Interview with Morgan Stanley and Buddy Ed’s Fiadhnaid Lydon

Fiadhnaid is the Co - founder of Buddy Ed and a tech associate at Morgan Stanley. In this interview, she shares some wisdom from her career with us. She is the proud winner of the 2022 Morgan Stanley Global Excellence award, and WeAreTheCity Technology Rising Star Award, 2022 Internal Diversity and Inclusion Rising Star of the Year, 2021 Internal Diversity and Inclusion Rising Star of the Year Nominee.

What is BuddyEd? 

We focus on two audiences. For the 14 to 18 group, that is the free virtual work experience that companies sponsor and then you get to try it out. It's queer, fun, gamified and there's a £400 cash prize, they get to go to the Oxford Energy office if they win. All you need is a phone so anyone can do it from anywhere. 

For the 20 to 30 group, their solution looks like Tinder for jobs.

Could you tell us about your Journey to Buddy Ed?

I studied coding at a GCSE; I would be in the labs for hours after school, having an amazing time. At 16, I considered programming for my A levels. I was at an all-girls state school, and they said that they don't have the appetite for STEM related majors, so they were not offering that. I started focusing on what subjects are available to me. I like maths, physics, chemistry, so I'll go down the Chem/Engineering path. I did that, and I hated it. 

How did you pull through 4-intense years of hard work for a discipline that didn’t interest you? 

I truly believe that you can get through anything that you put your mind to but I would have saved myself a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of heartache, had I known that software engineering was an option when I was 16. I discovered it when I joined a Morgan Stanley’s Spring Insight Programme. I went to a spring insight week, literally four or five days and I immediately realised that this is where I need to be, in tech. That then led to a graduate offer. That spring and summer internship completely changed the course of my career, so the motivation was making those opportunities available to other people. I'm a big believer in equal access to education because I think it's the most impactful thing I can do to really help social mobility. 

How did you amplify your impact in supporting females in the tech industry?

I’ve done career fairs, talks, Insight Days, D, E&I,: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. I was even volunteering, teaching computer science in schools in Tower Hamlets because sometimes they have a shortage of teachers. 

At Morgan Stanley, I was helping with one of their step-in, step-up days. These solutions show people what's available to them so they can imagine themselves in the role. However, during my time at Morgan Stanley, I realised there are 30 16-year old women here and there are 10 employees running this day. This is not a good ratio.

The existing employees of Morgan Stanley were asked to pass on the opportunity to their network to balance the attendees with the employees. This is better than nothing, but it's not scalable. Tech though is scalable. That is why a technological solution to a problem, can bring the cost down. This led to the BuddyEd platform.

What is BuddyEd doing differently to other companies? 

At BuddyEd, we offer career guidance, building these women up while they’re job searching. We want them to know what's out there, and we believe that anyone can get it. We show our clients how to get from data analyst at Morgan Stanley to data analyst at a startup. Maybe someone is just missing a small bit of experience in big data. That is a little gap that we help our clients to address and then they feel confident in applying to that new job. 

Have you encountered any rejection, especially being a woman? 

100%. It's a mixture of things. Some of it from being called ‘little girls’ in meetings with potential investors. Investors were reaching out and intimidatingly asking us whether we are capable of implementing our idea, whether we have the know-how and whether we’re confident in our plan. I'm constantly asked, ‘who does the technical work of my project’ when I'm the CTO! I often need to quantify my technical expertise a lot, and same with my co-founder. She's an ex-Rolls Royce engineer, and she will constantly be told the assumption that she's completely non-technical, not an engineer. 

Which was the thing you said or you showed that made the investors trust you? 

The thing that remains constant is the problem area and whether there is a structure like legs, space to grow, and whether we as the founders ourselves, are the right people for the job. Having the one-liners and also anecdotes to prove ourselves right such as explaining why companies care about 14 to 18-year-olds is key. For example, Morgan Stanley brings in so many young people because if Morgan Stanley does not immerse younger people, their competitors will get the best people. 

Have you ever been rejected from an investor? 

We have had lots of failed client meetings. Often some companies are just not big enough. We need companies who have large ESG budgets and are big enough to care about a talent pipeline in five years' time. If a company is small, it is less likely for it to look that far ahead. We are now going back to these same, small clients with the solution for 20-30 year olds, knowing that they declined our proposal for helping out 14-18 year-olds. 

What’s BuddyEd’s future? 

Amongst expanding the team, we are focusing on AI job matching and career guidance app for the 20-30s. AI-driven career coaching, targeted upskilling, identifying the little gaps they have and then telling them which courses they might need to do to fix that is what we're specialising in.

What advice would you give to a girl who's trying to get into tech after uni? What would you want to hear if you were 20 years-old.? 

I would like to believe that I am better than I think I am, honestly. I am more skilled, more qualified than I think I am. It is my responsibility to make sure my perspective and voice is heard. What makes me unique is valuable and special. That's not just about being a woman, it's my past experiences, my interests, my preferences, my mannerisms, my humour, these are my most most valuable assets. I should use it to my advantage and not bury it. The temptation always is to bury it and to camouflage. That is most people's instinct, fight that instinct. 

About your discussion club on D&I, what is the most common concern that comes up during your discussion sessions? 

From an individual's perspective, employees, usually women feel “pushed out” from technical parts of the job. I think this is not the issue in their minds, but it’s reality in tech. Letting them voice it, support, encouraging them to talk to someone senior to them, that's almost always helpful. So many people suffer in silence. They don't realise that the support network is there to help them with exactly this. 

Have you ever felt the imposter syndrome? 

I experienced it the most when I was so intent on being perfect, like getting 90 to 100% all of the time. When I joined BuddyEd, my resolution was learning by doing. I have failed a lot. Since then, learning has gotten a lot easier and less intense. I failed so often that it started to hold less value. A couple of months later, I realised how much I have learned. Allowing ourselves to fail, and then thinking, “I wish I'd done it sooner”. However, imposter syndrome is still there, the secret is to just keep pushing through.