What’s in this podcast?
Leadership is often shaped long before someone reaches the boardroom.
In this episode of Hub & Spoken, Jason Foster, CEO & Founder of Cynozure, is joined by Kate Boyle, AI, data and technology leader, to explore the experiences that define great leadership. From starting work at 16 and building a career across financial services and the public sector, to leading data and AI transformation, Kate shares the personal and professional lessons that have shaped her approach to leading people.
The conversation explores resilience, empathy, workplace culture and why striving for perfection often holds leaders back. Kate also reflects on how organisations can better develop future leaders, the importance of creating environments where people can thrive, and why understanding people is just as important as understanding technology.
They also discuss one of the biggest leadership challenges today: balancing the excitement around AI with the responsibility to implement it safely. From governance and data quality to realistic expectations, Kate explains why strong leadership will determine whether organisations realise AI’s potential or simply chase the latest trend.
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Episode timings
00:00 — Introduction
02:14 — From administration to data leadership
05:57 — How the workplace has changed
10:59 — Resilience, empathy and generational change
18:45 — Culture, inclusion and career progression
22:09 — Learning how to lead
26:47 — The pressure of the AI race
34:28 — Balancing AI’s promise and risks
37:25 — What leaders should do next
The following interview transcription has been edited for length and clarity.
00:00 — Introduction
Jason Foster:
Hi everyone, welcome along to the show. Today, I’m super excited to have Kate Boyle with me. Kate is an AI, data and technology leader with a whole range of experience across different sectors.
We’re talking about what shapes a great leader, learning from her brilliant career and exploring the lessons, challenges and opportunities she’s experienced while working in the exciting space of data, AI and technology. Kate, welcome to the show.
Kate Boyle:
Hi. Thanks for having me, Jason. I’m excited to be here.
Jason Foster:
I’m really excited to talk to you about this idea of what shapes a great leader. ‘Shapes’ is the interesting word here because, while we often talk about what makes a great leader and what great leaders look like, I think what shapes a great leader is really important.
Shall we kick off with a bit of background about who you are, the kind of work you do and where you’ve done it?
02:14 — From administration to data leadership
Kate Boyle:
A lot of what I’m going to say today will probably have a female lens on it. No surprise there: I am a woman.
I started my career at the age of 16. I left school, started as a team secretary, became a PA and then an EA, and worked my way up through the ranks. I always had this inquisitiveness about what was going on around me.
I worked in financial services from day one. There was a lot of hustle and bustle, and while doing all my administrative tasks, I was asking, ‘What’s going on over there? Why are they doing that? How does that fit into the bigger picture?’ Some would call me nosy. I prefer inquisitive.
I kept my ear to the ground and managed to get promoted out of the EA pool, which had hardly ever been done in the bank where I worked at the time. I moved into risk, focusing heavily on SOX controls within technology and banking controls.
This was before the financial meltdown, so we were having a lovely time. There wasn’t too much regulation, but we were making sure we did the right thing. I was in Canary Wharf during the financial crisis and watched Lehman Brothers exit the building. I was working for an American bank that they were desperately trying to rescue from the States. Then it became completely focused on risk, regulation, who could do what and how they could do it.
I stayed in that field for a couple of years and then moved to a UK bank, where I focused on things like client assets and money, cash regulation and conduct risk.
I then worked with an amazing data leader in that organisation. She moved roles and said, ‘Come and work with me.’ I said, ‘I know nothing about data.’ She said, ‘That’s fine.’
I went to HSBC and worked in its data office under one of the first CDOs, Peter Serenita, and learnt my trade there. I started as what was known as the ‘T lady’, covering training, education and awareness. I moved into architecture and ownership, then became a subject matter expert in data quality across the whole organisation.
From there, I went to Lloyds Bank, where I worked on data maturity and established a data culture chapter. Then, at the grand old age of 50, I changed industries completely and went to work in the public sector.
I became Director of Data Analytics at the Police Digital Service, where I led its response to how it could help police forces and law enforcement change data, apply AI and look at technology. That’s it.
Jason Foster:
What a career journey. There’s a lot to unpack there, but perhaps we’ll do that through the discussion.
I’m always fascinated by how people fall into data. That tends to be the common theme when I talk to data leaders: they fell into it by accident, never planned for it, didn’t know what it was and then often ended up staying there.
