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What if the career path you're meant to follow isn't the one everyone expects?

In this episode of Get Amplified, we sit down with Beth Taylor, Country Lead for UK and Ireland People and Communities at Cisco, to explore how feeling average at school, and later discovering her neurodiversity ultimately shaped a successful career in HR leadership.

Choosing a degree apprenticeship over the traditional university route gave Beth the opportunity to earn, learn, and gain real-world experience from day one. She shares how practical learning, supportive mentors, and unexpected opportunities helped her build confidence, credibility, and a career she loves.

We also discuss trust, psychological safety, leadership through change, and why creating space for growth matters now more than ever.

In this episode, we cover:

• Choosing a degree apprenticeship and learning through experience
• Discovering neurodiversity and finding supportive workplaces
• The power of networking, mentors, and chance conversations
• Building trust and psychological safety in teams
• Leading through change with openness and shared ownership
• Creating protected development time through Cisco's "Time to Grow"
• Better career conversations and the question: "What would you like to be known for?"

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Sales and sales operations want the same thing, but the way we’re set up often guarantees friction. When sales and ops functions collide it can feel like two organisations speaking different languages. We sit down with Robert Gessner, a seasoned operations and go-to-market leader with deep experience across global tech and a long spell at Citrix, to unpack what’s really going on and what actually helps.

We dig into the practical fix that keeps coming up in high-performing teams: customer proximity. Robert explains why operations cannot live entirely in a central bubble, and how a customer-facing front end creates a clear interface between the field and HQ. We also talk about the risks of centralisation, why regions create shadow organisations when they do not get what they need, and how to simplify processes that drive everyone mad, from price exceptions to endless approval loops.

The theme is autonomy with guardrails: push decisions closer to the customer while keeping accountability and sensible constraints.

Then we zoom out to the bigger picture: complexity often reflects strategy. If a company tries to serve every segment, every channel, and every go-to-market model at once, operations has to build processes for all of it, and the machinery creaks.

From there, we move into the “project economy” and the execution gap that appears when leaders design strategy but step away from delivery. Robert makes the case for building project management capability inside sales organisations and for involving frontline and middle managers early, so change does not die after a launch webinar.

If you care about go-to-market execution, sales operations, process design, and building a customer-centric operating model in a fast-moving tech business, you’ll take away practical steps you can use straight away.

Subscribe, share this with a colleague who lives in approvals, and leave a review with the one change you’d make to reduce friction where you work.

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We get into the reality of the CRO role: owning the number, shaping the plan, influencing product direction, and then switching straight into the gritty detail of deals, risk and negotiations.

We’re joined by Helen Sutton, who went from electrical engineer to Chief Revenue Officer in high-growth, private equity–backed tech businesses, and proves there’s no such thing as a straight career path.

We explore leading at scale, what it’s like operating in fast-moving PE environments, and why the CRO role is so much more than just hitting a number.

We dig into the career pivots that get you there, including that first awkward jump from peer to manager, and the moments that shape your leadership style.

We talk about earning respect in male-dominated environments and why a coaching approach beats telling everyone to do it “your way”.

Helen also shares why leadership can feel lonely at the top, and how having a coach gives you a safe space to think clearly while still showing up with calm confidence for your team.

Decision making becomes the thread that ties it all together. We explore decisive leadership, the difference between consensus and commitment, and why “perfect” can block progress.

Plus, Helen wraps things up with three simple but powerful career tips, including why you shouldn’t change your job and company at the same time, and why the best careers are a bit “squiggly.”

Insightful, practical, and refreshingly honest, give this one a listen.

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