Women in power - Lesleyanne

Head of IT delivery

I’m Lesleyanne, and I joined SSE five years ago in our Perth HQ. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I left school, so following and HND in Business Admin I tried a number of back office roles – you name it I’ve tried it, so it was great experience. Then I’ve had a varied and interesting career before moving to this role at SSE, which I love.

My career really started when I joined General Accident as an Admin Assistant, moving fairly quickly to commercial underwriting. I then became part of a change programme and that brought me into contact with IT and Business Support, moving to London and then to Perth to support companies like Ford and HSBC. That’s where I really started to get technical with large scale platforms. I moved to RBS as a Senior Analyst after 13 years with General Accident. I spent a couple of years there before being headhunted to join Tesco Bank in Edinburgh as a new start up, so I joined as PMO Lead for Infrastructure. Tesco Bank was a period of immense change, building systems from the ground up – infrastructure, processes, and policies. It was an amazing eight years, but it was time for a change – I’d worked a lot of hours and it was time to take a step back as I needed to support my daughter’s education. At that point the role in SSE came up. It was a Senior Project Manager based in Perth working in Renewables & Thermal.

The career support at SSE has been great. I’ve had some very supportive managers and you can speak to people really easily here and be listened to. Back when I started there were not that many women in senior roles in IT, and I was used to being the only woman in the room. But that’s changing rapidly at SSE, and you can see female role models all over the business. I’m An Inclusion & Diversity Ambassador at SSE, leading for Women in Tech, which I am passionate about – it’s about encouraging people to apply, particularly women, who can think that they need to tick all the boxes to apply for roles that they would be a great fit for. We look for what we you can do rather than what you can’t.

SSE have put a lot of faith in me and it’s humbling to hold a senior position in IT with the responsibilities and influencing opportunities available. It shows what you can achieve here with the right attitude and SSE’s support.

Hear from more women at SSE

View all