Interview with Founder Errin Todd for International Womens Day 2016
I love my job and enjoy working with our great team and meeting customers.
My day-to-day role at Todd Fish includes finance, operations, sales and marketing. My day starts with checking in with the team who mainly work in our engineering workshop. The rest of the small team are all scientists and engineers and we are 50:50 split of males and females. We all compliment one another well and are a good mix of ages and bring different experience to the mix.
Errin Todd with Lobsters
We really value our customers who are mainly fishermen, fishmongers and shellfish merchants. I’ll check in on the work on progress and report back to the client. A lot of my work is answering enquiries from potential customers and preparing quotes. I love it when a customer needs something bespoke and we have to design new technology to fit their requirements. Recently we got to design a research aquarium for Cambridge University and it was great to work with our in-house product designer (who is also my husband) on a new idea.
The best part of my job is when we get a new customer and get stuck in manufacturing the product. I love the buzz it gives the whole team. I make sure the contract gets completed on time and budget. I am a bit of a spreadsheet lover and ensuring the fine details are correct is invaluable to running a successful company. The marketing is also my domain and I am chief tweeter and blogger. My colleague Laura also enjoys this. It is funny that we target a very male dominated industry in fishing but our marketing is done by the girls on the team. Our customers seem to like our banter and enjoy the fishy puns. We are currently working on a new marketing campaign which will show our fun and edgy side.
Most of our customers don’t care whether they are served by a female or male. We do have one older fisherman who always asks to speak to, “the man.” Initially he was passed from Laura (our most experienced member of staff who was more than capable of answering the query) to our newest member of staff as he was the only man in the workshop.
I don’t really think I have any limitations by being female in a STEM organisation and would encourage other women to just be the best they can be.
As the female founder of a company based on science and engineering
which serves the fishing industry I am proud to be a female entrepreneur inspiring our team to aim high. Todd Fish and our other company Lobster Pod Ltd are award winning, growing companies with global ambition. The fact I am a girl does not stop me riding the wave.
Best Fishes,
Mrs Errin Todd
Female Entrepreneur & Founder
Team Todd with Alasdair Busby
Errin Todd with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon
