Working for my bestie.

Steph and I have known each other for twelve years. We’ve worked together, first at Adapt for Arts, now at GoodCRM. For most of that time, we saw each other or spoke almost every day. That's just what it was like.

Then I went on maternity leave, and for the first time in a decade, it stopped. No quick catch-ups, no half-finished conversations picked back up the next morning. We left things pretty open ended about what my return would even look like. But I knew, in the way you know things about people you've spent a over a decade with, that whatever came next, we'd work it out together.

While I was off, Steph sent Paris the loveliest gifts. Things that showed exactly how well she knows him, and me. That's Steph all over - always on the button when it comes to what’s happening right now.

Coming back, I got to walk straight into the middle of what she'd been quietly and steadily building. What she's building at GoodCRM is a women-led tech company that puts values first, in an industry that doesn't always reward that approach or make it easy. I've had the closest possible view of her doing it, and I've never once seen her cut a corner to get there faster.

Alongside running GoodCRM full-time as CEO, she's also been Chair of Trustees at Venture Arts for the past few years, helping them through a massive capital campaign. Again - quietly and steadily, and always values first.

Twelve years of friendship and of working together, and a maternity leave that we walked through side by side. I'm lucky to call her my boss and even luckier to call her my friend.