Speaker: Charlotte Goodwill, CEO, The ITP
Tell us about your job and what it involves
Charlotte Goodwill: I'm Charlotte Goodwill, the CEO of the ITP or the Institute of Telecommunications Professionals. We've been around for a number of years originally established in 1906. So we have long represented the views of the telecoms industry in our sector through our members and our partners. My role involves quite a lot obviously, apart aside from the day to day activities of being a CEO and running an organisation and looking after our members and ensuring that they all have the opportunities for their own professional development. and a main driving force for me and a main focus for me is on redefining the telecoms industry championing equal opportunities, building a diverse, inclusive and sustainable workforce for the future and creating pathways for underrepresented groups, breaking down those barriers, ensuring everyone has the equal opportunities to thrive in our sector. We do a lot around getting more females into the industry trying to make the telecoms sector more attractive. Speaking with schools, colleges and universities, local councils, job centres and so on to try and get more and more people into work, but also into a career where they can really thrive. Our industry relies now on bridging the skills gap. And if we don't, it's quite scary at what the future might look like for our sector without the talent and with, without the skills, especially with the ageing workforce that we are currently seeing and experiencing and a lack of younger people entering the workforce or leaving not long after. So, through our apprenticeships and membership programs and career development initiatives, I'm essentially my role is to empower people to unlock their full potential and to make sure that they have the right tools and the right mentors and the right support to be able to really succeed in this industry.
What do you enjoy most about your job / the sector?
Charlotte Goodwill: In terms of my job, I love being an advocate for things like early careers and diversity and inclusion and giving people opportunities regardless of where they've been or what they've been through or what their circumstances might be and believing in them that they can achieve and they will achieve and it's just having that support and that investment. And I really thrive from that. I thrive from making a difference. I thrive from changing people's lives and being the reason that someone's been able to turn a corner or create a new path or they've gone against the status quo or they've become someone that they never thought they could be and someone that they love and someone they want to be. And I love, I love that and that's a part of my everyday role here at the ITP. I get that feeling every day. Someone to pass their apprenticeship or someone would have just gone to an amazing to an event that we've hosted or learned something new from their mentor that we've matched them up with. Then we get the feedback and it's just like we've done something good. We've changed their life a little bit more today and as cheesy as that might sound like that is literally why we do what we do, we wouldn't do it for any other reason. And to me that's the, the most I want out of a job. That's, that's it for me when you feel like you're making an impact, I think you've got the job that you should be in and you should continue that and just keep doing what you're doing. And that's why I'm here and why I keep doing what I do no matter how tough it can be sometimes.
What would you like people to know about working in telecoms and connectivity?
Charlotte Goodwill: I think the word telecoms is, is quite an unattractive word. I don't think people really understand, especially younger people what telecoms really means and the wide range of opportunities that are available in telecoms and connectivity and what it relates to. I think I would love more people to know that telecoms isn't your green box at the end of the street. It is everything that we do and use every single day. It's the ability to pick up our phones and call our loved ones in Australia, the other side of the world. It's the, it's the ability to turn on your Playstation and play games all day. It's the ability to stream programmes and watch your favourite shows and have Netflix and all of those great things that we take for granted every single day. And when you're not, when you're without it, that's when you notice the impact. I live in a house where right next to an army camp, very rubbish signal and it's not until you're trying to search for something on Google Maps outside your house or you're walking down the road or you're doing something which naturally would just be a thing. It would just be easy to access, something easy to do. And you, you're lost all of a sudden and I experience that where I am now, I experience that when I'm in my garden and I can't connect to anything. I experience that when I'm out the front of my house and there's no connection, there's no 4G, there's no 5G. I can't, I can't do anything. And that's what telecoms and connectivity is all about. It's about connecting us to each other, allowing us to do things that never, at one point would never have been imaginable. Allowed us to access information that would have taken ages to access before we'd have to go to a local library or we would never have known. And we have so much access to information, so much luxury. And I want people to know that having that and having that connectivity and telecoms is the reason for that.
