Calina Ho
RISE: ROUND ONE Calina Ho is the head of operations at Sohonet. She was in the first cohort of Rise, which means she’s had
at how much more came out of it,” she continues. “The network
you build with fellow mentees is so refreshing; having a group of women to
a plethora of roles, including media/transmission librarian (back when tapes were still a thing), media coordinator at Ascent Media (Encompass Ltd), audio coordinator, VOD operations coordinator, media support technician (secondment) at Discovery and project manager at Sohonet. She currently oversees and manages the operations team, which in turn deals with various projects, ensuring all products and services are delivered from point A to B successfully. “I was lucky enough to be part of the first year of the scheme, and was made aware of it as my company was one of the sponsors for that year, so I jumped at the chance to apply,” Ho recalls. “I’d already worked for a couple of big companies in the broadcast industry, but always had an interest in film and TV, which led me to history and film studies at university. At the time, it was common to hear how hard it was to get into the industry.” Like many members of the first cohort, Ho stresses how the mentoring programme was unexpectedly one of the best things she has ever taken part in professionally. “I remember joining the programme with a lack of confidence in the workplace and wanting to work on that primarily, but was actually surprised
help support you, bouncing off each other and also going through very similar work experiences, struggles and decisions really helped create a bond.” It is undeniably clear
from the mentees that boosting confidence in the workplace is so important. A report by leadership development company, My Confidence Matters, found that 79% of women regularly lack
THE NETWORK YOU BUILD IS SO REFRESHING
confidence at work – and feel they are not getting enough support from their managers to overcome this. Whether you are new or have been part of an industry for some time, it seems to be a recurring issue for women to attain confidence. Talking to us, Ho highlights a particular concern surrounding self-confidence, and that she required assistance with speaking publicly. With guidance from Rise, she was able to do this, emphasising not only the accuracy of the above statistic, but also how easy it is to deal with this issue – if employers put their minds to it.
RISING ON UP!
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An exciting aspect of Rise is its Rise Up programme. A new, industry-led schools outreach project that inspires and educates children on engineering and technology opportunities in broadcast, media and entertainment. “In order to fully achieve a gender- balanced workforce and ensure more
broadly that there is a pipeline of diverse talent coming into the industry, we believe that this work needs to be undertaken,” comments Carrie Wootten. Delivered throughout UK primary and secondary education, the programme consists of hands-on talks and workshops, with the core aim of
enabling the industry to keep track of students from a young age, encouraging
them to consider a broadcast engineering apprenticeship or degree, when the time comes.
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