Flex and The City - Mandy Rawlinson - Episode 83

I really enjoyed my conversation with Mandy Rawlinson, Head of UK and EMEA for Aberdeen Investments and author of You Don't Belong Here, for the latest episode of Flex and the City.

Mandy's career didn't follow the path she originally imagined. Growing up in the Scottish Borders as a first-generation corporate, she studied law with ambitions of joining the police before finding her way into financial services. More than twenty years later, she now leads across the UK and EMEA, but what stayed with me wasn't the career journey itself. It was the conversation we had about the future of leadership and the skills we'll need most in the years ahead.

As AI becomes part of more of what we do, it's easy to focus on the technical capabilities people will need to develop. Mandy challenged that thinking. She believes the skills we've spent years referring to as "soft skills", including judgement, storytelling, critical thinking, empathy and the ability to solve problems, will become even more valuable because they are the skills technology can't replace.

In fact, she doesn't think they should be called soft skills at all.

I think she's right.

One of the other ideas that really resonated with me was her perspective on innovation. Organisations often say they want people to think differently, yet many are still uncomfortable with failure. If people don't feel they have permission to experiment, it's difficult to create the conditions where innovation can genuinely happen.

It's a conversation that goes well beyond financial services. We talked about confidence, leadership, curiosity, and what it means to prepare both ourselves and the next generation for a world of work that is changing rapidly.

It certainly gave me plenty to think about, and I hope it does the same for you. 🎙️