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Welcome to The Executive Exchange, a premier podcast series for on-the-go senior executives. Each episode features short, impactful podcasts where industry leaders share key insights and experiences from the water industry.
[00:00:00] Piers Clark: Welcome to the Exec Exchange, 15-minute podcast in which a leader from the water sector shares a story to inspire, inform, and educate other water sector leaders around the globe.
[00:00:09] Piers Clark: My name is Piers Clark, and my guest today is Dr. Sarah McMath, Chief Executive at MOSL. Sarah, wonderful to have you with us.
[00:00:17] Sarah McMath: Good morning.
[00:00:18] Piers Clark: Now, we're gonna be talking today about women in water. This is the second podcast in a sort of little series about that. But before we get to that, let's start with your background. Can you give me the potted history of your past?
[00:00:30] Sarah McMath: Like many other people I know in the water sector, I fell into water by accident. I did a microbiology degree, and then joined Thames Water doing a doctorate program. Genuinely thought I'd be there for four years, didn't necessarily expect to be caught up with the water bug.
[00:00:45] Sarah McMath: But I absolutely loved it. Started off in water quality, moved to frontline wastewater operations. Found myself in asset management. I was the Head of Asset Management for Thames Water, and at that point, I had a team of nearly 1,000 people.
[00:01:02] Sarah McMath: And I was asked by the then CEO to go and lead a price control, PR14, in strategy and regulation. I asked my then director, who happened to be a Dr. Piers Clark, would it be a career limiting move- ... if I said, "No, thank you." I was told quite firmly that, " Don't be so silly. This is a great opportunity."
So I found myself in a completely different role with a very small budget, and working with a group of regulatory economists who honestly could not have been more different to me in terms of personality, background, and approach to work.
[00:01:41] Sarah McMath: It was probably the best career move I've ever made, I'll admit that now, Piers. Because what it taught me was that actually being successful in a role, being a leader, isn't about the number of people you lead. It's not about the budget that you have. What I had in that role was the ability to influence the future of the company I was working in.
[00:02:03] Sarah McMath: So I led the price control for PR14, learnt lots of new skills, then took on the role of Competition Director. The market was opening up so that business customers could choose their retailer. Same water, but they could choose who sold them that water. So I led Thames through that process. Then I was gonna leave. I think that was the right decision maybe at the time because I'd only ever worked for the same company, so I was looking outside.
[00:02:31] Piers Clark: And you'd been at Thames for how long at that stage?
[00:02:33] Sarah McMath: At that point, for 21 years. So I was working with the CEO, who was really supportive but said, " You're ready for the exec, but it's not healthy to work for the same company since you were 24." I'd basically grown up there.
[00:02:46] Sarah McMath: New CEO comes in and says completely the opposite, "No, I want you on my exec" and I probably, maybe should have moved at that point, but decided, oh, well, go on then. And I took on the role of Managing Director of Water. So I had full accountability for all of the water assets, operations, maintenance, health and safety, the innovation team which I'd started in. That was really cool. And I did that for two years before leaving in 2019. So at that point, I had been at Thames for 24 years.
[00:03:20] Sarah McMath: I had lots of advice to look outside the water industry, and I did but ended up back in the water industry in the role I do now as CEO of MOSL, which is a market operator for the non-household market that I helped Thames actually exit back in 2017, and I've been here for seven years now.
[00:03:39] Piers Clark: Wonderful. Anyone listening to that will have picked up that you've got an operational experience, you've got innovation experience, you've got asset management experience, you've got regulatory experience, you've been in senior management, you've been in frontline operations. Incredibly experienced.
[00:03:53] Piers Clark: Let's talk a little bit more about MOSL. So give me 90 seconds on what MOSL does so that people can understand precisely what this organization does.
[00:04:02] Sarah McMath: If you're a business customer in England, and there's 1.2 million of them, you can choose who sells you your water. That is about 32% of the water consumed in England. So businesses use a lot of water.
[00:04:16] Sarah McMath: And basically, our role as market operator is to ensure that the market operates in an efficient and effective way. So we manage everything from people entering the market. We run a system that runs settlement to tell retailers how much their customer owes to the water company.
[00:04:33] Sarah McMath: And we also get involved with a lot of work around water security, and recognizing that business water consumption is an opportunity to be part of the solution to future water scarcity.
[00:04:44] Piers Clark: And tell me the difference between you and Ofwat.
[00:04:48] Sarah McMath: So we're not a regulator. We are a trading party funded market operator.