Even before that, you’ve had so many different experiences. Since then, as you say, you’ve been involved in many different aspects of the data conversation.
05:57 — How the workplace has changed
Jason Foster:
Thinking about the broader workplace, how have work and working life changed across all those different roles? Have you seen the workplace transform? Is it really the same as it was? Is it better or worse? What has been your experience of how it has changed over the years?
Kate Boyle:
You’re exposing my age now, Jason, but I’ll forgive you.
When I started work, there was no email. There wasn’t the electronic technology we all build with now, so we lived on memos and sent them to each other in the post.
When I first started using email, I was on a trading floor and looked after about 80 people. I was running up and down the trading floor with Post-it notes all over my arm. Then email arrived, and we were all asking, ‘What’s going on here?’
Jason Foster:
At least you did fewer steps once email arrived.
Kate Boyle:
Culturally, the women who went before me paved the way for us, and we’re incredibly lucky they were there. But they were tough cultures for a young woman to get her head around.
Hopefully, a lot has changed. We still have plenty of work to do, but a lot has been done. I worked on trading floors and was sworn at.
Jason Foster:
In what way was it tough?
Kate Boyle:
There was no respect. We were very much the administrative girls, rather than women establishing careers.
As I rose through the ranks and the world started changing, I still knew that the man sitting next to me, doing exactly the same job, was earning much more than I was every day.
I worked throughout my career while being a mum and having two young children. I did a full-time job before I even reached my desk every morning, and I was at my desk by 8.30.
No allowances were made for how women needed to turn up and present themselves at work. I’ve seen that change. I’ve seen greater fairness and a natural effort to avoid bias and accommodate people in the workforce.
I also see a lot of lip service in that space, Jason. There are companies that appear to be doing it, but do they fundamentally believe in it at their core? No. That’s still a challenge.
I’ve seen a lot. I worked in an era when I could smoke at my desk, Jason. That’s how old I am.
Jason Foster:
The cultural change fascinates me because technology and the norms it drives come and go. But in terms of how work has changed and how women have been treated in your experience, I’m glad to hear that fairness, accommodation, understanding and empathy have improved.
Have you seen a more recent difference between the public and private sectors, either in that respect or in other aspects of the workplace?
Kate Boyle:
In my experience, the public sector has a really tough culture, especially in law enforcement. But you get the sense that people believe in what they’re trying to say.
They don’t want it to be male-dominated. They want women’s experience to come through and want to understand how women see the world differently, because we do. That’s fundamental. I can see more support there.
I’m not sure they’ve got the pay scales right in the public sector yet. I’m fairly sure there’s still some bias. I’ve always done all right, but I have many contacts for whom it may be more hit-and-miss.
There’s a buzz around the private sector. As individuals, we engage with different cultures. I decided to go into the public sector because I fundamentally wanted to help society and put my money where my mouth was.
Some people call it ‘woke’ and some don’t, but I love how the world is becoming a fairer place and producing fairer outcomes. I believed in the public sector. But there is a buzz in the private sector: you make a lot of money, sit back and say, ‘Wow, I was part of that.’ It comes down to what makes you tick internally.
Jason Foster:
It’s about what you want, what you like, what you get on with, what you can cope with and what you’re willing to accept, in all shapes and sizes.
10:59 — Resilience, empathy and generational change
Kate Boyle:
One thing that runs through both sectors, and probably leads naturally into how we approach leadership, is the personal resilience you need. I think that is becoming more and more important.
You have to apply your own sense of morality and decide what you want to achieve in both industries.
Jason Foster:
When you say resilience, what do you mean, and why is that an important attribute to bring to the table?
Kate Boyle:
One of the many things I’ve learnt is that, as a woman, you can take the knocks, see how something is going to play out and take it personally.
The perception is that if we assert ourselves, we’re aggressive. If we say things as we see them, the B-word could be used, or we’re called emotional or hormonal. There are all those negative connotations. For the female psyche, that’s a lot to get through, Jason.
Personal resilience is being able to say, ‘I am who I am. I enjoy what I do. I respect all people, and I can only present myself as I am.’ That’s the leadership quality many people need to develop.
