Podcast S8E4 | How Hollywood Turns GRC into a Story Worth Telling

TRANSCRIPT

Kimberley Cole 0:01
This is Risky Women Radio, a show that connects, celebrates and champions women in risk regulation and compliance. We’re here to share the insights on the biggest issues in our industry and hear inspiring journeys from our global members. Sign up to our newsletter at riskywomen.org. I’m Kimberley Cole, your Chief Risky Woman.

Kimberley Cole 0:23
Welcome to Risky Women Radio. Today’s risky woman is Elaine Mullan, Head of Marketing and Business Development at Corlytics, and she is based in Manchester in the UK. So let me give a quick introduction to Elaine, and then we will get on with the conversation. So Elaine Mullan, as I said, Head of Marketing and Business Development at Corlytics, she’s leading all the growth initiatives and the go to market strategies. She has got a couple of decades experience across various FinTech, Infotech and RegTech firms, so she’s got a lot of knowledge in our arena. And aside from her day job, she is passionate about mentoring and supporting women in tech. So I’m super excited to talk to you today. Elaine, welcome.

Elaine Mullan 1:06
Thank you. Gosh, you make me sound quite fabulous. So what a great start.

Kimberley Cole 1:12
And the other, of course, accolade that you have is that you were one of our top three winners in our Risky Women Write competition last year, which was our inaugural competition, and it was so brilliant just to see the range of interesting topics that were covered and the different perspectives and insights on just so many different areas of risk, compliance, governance, sustainability, you name it we had it. And I absolutely loved yours because I thought it was very relatable to a really broad audience. And the title was How Hollywood Turns GRC into a Story Worth Telling, and that’s what we’re going to get into a bit later, but I want to kick off first and hear more about your career journey. So give us a sort of journey, and what were some of your highlights along the way.

Elaine Mullan 2:10
So like many people, had a bumpy, curvy journey. It’s very trendy these days to talk about having a squiggly career, and I guess mine’s had a few squiggles and bumps along the way. Because actually, although I work for a regulatory technology company, my background is marketing, and I’ve spent really about the last 20 odd years and sort of FinTech and RegTech space. Originally, I actually trained in fashion design. There you go. There’s a little change into where you move. But actually realized that really, I was never going to be good enough to make a career of it, so I decided to pivot out of that. And I was very lucky. I joined a company. They, I was given the opportunity to sort of then start third level studies in marketing. So that was sort of change. And then I think I wrote a piece, actually, recently on this for LinkedIn, saying I am, like many people, an accidental expert. Because what happens is, you keep doing what you do, and you hope you get it right, and sometimes you do and sometimes it’s wrong, and you tweak and you change, and you grow, and you get older, and you whatever. And actually, at some stage, you realize, actually, I’m quite good at this, and I know my space. I know where I can operate well, and I know better how to work with teams and big companies and small companies, and I’ve been around the block a few times. So really, I think I’ve ended up at this stage of thinking I’m sort of an accidental expert in my field, and I guess that’s really how I got there. And in terms of doing the podcast today, I mean, I’m not a believer in the whole imposter syndrome. I think there’s just moments of fear we have in a room. And I’m sure I’ve seen you speak, and I’m sure that moment you get up out of your chair and you turn around to face all the women expectantly looking at you for you have that, maybe that slight moment thinking, I hope this goes okay, and it does. And I think that when this came up about podcast, whatever, about writing, it felt very vulnerable. It feels very vulnerable to speak to you, because I don’t really feel I’m a risky woman, and that’s why it feels quite vulnerable. But I do accept that, especially now, when there’s a lot of talk of diversity and inclusion, what’s happening and not happening, I actually think the more voices in the room, the better, because we get a better spread and thought process. So yeah, and when the writing competition came up, so I entered a writing competition for, I write a lot for work and stuff, and the reason I actually entered was I fancied membership, and we’d nothing in our budget for membership at that time. And I thought, this would be brilliant. And I thought, I wonder, would you even accept my piece? I thought it says that membership comes free with it. So I thought, well, I’ll give it a whirl. And the day they were announced the winners, I tuned in because I was really interested to know who’d win this writing competition, because it was such a sort of a novel idea. And when my name came out, I literally froze. And I think on screen, I was going, me, thinking, there must be another Elaine Mullan somewhere. So it was rather extraordinary, I have to say, Yeah, because it was really out of my usual way I work, or what I do. So that was it. So quite a highlight of my career, really. In a way. So, yeah, it was fantastic. Yeah.

Kimberley Cole 5:02
That’s great. That’s really great. And I think you got some excellent feedback from all of the judges. And I think a lot of it was, as I said, that sort of bridging the gap and making some of these governance, risk and compliance themes accessible to a broader audience, which is always great.

Elaine Mullan 5:20
Yeah, indeed.

Kimberley Cole 5:22
So I love the squiggly career and wow. Fashion Design to compliance, that’s a real reinvention.

Elaine Mullan 5:30
Few bumps along the way!

Kimberley Cole 5:32
And the accidental expert, that’s a cool term as well. So I’ll have to put a link to that article in as well. So tell us more about your role now at Corlytics, and what are the sort of key things that you’re focusing on.

Elaine Mullan 5:45
So I’ve been with Corlytics just over four years, and it has changed in four years incredibly. I think we were 40 or 50 people when I joined. I think we’re 150 today, and a lot of that growth has been over the last about 12 to 24 months with acquisitions of technology and firms. So ING Spark, Clausematch. So the growth has been huge. And then taking in VC funding from Verdane, which is our VC company, it has been absolutely incredible the growth. But my role is still, it’s head of marketing and business development. So I very much sit on the new business side of the business, and I work very closely with sales. And so my role covers both the sort of looking at how we’re positioning ourselves, looking at new markets having to stretch into markets where we don’t currently have any offices, such as Asia. So we have clients in Asia now, but we have no office there at the moment. They’re not easy to do at times. They’re really challenging. And that’s the excitement always. The excitement is doing things that you actually when you started off, you had no idea if you could really do it. So I’m a great believer in set off and make it happen. Because actually, sometimes talking about it won’t move the dial at all. So I’m believer in just getting stuck in and doing it. So that’s a lot of my role now. And then. I also work on things like I do write thought leadership for the company, and work on talk to our partners, and what kind of all the usual things that come really with a marketing role, events. It’s marketing, but for regulatory technology. So it’s a very specific space, because it’s relatively new. I don’t know when the term was first coined, maybe 15 years ago. Perhaps, I don’t know, but when I worked in FinTech first, I don’t think FinTech existed as it so that portmanteau, I think it was probably just called technology for banks or something. I don’t know. So each time it changes, and I think, you know, one of the things about RegTechs is an awful lot of them are really they’re relatively small companies, and yet their customers are often really big giants, they’re payments companies, they’re banks, whatever. So it’s a really interesting space to be in. I think a lot of us in reg tech kind of know each other because we bump into each other at events. And I think we probably have all struggled over the years with trying to really not just create a space for our own company that we work for, but about RegTech itself, it’s kind of a new thing to put out, and that has, I think, remains, sometimes, a struggle that we still bump into people who have never heard of this term. So I’m doing both. I’m working for the whole sector and for Corlytics.

Kimberley Cole 8:16
Perfect. And I mentioned at the start in your bio about a couple of your passions. So tell me more about what you’re passionate about.

Elaine Mullan 8:25
I would think that my female colleagues at work now, I’m always looking for opportunities for them. I’m always trying to say, this is on. We could do that. You could do that. We could come along, especially if they’re earlier in their career, trying to think about opportunities of what we can do and how, particularly myself or the marketing team, can help. I’ve also been involved in the Mentor Her program, which is run by Manchester Digital, very successful mentoring program. And all I can say is, for anyone who hasn’t mentored is you will get back absolutely as much as you put in. It’s definitely a two way street, and it’s amazing. And I’m also involved in another mentoring program on the marketing side, and I’m very pro the whole idea. I think next year I’ll probably step back into it more again. I think this year I just had to look at realistically my bandwidth and go, Okay, Elaine, please stop signing up for mentoring programs. However, I did look at another one yesterday, so who knows, but it’s very much about elevating, I think women. I mean, people say, Well, why aren’t you elevating men? Why aren’t you elevating black women? Why aren’t you elevating people who have disabilities? It’s like going, Look, I can’t actually take on every corner here, but I can, as a woman who works in tech myself and has for some time, I can take that on, and I’m beginning to talk more recently about the issue of women in FinTech and ageism, that men in FinTech are seen, I think, as being wise and having been around the block and gained all this knowledge. I think women are seen as being they were fine when they were I don’t know new and shiny that they’re okay, but now they’re getting old. I think it’s quite an issue. And I’ve begun to raise it. I think I have the first conference lined up where it’s going to be a panel at the conference to talk about this, perhaps early stage and later stage careers. And the fact is, none of us are really retiring early these days. Our careers will go on, and we have a lot to give. And I think definitely women, once they hit about 45 are beginning to feel that there’s a difference coming in. Finally, a lot of the time, women are perhaps freer. If they have children, they’ve suddenly got to a stage when they’re, you know, have more time, or at least, they’re freer to be able to leave the house without having to do anything with children and just the stage when they’re being to write books and join programs and whatever, I think there’s this feeling that perhaps they’ve sort of reached where they will go to in the industry, whereas I think they’re actually about to take off and really, really show their true colors. And they also aren’t suffering the same way of feeling that the person in the room who doesn’t have the knowledge, they will share what they have willingly, and they’re also really ready to learn. So these are things I’m really beginning to talk about this year.

Kimberley Cole 11:04
I love that. I love that, indeed, yeah, so mentoring, I agree, like it’s such a rewarding experience, and there’s so many different ways that we can do that. I’m still trying to work out how we could do some mentoring within Risky Womencommunity as well, because I think there’s a lot of opportunities there. But yeah, that early and late stage career perspective? Gosh, yeah, that’s a really interesting one. And yeah, we’ll have to get together. I’ve got some ideas on some RegTech things that are going on as well. So…

Elaine Mullan 11:30
Fantastic!

Kimberley Cole 11:31
Excellent. And we also love to hear about risks, because we are Risky Women. So tell us, what do you think has been the biggest risk that you have taken in your career.

Elaine Mullan 11:43
I think I take risks on a all too frequent basis, actually. I think to stand and make a point, an unpopular point, perhaps to a senior management team, is a risk. You carry a risk with that. You have to be confident that you have a reason to say it, and you also have to be able to bow and agree that perhaps, perhaps you’re not right, but you take the risk in saying it. So I think it’s something that as a marketing leader, we are constantly in a situation of having to take risks in terms of thinking strategically about how we’re going to manage the company. It’s not always agreed on through companies as to how, you know, I work on revenue generation, about how that’s going to be done. So I think it’s an ongoing risk in terms of risks and careers. No, I’ve had a few funny jobs over the years. I think I worked at one stage for a company of Russian white hat hackers. Now that that was really very interesting experience.

Kimberley Cole 12:43
Oh, wow.

Elaine Mullan 12:44
Culturally, very different. I think I learned extraordinary amounts about surveillance. But I think from a career point of view, probably risky, because I was stepping into an area outside of really what I knew. And ultimately, I think coming back into the world of FinTech, it was seen as you’ve already been outside for only two years, but two years was seen as being tricky. So, yeah, I learned a huge amount. So I would say, if you’re not taking risks, life is pretty dull. You want to be taking risks on an ongoing basis. Calculated, we hope.

Kimberley Cole 13:15
Absolutely. Love that. I think, yeah, you’re speaking truth to power. Of course, is, I think, important. I think that’s actually something that the late stage career people absolutely bring. And there’s been some really interesting campaigns that I’ve seen on LinkedIn and across different industries. But, yeah, no, that’s fantastic. That’s great diversity in your kind of career path as well, which is always terrific. So I guess during that journey was there sort of a real light bulb moment, because you’ve spoken about continually taking risks or something that you think has sort of shaped your career?

