For Skin Analytics’ Commercial Director Rachael Dovey, the journey to healthcare leadership has been an unexpected one. In fact, you might say it has been decidedly atypical. “It wasn’t a traditional journey. In a lot of ways, it was a twist of fate, really.” It was 2009, in the midst of the global recession, and Rachael was being interviewed by a recruiter to become a pharmaceutical rep “I knew I wanted to get into the industry - my mum was a pharmaceutical rep - but this was at the time where you needed to be a grad, or have two decades of experience to get in. And I had neither. I didn’t get put forward”. 

Fast forward a few years and Rachael was interviewing with a recruitment agency. Half-way through the conversation, the recruiter realised that she’d gone into the wrong room, and I wasn’t a pharma rep, I was in manufacturing at the time“. She said, ‘I think you’re the wrong person but you’re really interesting, can we keep talking because I know someone who’s going to like you’, and that was it really.” Rachael got the job (with Ottobock) and a decade on, found herself working for Skin Analytics, who use their advanced AI Medical Device, DERM, to identify skin cancer and improve the patient journey on the cancer pathway. 

Rachael’s journey into leadership was not one she predicted, however. “I was really happy with the job I was doing at Skin Analytics, and never in my entire career did I think I’d be in a leadership position.” She reflected on why she had no expectation of a leadership role: “I guess I thought I didn’t have a face that I saw most female leaders have, and I was happy just being a really strong contributor.” But when the team were creating a new sales process to take their product to the NHS, she went to Neil Daly, the CEO of Skin Analytics, “and I said that our approach wasn’t working And Neil really backed me, he told me that I knew what we should be doing and therefore I should be building and leading the team to do it.”

Rachael now realises that her lack of expectation for any kind of leadership role “was a kind of self-limiting belief. Because I didn’t see other women like me – working-class background, not university-educated- in those leadership roles. But what I’ve realised is that though I’m different, that’s what makes me, and I shouldn’t change anything.  I’m good at what I do and I’m happy doing it.”

However, she’s quick to admit that she thinks the landscape of health tech has changed for the better since she entered it 10 years ago, noting that she is now seeing different women in a variety of different spaces across the sector. But she’s adamant that there’s still more to be done: “I want to see more of the non-standard journeys, more women that have taken an apprenticeship approach, rather than academic, MBAs and management programmes.” 

In terms of how we enact this change, Rachael sees it as a collective effort. “Neil, our CEO and founder, puts exceptional faith in me even when I don’t have it in myself. So, while I think it’s important that women lift other women up, men can also play a big part in this and be a big help in this campaign for change.” She views Neil as a mentor on her journey. The most important lesson he imparted to her was “Stop waiting to feel ready. You are never going to feel ready to take on whatever you need to take on, particularly from a leadership perspective. So, you’ve just got to make that leap.” 

Rachael ended the conversation by reflecting on her hopes for the next 10 years. “10 years ago, female health basically just meant reproductive, gynaecological, birthing and so on. And while I’m not saying erectile dysfunction isn’t difficult psychologically - it’s a billion-dollar industry - yet it’s not painful. Whereas you look at endometriosis, which is exceptionally painful to experience, and there’s nothing comparable. But people are waking up to this. I think we’re stepping into a world that is no longer tolerant of that imbalance.” 

And so how do we address the imbalance? “What we need is more women in the spaces, starting the companies doing the research, being on the boards and being funded. That's what we need to make the step change. It's not good enough to just identify there's a gap. We need women to lead that space too.” As for what motivates this desire for change, in society and for Rachael personally - “it’s about making a better world.”