[00:04:53] Sarah McMath: So water companies and retailers have an obligation to be part of a market operator, and basically, that's what our budget comes from. And we are completely independent of any regulator. But we do work closely with Ofwat.
[00:05:07] Piers Clark: Wonderful. So the conversation we want to have today is around women in water, and I get that the validity with which I can enter into this conversation is limited, being a middle-aged, white, balding male. But that doesn't stop me from being able to hopefully give you a platform to share your thoughts on this topic.
[00:05:26] Piers Clark: And let's start with women's networks. There are a few of them in the water sector. How important are they? How useful are they?
[00:05:32] Sarah McMath: Women's networks are something that, if I'm honest, I had a really bad attitude about early on in my career. Whilst I was pretty much always the only woman in the room, certainly in the ops roles, I was progressing pretty well. I never felt that I was discriminated against in a work environment for my gender. I had lots of horrible experiences as a result of my gender, but I was progressing well.
[00:05:58] Sarah McMath: And if I'm completely honest, the women's networks that I could see were quite militant, and I felt that women involved in those networks were actually discriminated against by my male peers as being a bit annoying, a bit shouty. And I'm embarrassed to say this now, Piers, but I think it is really important to admit that because I was actively disengaged.
That completely changed in 2014 when I went on a top flight course for women, and I recognized that actually I was a bit odd, in that I've never ever in my life felt I was lesser than my male peers. Partially that comes from being instilled by my mum, I didn't have that personal concern about whether or not I was good enough, and I recognize that even really senior women did.
[00:06:46] Sarah McMath: So my early engagement with women's network was simply that I felt a bit embarrassed that I wasn't supporting other women. Fast forward 12 years, I'm now on the board of Women in Utilities Networks, and I think women's networks are absolutely essential for women to progress and get that support from other women.
[00:07:07] Sarah McMath: Really important to connect women to other women.
[00:07:10] Sarah McMath: I had pretty awful experiences as a working mum returning after giving birth to my two children, who are now 24 and 22. If I'd have been part of a women's network at that time, I think I would have had a better time of it. I just battled on and pretended it was okay. And that was just what I had to do because I was sort of an interloper as a woman in a man's world.
[00:07:33] Sarah McMath: And then finally, where that came out best personally was when I went through the menopause and actually being able to talk to other women and realize I wasn't actually going insane. There was a physical reason for the fact that I was forgetting what I was saying in the middle of a work meeting was hugely personally supportive.
[00:07:52] Piers Clark: Now obviously you and I have worked together in the past. We worked as colleagues at Thames Water. And so I've had some experience of your management style, but I'd like to hear you explain how your management style has evolved and progressed over your career.
[00:08:07] Sarah McMath: Early on, my leadership style was one that I knew would get me promoted. And if I look back now, that wasn't necessarily my authentic leadership style. But I joined Thames pretty much straight from university, and I was quite good at observing and behaving in a way that would mean that I was meeting the characteristics that would get me promoted.
[00:08:30] Sarah McMath: I remember being probably about five years into my leadership career challenging something in a meeting that was all men, and I felt passionately about this. I was asking lots of questions, and I felt I was being fobbed off. And I remember my line manager just looking at me and folding his arms, sitting back, and smirking. And then just saying, " Oh, my goodness, Sarah, you need to stop being so emotional, because you will never be a leader in this company if you can't control your emotions."
[00:08:57] Sarah McMath: And instead of thinking, "You idiot," and carrying on, I didn't. I became less emotional. I became very constrained in the way in which I asked questions. I slowed my speech down. It's certainly not nerves but I was getting feedback that my fast speech was linked to emotions. So I started speaking slower.
[00:09:17] Sarah McMath: I even changed the way I dressed. I had a very horrible experience quite early on in my career where a senior person, touched me inappropriately. When I told my line manager about that, he just looked me up and down and said, "Well, you do wear quite short skirts" and, no, it wasn't a short skirt. It was a knee-length skirt. I even trained to be a football referee because I wanted to have something I could connect with the men in the group.
[00:09:43] Sarah McMath: Interestingly, that did change, not just when I left Thames, but when I moved to the strategy and regulation team, and I guess I had more breathing space because I built a team from scratch. I think that's when I started leading in a more authentic style.
[00:09:59] Sarah McMath: And now, the team I have in MOSL, we have 96 people, so it's a very small team compared to ones I've led in the past. But we are 50/50 on gender throughout our organization, compared to less than 30% in the water sector. And I'm really proud of the fact that 35% of our colleagues are not white British. So we are a very, very diverse, inclusive team.