Elaine Mullan 13:50
I think there’s been a few, and I think I’m not sure there’s light bulb moments. I would say they’re people moment. They’re very important people who I’ve come across in my career, and they probably don’t realize what they did to me, sounds a funny way to put it, but in terms of how they, you know, made me think about you can do this, or you should do that, or would you like to do that? So I think it’s always about the people. For me, really, they’re the change agents in my life, and I attach myself, I think, to people who I feel are interesting and curious and good for me. So my children laugh that if I come in and I’m in great form, I’ve been out at some networking thing, they always go, oh, let me guess. Let me guess. They say, you were in a room full of amazing and interesting women. And they’re usually right, because the power in that room is phenomenal, and the interest and it’s kind too people are kind with generous with their time and thoughts so, yeah, I would say it’s people really who have made me, at times, think I could do that or I should do that, because they’re also prompting me and making me think about that

Kimberley Cole 14:58
Brilliant. Well, I think a lot of people get that from this podcast as well, hearing these stories, hearing that journey, hearing those ideas. So thank you. That’s brilliant. So now let’s get into your kind of key area on the article, which was How Hollywood Turns GRC into a Story Worth Telling. So maybe kick us off with what was the inspiration behind that piece, the GRC through the lens of pop culture.

Elaine Mullan 15:26
Well, I mentioned my daughters before. I have two teenage daughters who I can’t even imagine telling them about GRC because it would be such a turn off moment. It just doesn’t really excite people unless they know something about it. Now, when people begin to understand it, they can get really passionate about it, as you know. So I thought about, how could I get people interested in a topic that, for a lot of people isn’t very interesting, I suppose, the way I looked at it. And then I also thought, right, okay, so I’m not a technical person. I’m not a compliance specialist. What can I talk about that is going to make sense? And the other thing is, I mean, I love stories. I suppose I read a lot myself, and I’ve always loved stories, and I often use analogies to explain different parts of business or sectors, and I think it’s a really great way of explaining. And actually, I think all of this goes back to when I first would have read books or whatever. And my mum was an she is an avid reader, and we used to get wonderful books given to us and also sent from her aunts around the world. And one of the ones I really remember was a book about the Australian dream time, which I still have. My mum kept for me. And I was fascinated by these stories of, you know, how the stars came to be, and how the moon or whatever. I can’t remember the stories now, I certainly would have known them and the importance of things like the kangaroo. And I think I then recognized there was ways of telling stories that really made trying to explain what we didn’t understand, I suppose. And in my own background, being reared in Ireland, we have our own myths and legends and so again, very much reared on these. These are told in, well, certainly, when I was in school, which was some time ago, through the sort of primary levels of school, you always draw pictures of them and you know about them. And the stories are told in both the Irish language and in English language. So we’re quite aware of the characters in those. So I think really, I just tried to think about what was going to be of interest. And I think at the moment I was sitting at my desk, if I remember, possibly my younger daughter passed by and said, I have to show you this thing on Tiktok, right? And that is the moment you go. So how do I explain this in terms that are going to resonate with somebody who has no interest? And believe you me, a 14 year old as she was at the time. 14 year old girl has to this way. So I began to think about that. I thought, right screens? It’s got to be something on screens. I don’t know enough about Tiktok to write about it. It must be the very short story. So I thought, okay, what are the stories? And I think I’ve often thought the story of, I know I mentioned Jurassic Park. It’s a movie. I think it’s rather extraordinary in the idea of it being put together. So I began to think about different stories that could explain different parts of the GRC puzzle, really. And that’s really how that came together. And it did come together, I think. I suppose my one thought is maybe afterwards, if you know, I’d put more time in, as I suppose perhaps I might have chosen other stories. But, you know, who knows? I might not have.

Kimberley Cole 18:23
Yeah, I think it did obviously resonate. You got a prize. So, yeah, I suggest everyone goes and reads the title of the article is GRC Through the Lens of Pop Culture: Lessons from Hollywood and Beyond. So take a look at it. Have a read. And while you’re there, look at all of the other fabulous entries that we had as well. So I assume Elaine, that you had a look at some of the others. Were there any other writing competition entries that sort of really stood out or inspired you?