We should teach those younger than us and those coming through their careers that, at the end of the day, you can go home, log off, sulk, be upset and let yourself experience all those things. But you can also say, ‘Fundamentally, I believe in what I’m doing, and I’ve just got to get through it.’ The question is how you find that way through.
Jason Foster:
That’s more than acceptance, though. It almost sounded as though you were saying, ‘Accept that it is what it is, and I just have to be resilient around it.’ But I don’t think that’s what you’re saying.
Kate Boyle:
No, it isn’t. It’s having the tools to say, ‘I’m not going to start a war because that person doesn’t agree with me.’
What’s the bigger picture? What’s happening in everybody’s daily life that makes them react in a way you’re perceiving as negative? Perception plays a large part in many of these demanding roles.
For me, resilience is being able to say that it doesn’t have to become a war to reach the end result. We can all work together, but you have to be mentally capable of avoiding a constant crossing of swords.
Jason Foster:
It’s about preparing yourself and allowing yourself to brush it off.
You mentioned your early days in financial services, following the EA route before moving into the risk team. It sounds as though you had a tough time in those early days. Do you think that built some of the resilience you’ve taken into leadership and can now give to others?
Kate Boyle:
I think so. I was a young mum and found myself feeling extremely uncomfortable in certain situations. Knowing that you have the tools to put a barrier between yourself and another uncomfortable position helps.
My resilience came much later in life, alongside the ability to see what was going on around me. I had a lot of personal stress. I became a single mother, and my mum was seriously ill, so there was a lot of juggling.
That made me empathetic towards other people. I think you can go one of two ways. My personal experiences made me ask the people working for me, ‘Why do you have to disappear at four o’clock every Tuesday? Oh, you have to collect your children. I understand.’
That isn’t just about women. Men’s resilience in the workforce can also be affected by what’s happening around them. We can reach a point where women’s efforts to build resilience sometimes affect men in the wrong way.
My experiences have made me empathetic and very aware of other people’s needs. That, in turn, has built my resilience because you feel good when you know your employees or your team feel good and supported.
It makes me go to bed thinking, ‘Well done, Kate. You hit the mark with what was important.’ By that point, whatever I was up against becomes less significant.
Jason Foster:
You’ve built the environment you wish you’d had in those earlier years.
Slightly off-topic, I always wonder whether the only way to build resilience is to experience some hard knocks that force you to develop it. If we protect everybody too much, they may not build the muscles that allow them to deal with situations where they need to show resilience.
I’ve also seen a natural resilience in children. You expect them to struggle with certain situations, but they come through them just fine. Is that your view? You obviously don’t want to put people in difficult situations simply to build their resilience, but perhaps it’s something they need to develop so they’re more resilient later.
Kate Boyle:
Yes, I agree.
I believe in leading with laughter. Laughter is something the workforce can sometimes lack these days. People are unsure and don’t know where the line is. I don’t agree with people crossing that line, but there’s nothing like a good chuckle when everything is going wrong and you need to find a way forward.
It’s about laughing with each other, not at each other. I think that’s hugely important.
I have a 26-year-old daughter and a 28-year-old son. They think I’m a real feminist, which I am, but I think that carries certain negative connotations for the younger generation.
I recently heard the phrase ‘generational trauma’, and I think it’s true. I’ve built my resilience, so I look at my daughter and my nine-year-old granddaughter and think, ‘I don’t want the same things to happen to you further down the line.’
They say, ‘Chill out, Mum. I don’t see it the way you see it.’ They’re entering organisations that have already done much of the hard work for their employees, so they don’t see it in the same way.
It’s an interesting generational divide. I want to keep going. I don’t want there to be bias or a glass ceiling, and I want to see more female leaders. But I also recognise that it isn’t as important to the younger generation because they aren’t feeling it. Where is the fine line?
Jason Foster:
There is a fine line between educating people about what life used to be, because traces of that don’t always disappear, and educating them about something they may never perceive or experience.
It’s brilliant if they don’t experience any of what you had to put up with.
18:45 — Culture, inclusion and career progression
Jason Foster:
You said organisations have already done much of the hard work to remove some of those issues. What have you seen organisations do to achieve that?
Kate Boyle:
They’ve put mechanisms in place that can protect staff from all angles, not only in relation to gender but also sexuality, race and other characteristics.