[00:10:24] Sarah McMath: That means I lead in the way I'm comfortable with, which is about including people, listening to people, accepting different ideas.
[00:10:32] Piers Clark: Wonderful. Now, you've mentioned diversity, equality, and inclusion there.
[00:10:36] Piers Clark: And of course, they're all important. So let's talk about that.
[00:10:39] Sarah McMath: I've done a lot of work on EDI, both in MOSL but also within the Institute of Water, I've led on a number of EDI conferences.
[00:10:47] Sarah McMath: There's no doubt that the data, the evidence, tells us that diverse teams make better decisions, but I don't think you lead on diversity. You don't look at, "Okay, I have to have a diverse team. I need to have 50/50." So we have had no targets in MOSL.
[00:11:03] Sarah McMath: What we have done is develop a culture that is inclusive, where people can be their best self every day at work. And comment from one of my colleagues after she'd led a workshop on neurodiversity, is by being herself at work, she can thrive rather than just survive in the workplace.
[00:11:23] Sarah McMath: That's cool ' cause she's not trying to behave in a more acceptable way. She's just being a brilliant data person every single day. So if you have that inclusive culture, I genuinely think diversity follows, because people will join because they can be themselves.
[00:11:41] Piers Clark: I suspect I know the answer to this but let me play devil's advocate. So the danger with having diverse teams, as opposed to having someone who might be being a bit alpha male at the head saying, "This is the direction we're going in. Follow me."
[00:11:54] Piers Clark: Do you run the risk of having things run by committee ?
[00:11:58] Sarah McMath: I would completely acknowledge it's actually harder to lead diverse teams than it is to lead a team of people who are all like you. It's much easier to have a group of people who think you're great, who think like you, who tell you you're great, and they do what you tell them. That's really easy. You don't make the best decisions when you have that sort of team.
[00:12:17] Sarah McMath: So I think leading diverse teams, people who are different to you and sometimes people you don't actually like, is really important because I think you make better decisions.
[00:12:27] Sarah McMath: Sometimes I make the wrong decisions. So I, as a leader, I need people around me who will slow me down, who will tell me I'm wrong, which not many people tell a CEO, but it's really important.
[00:12:39] Sarah McMath: So that diversity, and that's not just about gender, that's about all elements of diversity, genuinely means you make better decisions.
[00:12:48] Piers Clark: So imagine I'm a manager listening to this and I've just had an epiphany moment listening to that, going, "Oh my God, I haven't got enough of that. How would I start on that journey of moving from being a frontline alpha male type leader to one that was much more diverse and inclusive?"
[00:13:04] Piers Clark: What advice would you give me?
[00:13:07] Sarah McMath: I would say two things. One, when you're recruiting, be demanding of whoever's supporting you in that recruitment, whether it's internal recruitment or headhunters, and do not accept an all white male shortlist.
[00:13:21] Sarah McMath: So early on in my role at MOSL, I was recruiting and I got this shortlist, and I said to the headhunters, " These are all white men." He said, "Oh, do you want women on the list?" I don't think I should have to ask for women, and I don't think I should have to ask for people of color. So be demanding of whoever is supporting you on recruitment.
[00:13:38] Sarah McMath: And then secondly: listen. Ask people. You've said, Piers, you're a white, middle-aged, balding man. And you are actively engaging with women to understand something that you haven't personally experienced. So I'd also say talk to people. Genuinely listen to other people's views rather than assuming you know how they're feeling.
[00:14:02] Piers Clark: Sarah, that's wonderful. Unfortunately, we are running out of time. I'd like to finish by asking you what advice would you give an individual joining the water sector today, 24, is gonna be here for another 40 years, what advice would you give them ?
[00:14:17] Sarah McMath: Ignore the negative stories and what you see in the press, and focus in actually what is the coolest sector in the world to work in. Because whatever you do in the water sector, at the heart of it, you're stopping people dying of cholera. And without clean, safe drinking water and basic sanitation, there can be no society.
[00:14:39] Sarah McMath: You have to be able to ignore that noise, or to engage with it and to accept it's part of being in the water sector.
[00:14:49] Piers Clark: You have been listening to the Exec Exchange with me, Piers Clark, and my guest today is Dr. Sarah McMath, Chief Executive at MOSL.
[00:14:57] Piers Clark: Thank you to our sponsors, and until next time, keep asking questions, keep sharing, and keep safe.