you're going through and any questions that you have. So it definitely wasn't. I didn't have a plan to have a mentor, but I think, so at that point I was probably about a year and a half into my career and I knew that there was things that I didn't know and I knew that I wasn't. You can't get everything from your workplace. You need external people who are going to bring different perspectives that you're already getting. So, yeah, I definitely wasn't planned, but I think as soon as you find someone who you can kind of click with, you instantly see the benefit. So then, from then, I knew that it was only going to go further and I could only layer more from other people as well.

Simone Roche MBE: 13:57

We all need a Leon. There you go, that's the end. But can you share, other than finding that magic seat, which clearly was the case on that given day can you share that sort of that moment in your career so far where you felt that sense of accomplishment or fulfilment? It's the seat, isn't it? It's got to be the seat. Leon aside right, what was that? What was that moment? What was that kind of like ta da moment? Because  we've talked about you getting recognised, receiving awards Amazing, it's fantastic to high five those achievements. But is there, anything else in that moment where you've gone you know what I'm high-fiving that?

Sophia Iqbal: 14:38

To be honest, I think it was the Talk Talk Award, just because I wasn't even a year into my career at that point and It absolutely was so unexpected. And it's like such a funny story as well, because my manager at the time she nominated me, but she did it really casually and I remember we were on our way to an award ceremony and she just in the car was like texting me and she was like, oh, by the way, I've nominated you for this award. And I was like, okay, like cool, I just didn't really think anything of it and I was just like, okay, well, I've done it. I didn't really expect anything to come of it. And then the day before the awards I hadn't heard anything. So I just thought like I wasn't shortlisted. And then the email to me to say, oh, congratulations again on being shortlisted. But I hadn't received that first email so I had no idea that I was even shortlisted. So I had to call them up and be like are you sure that this is right? And just kind of like scrambled to get to the awards the next day. And then, obviously, like when I was there, it was just like it was really impressive in terms of all the people that were there and it was the first awards that they put on, and Gary Neville was there, he was hosting I was like this is just so, like this is not, this is like out of my league, and I didn't even think that I was going to win it. So I think, when I did, it was like as I mentioned before, it's such a confidence boost because if you can achieve that within your first year, it's like it's only up from there, and that was the way that I saw it. So, yeah, that was like my moment of oh my God, this is like insane. But I'm really happy and I'm really proud about it.

Simone Roche MBE: 16:12

And so you should be. I was at those awards too. It was brilliant. It was fantastic. It was such a buzz, it was a brilliant room. It was like that electric room. It was fantastic. You've got lots of different experience, even in sort of the first few years. How have these different experiences shaped your approach to work?

Sophia Iqbal: 16:34

So I think having diverse experience in terms of clients, especially for agency based, it gives you diversity of thought, and the way that I would see myself maybe three years ago. I probably would have like a set kind of category of clients that I would go for and that I would want to work for. And since then I've worked with clients that just absolutely like I wouldn't have seen myself kind of having a relationship with or produce and work for. For example, like the logistics sector, foods and drink export, and even like law and now most recently, property. They're not industries that I saw myself going into and I think it's really important to always kind of like put yourself through yourself into it, because I didn't see myself in these industries and now I haven't. I've actually really enjoyed them and I've really learned so much from them. So now I'm at the point where I'm sure, going forward, I'll be at this point where I can tackle things head on and go well I've learned this from this client and had like this really niche experience with this client and it puts you in a position where you can always kind of recall different things and use it whenever you need it. And so I think I'm really happy that I've had that diverse experience, because you probably wouldn't expect it. And it's actually really funny when I think back to the things that I've done, the clients that I've worked with, because I just wouldn't expect myself to work with them and also like, really enjoy it.

Simone Roche MBE: 18:04

And I think this I love that. I always love the different experiences. Nobody has that one straight line or it's just this industry or it's just this journey. I think you could just learn. I think there's so much cross sector learning and so much cross that you can bring in. So then, finally, what's next for you? Looking ahead, you've achieved amazing things so far. What's next for you on your professional adventure?

Sophia Iqbal: 18:30

thank you, such a loaded question, I think for the future definitely, I'm really big on like learning. I think, especially at the point that I'm in my career now and probably for the next couple of years there's so much to learn and I think I mentioned being a sponge and be it open to new opportunities and stuff and that has helped me so much and I think that probably will go on to help me because I think when you open to these opportunities that you probably wouldn't put yourself forward for or you might think you’re not interested in, that is where the experience comes. And so I think the next three years I want to kind of I want to be open to as much as I can, I want to learn as much as I can and I would also like to become a mentor. I think I've had first-hand experience of how crucially like valuable mentorship is and I want to be able to almost get that back and have that sense of like okay, I've helped someone and I've kind of given it back. I think that's so important. I think that relationship between the mentor and a mentee is really valuable and as I said, there's so much to learn from each side. Just because you might be more experienced than someone, you can still learn so much from them. I think, I've just started in the property industry and I'm really excited about that. I think I want to kind of get to know that a bit more, and that's sparked an interest in me and I want to get to know the industry more. I want to get to know the people and hopefully, see where that takes me.

Simone Roche MBE: 19:57

me Absolutely, and I think it's building that network. I think, when I look back at my career, I think the different people I've met along the way I've got that there's such a diverse mix of network as well and you never know where that comes back. But I'm I'm so delighted that you said you're gonna put yourself forward as a mentor as well, because I think that's the whole thing, isn't it? I think when you receive, it's not like you've got to give because you've received. There's just something that's got to inspire, motivate you to be. You are a relatable role model. You're an amazing professional who's like, achieved so much so far. So I'm so glad that you're going to be passing that on as well. 

It has been just an absolute joy to chat with you today. I love having these conversations every week. I love having these conversations because everything's a different journey and there's always and it's the excitement and the passion that you come across and your journey so far, especially around the mentors. So, Sophia, thank you so much for joining me today. 

Thank you for having me.

Thanks all of you for listening. We love it. We love getting the feedback. We love hearing your sort of takeaways that you get from these podcasts as well. So please do keep sharing that with us and join us on all our socials at north power women on Twitter and Northern Power Women on all the others and don't miss any of these episodes on our pathway to power. You can find them anywhere that you get your podcasts and do recommend as well. We are on a mission of joining our professional and personal development and powering each other. Find out about everything that's going on, on our digital platform: Wearepower.net. My name is Simone. This is the Northern Power Women podcast, a what goes on media production.