Astrid Van Waveren

"Astrid is the Head of Content at Talking Talent, a coaching consultancy specialising in gender diversity. As the ‘Explorer’ type, Astrid leads the strategy for innovative content across the business, enabling her company to create market-leading content and blended products and programmes. She demonstrates the ‘Campaigner’ type by curating global content to engaging experiences for users which have impact and offer insight. She also investigates market trends and what her clients want, and aims to work in a friendly and collaborative way to empower people, which matches well with the ‘Coach’ type."

"Astrid is the Head of Content at Talking Talent, a coaching consultancy specialising in gender diversity. She, and her company, are working to change gender imbalances in STEM and to help women thrive in the workplace. That's a pretty cool mission!Astrid helps design and produce resources that will inspire women to study, work and progress in STEM. Every day varies for Astrid, depending on the projects that she is working on. She works on content creation for her company’s digital product, which involves detailed design work, editing and writing. Typically, she spends time in meetings with people from across the business, in calls with colleagues in Asia or the US. She progresses projects, meets with developers, product leads, production teams, and her own digital team. She could be brainstorming and getting creative, or discussing budgets and project plans. She also works on strategies and roadmaps for creating new content, and analyses market trends and user feedback to show what they should be working on.Astrid loves how varied and intellectually stimulating her job is. There's always some kind of problem to solve and the chance to get creative. She loves working with global teams and clients, and finds it really interesting to learn a lot about other cultures, and to make a difference for individuals and organisations."

"Astrid was inspired by her dad, who works for a large technology firm. She could see how working in technology was not just coding but could be all about people and bringing everyone together. She was also inspired by seeing and meeting other women at GirlGeeks dinners and Women in Tech events, as well as speaking with contacts who were doing Product Management roles. She thinks that the role she is in now is a great combination of technology, business and people. After finishing her French degree at university, Astrid worked in Events & Marketing and then joined Talking Talent 9 years ago. First, she was a Project Manager, then a Consultant in the business, developing her expertise in the subject matter and an understanding of the software technology. She was involved in client projects developing new content and led the development of the first online platforms, and then the first digital product. She now heads up the content globally and sits within the digital team."

"Astrid is very active and loves trying lots of things. She also has two young daughters, and so has to balance family, work and hobbies. Exercise is really important to Astrid, she loves getting outdoors as much as possible and also does yoga, aerial silks and ballet barre regularly. She enjoys crafts like sewing, and also likes gardening, and singing. Astrid has also helped to set up a Green Families group in her city to help promote sustainable living for families, educate children and campaign on environmental issues in her local area.Astrid has clients based all over the world, and so has the opportunity to travel occasionally to meet with them. The company she works for is quite small, which means she can really drive her own career and get involved with many different projects. She thinks that working in a small business or start-up is really fun and offers many opportunities if you like working collaboratively, learn quickly and are adaptable. In the future, Astrid would like to combine her love of the environment and her skills in product management and content. Perhaps there's an Eco App out there waiting for Astrid to develop it!"

"In the mornings, I sometimes have early calls with team members or clients in Asia (7-8am is normal), otherwise I spend time at my laptop checking emails and planning my day or week ahead. The digital team normally have a quick catch-up in the morning to talk about what we're working on - I have a lot of calls via Skype or Zoom, as our team and clients are spread out across different regions, and regularly work from home. I try to split my time out during the day to have 90-minute chunks of work on projects, and slot in some calls or meetings in between. 50% (or more) of my time is spent working with someone else or in meetings. In my role it's important to be talking to end users, subject matter experts, product leads, stakeholders and the extended development team, so there's a lot of communication that happens. In my project chunks, I might be analysing data from User Experience Studies, writing a content strategy document, creating/authoring pieces of digital content, updating project plans and roadmaps, or creating proposals for new products we want to develop."