Elaine Mullan 18:53
There were, I have to say. I will mention my colleague, Anna, who wrote a piece on data poisoning and was very interesting read, because it’s very relevant what’s happening in the moment in terms of AI. But I have to say, for me, it was Rhea Sharma story, the one she wrote to do with offshoring. It really resonated with me. And the reason I know it really resonated with me was I kept telling people about it, so I felt it was incredibly personal. And really to me, it should be a documentary. It’s not a story, it’s a documentary. There’s so much more in that. So it had quite a profound effect, really, on me, thinking about offshoring and the people involved, and we don’t really talk about that, and she did, and, yeah, we really, really enjoyed that story. I enjoyed it..that sounds wrong. It was great to read. But the story is very sad, really.

Kimberley Cole 19:40
Yeah. I mean, it’s really interesting. So I would say the same thing, like, I then had many conversations with people who work at different banks and asset management firms, etc, and I’m like, Oh, my God, we had this article about offshoring, and it’s really something that people should be talking more about. I think it was another classic of, you know, almost speaking truth to power to publish that. And we have a podcast with Rhea as well, so it’s definitely worth listen. But you know, she’s really up and coming talent in the industry, so it was great. But as I said, like such a wide different perspectives, which is what I love as well, which is why I also think that getting the views of everyone in the industry from all of the different people in the ecosystem. So yes, marketing has a voice, as well as the real professional compliance managers, the risk officers, etc, etc, but I think it’s good to make sure that we bring in all those diverse views. So…

Elaine Mullan 20:40
Interestingly, I typed into Chat GPT, as you do, I had typed in who were the top voices in GRC, and it came up with all men. And then I said, Are there no women? And Chat GPT said, oh, sorry, there is also blah, blah. And I just thought, right, so this was another thing going on about these voices in GRC. I thought, there needs to be voices out there. We need to start shouting. Because if we start shouting, you know, this noise will reverberate. But if we’re not shouting and not doing something about it, it will remain where Chat GPT just knows about four men’s names. I’m not knocking the men. I’m just…there’s more to it than that.

Kimberley Cole 21:17
I mean, it was just absolutely one of the key drivers for risky women, and why we started the Women to Watch list was exactly that, because I was just saying, too many panels, too many manels, as we call them. And, you know, not enough keynotes from women. And then that’s was the inspiration for the writing competition as well. Because when you look at all the stats, and I had some Australian stats and some UK stats, but I’m sure they’re pretty representational across the board of you know, the lack of women quoted, the lack of women with bylines, etc, etc, so that was part of the inspiration. So we’re looking forward to this year as well, and seeing how we can continue to raise that voice and make sure that we have females showing up on Chat GPT!

Elaine Mullan 22:02
There you go. Absolutely.

Kimberley Cole 22:05
So you know, what other things thinking about all of the things that maybe I’m trying to do with Risky Women, but what other ways do you think we can showcase diverse voices? This was one competition. Do you think there’s other things we should be doing for the GRC community?

Elaine Mullan 22:21
Oh, sure, there are. I do think it’s really important to have just, I think actually an awareness of the sort of lack of GRC voices out there is important. I think if you go looking for GRC speakers, I think there’s a lack of what’s showing up. So perhaps that’s something Risky Women is, you know, could almost have speakers or people who can run training or whatever available. I think that would be great because, you know, it’s the sort of thing I would be looking for. I think the more of that we do will just change the narrative in terms of, we won’t think of GRC as being so male dominated, which it is. And just building anything to do the community will grow the confidence of the confidence of the community too. I think the writing workshop was great because it was different. It felt sort of part of growing the voice. I suppose it is growing the voices of the women. And I think the more we do of that really helps. And I know it was, I’m trying to think there was a piece as well about the romance scam. It’s something that’s a growing area affecting everyone, but we need to make sure that women are sitting out there, front and center. Now, I know Risky Women have had, I can’t think of her name, Tinder Swindler, wonderful speaker. But again, it’s just really getting out there and talking more about just more, you know what? Push out more and speak out loud and but in terms of diversity, yeah, keep spreading across multiple continents, etc. I mean, the US is going to be having some interesting conversations in GRC departments at the moment, and I think it would be interesting to see what the fallout from that is, generally and as a company. But we need to make sure that these voices of women have a space to talk. And I think Risky Women is one of those spaces.