People have become much more aware of what is and isn’t acceptable in the workplace. I have views on all of that, but they’re not for here.
The word ‘culture’ is huge in many organisations, and we’re now very quick to call out those that don’t have a healthy culture. I think that’s a great thing.
To look at the opposite side, where I think organisations still need to do more work, I don’t believe the leadership path is clear. Many organisations don’t explain the stepping stones into promotion or the next level, or what’s required of you. I don’t think they stick to those paths either.
I mentor a lot of people, and I’m watching them experience organisations’ tick-box exercises. An organisation has to meet a quota when interviewing for a role. It already knows who it will appoint, but it has to tick a box by including women and people of different races.
As we move towards AI sifting through CVs, I think we’re in real danger of failing to treat our talent properly within organisations.
From my perspective, I have a particularly strong view about women being used to tick boxes. I’ve been given criteria where people say, ‘You can interview those five men, but where are your two women?’ I reply, ‘Those two women don’t have the skills.’ They tell me, ‘You have to interview them.’
That makes women, and I imagine anyone else, feel a certain way. I don’t want to be used. Organisations still have a long way to go in supporting their talent, but I think they’re getting there.
Jason Foster:
That’s important, whether we’re talking about sex, age, gender or anything else. How do we treat individuals within an organisation and build organisations where people can genuinely thrive?
That usually starts with strong leadership. I don’t necessarily mean hierarchical leadership or position, but a real desire to lead an organisation towards becoming better and more resilient, dealing with different people, including the right people in conversations, and building a culture that is fair, honest, open and empathetic.
That can be rejected corporately through some form of organisational DNA, but it often starts with leadership.
22:09 — Learning how to lead
Kate Boyle:
I completely agree. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked to sit on a leadership team because I’m a woman, and I really object to that. Put me on the leadership team because you want my leadership skills, not simply because I’m female.
But let’s play devil’s advocate. Being a leader isn’t easy, and you can’t get everything right. We’re putting a lot on leadership, perhaps too much.
That can create a dangerous culture where even the leadership is trying to be led by people who don’t understand. It’s a knock-on effect.
I love to be led by people who understand me and take the time to do so. I want leaders who don’t simply want me to do whatever they say, but want me to do something for the right outcome.
I stay close to leaders like that. If I find myself with a leader who simply wants me to do what they want, that’s the end of it. I’ll exit left. It isn’t for me.
I learn how to lead people from how I want to be led.
Jason Foster:
That’s one of the things that shapes a great leader. You select the things you liked from different managers and people you’ve worked with: how somebody operated, walked into a room or dealt with a particular situation.
You try to create that ‘super person’ who can do all the things you’ve witnessed over your career. As you become a manager and a leader, run teams and lead programmes and projects, you try to apply those lessons. But it’s hard. You have to work at it, like exercising a muscle at the gym.
Kate Boyle:
It doesn’t come easily.
The best leaders I’ve ever had haven’t expected me to be perfect. That’s a really important point for people as they progress through their careers.
If I look at myself at 30 or 35, I felt I had to be perfect all the time. I couldn’t miss a deadline. I couldn’t leave work early to collect my children because I had to finish something, and it had to be 100 per cent perfect. I kept going and going.
It was only when I reached my 40s that I realised nobody can achieve perfection all day, 100 per cent of the time.
For me, it’s really important to have a leader who says, ‘It’s OK to fail, Kate.’ I like to do that for my teams. Just get us to 80 per cent. If we’re at 80 per cent and I know what comes next, it doesn’t matter if we’ve missed a deadline. It matters, but as long as you give me a way forward, don’t destroy yourself trying to get there. Nobody’s health is worth that.
Leaders are under pressure, and leaders naturally apply pressure. You end up with this melting pot of egos. How do we keep people honest without forcing them to strive for perfection?
Jason Foster:
Philosophically, perfection is only your own standard. You’re managing towards a level of perfection you’ve defined. If you’ve defined perfection through deadlines, timelines and milestones, that’s a self-imposed standard.
If you’re working at full capacity for sustained periods, that becomes challenging. As a leader, it isn’t always easy to make sure everyone has the perfect balance of workload and capacity.
