We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Patricia Manley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Patricia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

For more than 20 years I have been leaving outside of my home country building a professional career in a field where being a woman, immigrant, with an accent and looking rather different than the Tech women stereotype left me feeling undervalued, not worthy and with low self-esteem. Silently I was suffering of chronic stress but it was until I left my previous job that I suffered the consequences in my body (I was holding too much and my body just gave up of the constant fight flying mode I was living in) and that was the point where I decided that something needed to change inside of me. I put together all my professional “war scars”, lessons learnt and tools and I built a new version of myself that help me becoming the Tech leader I am right now.

With time and little by little Other people like me (immigrant, with an accent and different to the crowd) started asking how I could help them get ahead too. I started helping friends and people around me with their career and I realised that there wasn’t a lot of people helping immigrant latinas especially in Europe where it’s hard to find someone that could identify with our culture and believe.

And that’s how I began my career coaching business, while still climbing to the top of my profession. I wanted to help professional Latinas that are feeling stuck in their career to gain the confidence they need to move themselves to the next level because I believe we need more women in leadership positions and want to help women reach the top with me

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Patricia Manley defines herself as a mum, a lover of technology, passionate about well-being and supporting other immigrant women on their way. A Systems Engineer that came to the UK more than a decade ago to learn English, but soon fell in love with the country and decided to stay.
With over 20 years of experience in the world of technology, she is currently working as a Head of the Agile Delivery Unit at Joyn, a German video streaming company.
Patricia also enjoys showing what is possible for immigrant women in her podcast I am Mantuana where she shares the stories of others inspirational women that are successful in other lands. With the experience of living in 4 different countries, breaking stereotypes, coaching teams and individuals around the world she decided to run her own career confidence coaching program for immigrant latina women, while still climbing to the top of her profession helping them to gain the confidence they need to go for the next level in their profession
Mum of 2, her biggest challenge has been to bring up her neurodiverse son, showing him that it is possible to have a successful life and being an advocate about neurodiversity to make the world a place more inclusive and aware of the invisible disabilities.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

For me one of the lessons I’ve unlearnt was the reluctance to claim my own achievements. Since very little we learn that we should be humble, quiet and wait for others to notice about us because that is the way that “good girls” behave. This story was running in my head for many years and in the mean time I was noticing how other male counterparts were getting the promotion, the opportunities and the recognition. It was until I started to observe how those people were making themselves noticeable that I realised the mistake I was making. It took a lot of work to change the mind set but little by little I have been working towards feeling proud of my achievement and showing my value without shrinking them

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

To build authority on the field I think it is important to be the example first. To be the one with the “war scars” capable of telling people “I know how it feels”., “I was there before” and showing yourself as the person that overcome them so people can feel related to your story and trust.

Also networking online or offline are the primary sources of your potential users. Sharing your knowledge in as many outlets possible via social media, in podcast, in community meetings, groups or events it helps to create the reputation you need until there is a point where people start to remember you when someone mentioned the line of work you are in. That is the moment where the word of mouth advertising starts and you turn into the “expert” on the subject, the reference for it

Contact Info:

• Website: www.la-mantuana.com
• Instagram: @lamantuanauk
• Facebook: @lamantuanauk
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/patricia-manley

Image Credits
Photos taken by Louise Adolphsen from Brand Yourself photography