Kimberley Cole 24:00
Yeah. I mean, thank you. Yeah. So we have our Women to Watch List, and last year we spent a lot of time on, you know, enhancing soft skills like presentation skills. We did voice and gravitas. We did some really good on storytelling for business, all of those kind of things, as well as media training. And I think we will do some more media training this year, because I think all of those things are really important to enable people to be able to tell that story. And we want to get everyone media ready so that we can get more people quoted and etc.

Elaine Mullan 24:32
Absolutely.

Kimberley Cole 24:33
We’re speaking a lot about RegTech, and it’s still being a relatively new sector, I guess so, when you’re thinking then about young professionals, you were talking about mentoring such young professionals, and especially women in RegTech. What advice would you give to those young professionals?

Elaine Mullan 24:51
I definitely think Fintech is a good sector for women to work in. I don’t have any, and RegTech, don’t have any problem with that at all. I’d be quite. Happy if my own children were to it. I think it’s fantastic because it’s growing all the time, and there are groups that help women grow. I would say, from my own point of view, is something I didn’t do when I was younger again, because I felt that everyone else probably knew loads of things, and took me years to realize that they didn’t. Is to get out there and network, speak to people, talk to people. You can tell people, I’m happy now to help you have no idea what they’re talking about, so it gives them an opportunity to tell me what they’re talking about. So I would really recommend that come in and start to network early. And that’s something I do, is say, trying to bring earlier career people in the company to events so they can actually network. And even one of my own, my older daughter, who’s 18, I brought her to an event I was speaking at last year. I said, Would you like to come along? She didn’t seem that excited going along to a tech event, but there you go. And she said afterwards, I said, Oh, you know now they’ll be, you know, they’re going to serve wine and canape and just whatever networking you can talk to people. And she actually got chatting to people. I was very, very impressed. And she said afterwards to me, oh, that’s networking. I thought, wow. Of course, nobody tells you that when nobody knows what networking is, standing there with a glass of wine and a canape trying to engage and I thought, wow. Isn’t that interesting? Maybe we should almost run courses on how to network, because, again, you don’t know so great place to be get networking. And networking means a glass of, usually warm wine, bit, usually by icky and canape, and then just talk to who’s everything room, find out more.

Kimberley Cole 26:26
Well, I have brought my daughter along to several of the Risky Women events. So I’m now thinking, Maybe we need a mother daughter Risky Women event, and…

Elaine Mullan 26:34
Maybe we do.

Kimberley Cole 26:35
mixed networking drinks. We can all bring our children along too.

Elaine Mullan 26:39
Bring Your Daughter to Work today, sort of thing?

Kimberley Cole 26:41
Yes, fabulous. Okay, well, there’s another idea. We’ve got lots of ideas from you today, Elaine. So we’re going to do our quick wrap up now, which we ask a similar three questions to everyone to wrap up. So the first one is, if you could change anything in our industry, what would it be? So this is my you’ve got the magic wand. What are you going to do?

Elaine Mullan 27:02
It would be diversity. Continue to grow diversity. Diversity of thought is so important, and particularly in GRC, whoo, I can’t think of anything more important actually, right now. And if you do that, you will really because there’s such a thought about, you know, there’s the doing the right thing and then there’s following the process, they’re not necessarily the same thing at all. So I think really having diversity and thought will also help people build better frameworks. So really, really keen that we continue to do that.

Kimberley Cole 27:33
Yep, absolutely should lower the risks by making sure you’ve got more angles covered.

Elaine Mullan 27:37
Absolutely.

Kimberley Cole 27:39
Okay. What’s the next innovation or positive change that you see coming?