There are things that must be achieved, dates that must be met and challenges that must be overcome. It’s everybody’s responsibility to be open, honest and flexible, to take the rough with the smooth and find as much smooth as possible.
Kate Boyle:
I love that: find as much smooth as possible.
26:47 — The pressure of the AI race
Kate Boyle:
This is where I struggle with AI: the race that leaders are running towards it.
I’ve been in the industry for a long time. I recognise what we’re trying to achieve, why we’re trying to get there and why organisations need it quickly. At the end of the day, it’s about the bottom line.
But you aren’t going to achieve AI perfection any time soon. It simply isn’t going to happen when you account for the ethical, fairness and financial considerations.
I’m watching leadership roles appear where organisations want a unicorn. I feel for data leaders, AI leaders and technology leaders because where is the middle ground? We need to take this more slowly to reach the right outcome.
Being a true data person, I suppose, I can see that none of these organisations are data-ready, or very few are. They’re going to spend a lot of money and waste time when they could invest that money in getting their data right and achieving the right outcome.
Leadership in our industry is changing daily. I don’t understand how leaders in this space are going to lead because the challenge is simply too great.
Jason Foster:
Is that because of the newness and the rapid pace of change?
Kate Boyle:
Yes, and because we’re seeing shiny, exciting things being done every day in the AI space, whether that’s GenAI or agentic AI.
Even as somebody working in the industry, I sit with my phone every day and think, ‘What just happened?’ A computer can persuade me that something I factually know is true is actually untrue because ChatGPT is telling me I’m wrong.
Apply that to the workplace. I can understand CEOs and the C-suite asking, ‘Why can’t we have what that organisation has? It has just made them billions of dollars or pounds.’
We’re sitting there as leaders saying, ‘Yes, but I can’t do that,’ and they don’t want to hear why. Fundamentally, I don’t have the data, skills, team, budget, mandate or support.
You want me to give you the unicorn, but you aren’t going to let me explain why it isn’t a unicorn. I actually need a bear, a lion and something else. You understand what I’m trying to say. I see these roles becoming unachievable.
Jason Foster:
It’s a fascinating challenge. On the one hand, you can understand the aspiration and expectation that come from seeing all this magic happen in the palm of your hand when a CEO talks to a bot about solving a problem.
On the other hand, there are new skills, technologies, ways of thinking and ways of working. They’re similar to what came before, but also subtly or fundamentally different.
There’s a tension: we want it, we want it now and we want to move quickly, although we aren’t always sure why. But there is work to do, whether that’s data work or AI work.
Kate Boyle:
That tension has been building for years in this space. You’re either a data team or you’re now an analytics and AI team.
I see many data leaders backing down considerably and thinking, ‘Unless I get on this bandwagon or move to this side of the camp, there isn’t really a place for me in this world.’
But eventually there has to be. We go through cycles in data, don’t we, Jason? I call it the three-year chicken dance, or whatever you want to call it.
We go along one path and then say, ‘No, let’s go over here and try this way of doing data. Let’s migrate data. No, don’t migrate data.’ We’ve been through huge differences during these cycles.
I’m concerned that we could damage what AI might become if we rush it. It has to be done fairly, ethically and sensibly.
Going back to our discussion about being a female leader, if you ask ChatGPT to show you a data leader, I can guarantee it will be a man. Ask it to show you a data engineer, and I can guarantee it will be a man. Ask it to show you a data scientist, and I can guarantee it will be a man.
I know what I’m looking at is factually incorrect, but how do I change that bias? Is the only way to change it by feeding more data into the problem? Is that the right outcome? I don’t know.
Jason Foster:
At least you’re aware that this is happening.
Returning to how we build and lead teams and organisations, we need an awareness that this might be a deficiency in the solution we’re building. How do we prevent it from becoming an issue in a solution we deploy to our employees, customers or partners?
We don’t want to cause reputational damage, complaints or something else that harms the business. There isn’t a switch we can flick to fix it, but leaders have to drive the response.
Kate Boyle:
We’re seeing that happen. A year ago, they would have been data governance roles. Now they’re AI governance roles. We’re seeing AI risk and control libraries rather than data risk and control libraries. Ethics committees are being established, and the rules of the road are being laid out.