Elaine Mullan 27:44
Well, it is AI. AI has come, and it has arrived. It brings with it problems, of course, but ultimately, it is exciting in the world of compliance and what’s going to happen. And I think we will see, well, I really hope what we’re going to see is that people who really understand what the role is and what they’re trying to do will have more time to really make things happen, rather than trying to deal with the day to day endless you know, whatever it is, whether it’s emails or notifications or updates in policy, that that will be more streamlined by AI and will give them better opportunity to work on really growing out better, I say, better frameworks, better ways of doing things, better ways of protecting people, which largely is what GRC is doing, protecting people and business. So that will get better. So it’s gotta be AI right now,

Kimberley Cole 28:39
Yeah, absolutely. And we’ve got several events coming up with Compliance and AI, and I’m sure that’ll be a continuing theme throughout the year. So yeah, watch this space. But yeah, very interesting. And then to wrap up, and you said you’re an avid reader, and your mother is an avid reader. So what’s a book to read, something to watch, and a podcast you recommend?

Elaine Mullan 29:01
Well, I would say the book at the moment, which I haven’t finished, but I’m really working my way through, is by a rather extraordinary woman called Nicole Casperson. And she wrote a book called FinTech Feminists. She talks about one of the points might be that in the financial crash of 2008 which you and I will remember, if more women had been at the helm, would something different have happened? Again, it’s diversity of thought, a diversity of experience, diversity of background. So Nicole Casperson also runs, I think an event called Fintech is Femme, and she’s young, and she is really, interesting writer, speaker, and definitely a book to get your hands on in terms of something to watch. Oh, you know, I don’t know. I’m one of those people who watches random things as they appear. I don’t have any great I have to say, I can’t say, nothing worthy. I tend to just watch whatever is thrown at me by Netflix. So I’m sorry I have nothing to put there. In terms of podcasts, I listen to bits and pieces of podcasts. Obviously there’s a Risky Women podcast, but I think I would say, actually, recently, I decided I would try to walk more, just because I’d moved and got out of habit and all the rest and in general, I’m walking. I like to listen to a book, and I’m a huge fan of psychological thrillers. I love nothing more than, however, I decided I was constantly reading about creepy moments and whatever. So I’ve now actually downloaded a load of different podcasts, and I’m working my way through them because I find, I’m trying to find the style actually a podcast that really works, because there’s interesting ones, but they’re a bit sort of heavy, bit heavy going find a bit, you know, hard to listen to for length Time. Then you have the sort of the US, maybe some of the US, sort of salesy ones that are very, you know, brash and, you know, I can stand up in front of 200 people in a room and they all whatever. So I actually think I’m on a bit of a journey of learning more about what works for me in podcasts, because they’re coming out at such speed at the moment that I think I’d like to spend time, not particularly listening to a whole podcast series, but I’m trying to really work out what the style of podcast that I like is now more than when you read. I say I like psychological thrillers as my novels to read. I read other things too, but they’re particularly very escapist. I’m trying to find the equivalent in podcasts, something that I really, really like listen to and would spend my spare time listening to, rather than at the moment where I find them hopping between podcasts and not necessarily letting them finish out.

Kimberley Cole 31:36
Fair enough. Well, I listen to a lot of the Goalhanger podcasts. So The Rest is Politics, The Rest is Entertainment, all of those ones. I love all the news ones because I think it’s a really quick way to get an update on things, and if they’re doing a particular topic, and I also do it while I’m walking. So always good or on a plane as well. I downloaded them so that I can listen then.

Elaine Mullan 31:45
Yeah, it’s good to just have those little, it’s nice, those little sound bites, but I feel it’s almost an industry. Now, there’s so much coming out that we’re finally beginning to understand what is our flavor. And you know, what is going to be the BBC, or what’s going to be the Netflix, or what’s going to be the Disney Plus, or whatever it is, what is going to be our chosen sort of type. And I think we’re getting towards that.

Kimberley Cole 32:21
Well, so wonderful to have you on Elaine, thank you so much for your article to the Risky Women Writes competition. Hopefully, when we launch again this year, we’re going to get as many wonderful articles as we got this year. So thank you for joining us, and thank you to all of our listeners for listening.

Kimberley Cole 32:41
Thank you for listening to this episode of Risky Women Radio, be part of the ongoing conversation and learn more about our events and other programs at riskywomen.org