It will be interesting to see what comes out of Andy Burnham. We’re hearing all those rumours, so how will that change the landscape?
I think leaders and the C-suite are beginning to understand. I feel hopeful and positive that we’ll eventually reach the point where everybody agrees and says, ‘Yes, this is the right way to do it.’
In my private life, it infuriates me when people say, ‘Yes, but ChatGPT told me this.’ I think, ‘You’re a grown human being. You know that isn’t the case.’ I hope the world becomes increasingly aware of the dangers.
Jason Foster:
As people become accustomed to it and use it more, they’ll discover the boundaries: where it’s good, where it isn’t so good, where it helps and where it doesn’t.
I always think you should treat your own ChatGPT like a person. You wouldn’t always ask the same person for the same advice, listen to everything they say or simply copy what they tell you and send it to somebody else.
We’ve become a little confused about how much we should listen to these things.
34:28 — Balancing AI’s promise and risks
Jason Foster:
Let’s switch the framing on AI for a moment.
Thinking about what we’ve learnt over the years, the mistakes and challenges we’ve experienced, how those have shaped you as a leader and what creates fair and just organisations, is AI a good tool to help us continue along that positive path and fix some of these issues?
Or does it carry a danger of reversing the improvements made over the past 10, 20 or 30 years?
Kate Boyle:
Let’s start with the negative. I think there’s a danger that it could unwind all the phenomenal data work that’s happened in every organisation since the financial meltdown.
Organisations suddenly realised, ‘We don’t know what data we have, how critical it is, what we need to do with it or its quality.’ Those are important considerations for every organisation.
‘Data-driven decisions’ became a buzzword, but the data industry demonstrated how necessary they were. There’s a chance AI could undermine all that work if we rush too quickly.
Having said that, I look at some of the AI tools coming out now and think, ‘How can you not get behind this?’ It’s exciting and fresh. It’s changing lives and changing how the world turns.
I imagine it’s similar to when computers first appeared. You can’t help but get excited about it.
But when you work in our industry, lead within it and understand the implications of what can go wrong, the responsibility weighs increasingly heavily on your shoulders. Before you know it, you’re being a negative Nellie and saying, ‘No, don’t do that.’
It returns to the point about resilience: being able to see the wood for the trees, understand what’s good and bad, and decide how we’re going to get there.
Jason Foster:
As we wrap up the episode, there is a challenging, potentially dystopian path that we don’t want to follow.
We want to improve and simplify our lives, and support people and teams. Given the risks, the weight of responsibility and the danger of leaving AI unchecked, what will the best leaders do differently?
Based on everything you’ve learnt and everything we’ve discussed, what do leaders need to do?
37:25 — What leaders should do next
Kate Boyle:
They need to have a very clear business mandate and use case defining what they’re trying to achieve, rather than rushing towards solutions that won’t make a fundamental difference or could expose them.
They need a sound business case, use case and outcome-based model.
All organisations should quickly establish AI policies, AI governance, and AI risk and control libraries. In any AI story, they also need to be extremely clear about the data behind it.
It shouldn’t be, ‘You need to do the data.’ It has to be, ‘I can only do this if you give me the funding to make sure the data is in place.’
They must recognise the technical and data debt they probably have and identify the sensible point at which to stop, start afresh and return to that debt later.
I want to see more controls, more governance and more managed decisions. That’s what the next generation of leadership should focus on.
Jason Foster:
It’s about keeping people protected and safe, and helping us make strong, good decisions. From a governance perspective, that enables rather than restricts.
With the North Star of a business mandate and proper use cases, you can focus on the outcomes those data use cases are intended to achieve.
Your final point is about the underpinning data: supporting strong AI with powerful, clean data sets and all the other things data leaders have discussed for years. Those foundations are necessary for business intelligence, analytics and insights, and they’re also required for AI.
I love that.
What a rapid journey through your life, career and the things you’ve learnt. We’ve talked about your family, jobs, challenges and some of the interesting teams you’ve built.
It’s been fascinating to have you on the show and talk through all of that. I think you’ve offered some good advice for people thinking about leadership and how they can create fairer organisations that are better than those that came before.
I appreciate you coming on the show, Kate. Thank you.
Kate Boyle:
I’ve loved it. Thanks very much for having me.
