In this episode of The SAFE Leader Podcast, Mark McBride-Wright sits down with Alex Knight, an award-winning engineer, social entrepreneur, and founder of STEMAZING. From a self-described “shy ginger kid” who avoided the spotlight to a national role model for women in STEM, Alex shares her deeply personal journey of courage, visibility, and purpose. She talks about leaving behind a secure engineering career to create a social enterprise dedicated to inspiring the next generation, and how being visible can ignite real change.
Together, Mark and Alex explore the power of authentic leadership, collaboration over competition, and why breaking down barriers in STEM begins with empowering people to find their voice. Whether you’re an engineer, educator, or leader seeking to make a difference, this conversation will remind you that courage doesn’t wait for confidence, it creates it.
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:00
Mark. Hello. Welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. I am your host, Mark McBride-Wright, and today I am joined by Alex Knight, who is the award winning founder and CEO of STEM, amazing, a social enterprise leading a revolution in STEM inspiration and inclusion in 2025 Alex was honored with the Royal Academy of Engineering rook award for the public promotion of engineering, a recognition of her groundbreaking work to empower women in STEM as visible role models to inspire the next generation. She also recently won the national Diversity Award 2025 for positive role model in the gender category, a chartered engineer TEDx speaker and visiting professor at Brunel University London, Alex brings over 15 years experience across systems engineering, asset management and innovation consulting. In 2019 she made the bold decision to sell her house and leave a successful engineering career to focus full time on driving equity in STEM through the award winning stem amazing inspiration Academy, Alex helps women build confidence find their voice and model inclusive leadership for young minds across the UK and Beyond. Her mission is rooted in visibility, belonging and bold, joyful disruption of the status quo.
Alex Knight 1:25
Mark, I couldn’t have said that better myself. Thank you.
Mark McBride-Wright 1:29
Yeah, you got me all fired up. That’s great. I love that. I love that. So welcome to the podcast. We it’s always strange when I when I’m interviewing someone that I know and who I feel classify as a friend. So hopefully that energy comes across as we as we have our chat. So let’s go back tell us about the young Alex. Are you doing there? What you thought you would be doing back in the day?
Alex Knight 2:01
No, is the answer to that? Absolutely not. No. I mean young Alex, if you can picture this little, shy, Ginger kid with I mean, people used to say I had hair like Ronald McDonald back in the day, when he used to be the character of McDonald’s, and I was just like, super shy, very introverted. Didn’t really like being in the spotlight at all. In fact, I actively avoided that so to consider that I would ever be in a career where I have to, like, stand up and speak to people, run hands on activities in primary schools and support other women to be more visible role models would have been completely ridiculous. But, yeah, no, I think it, but it’s it’s part of my story, isn’t it, as part of that journey that actually my starting point is something that a lot of people can relate to. Yeah, and when you see somebody else Breaking Through Barriers and growing their confidence every single day, like proactively, then it gives you the hope and the motivation that you can do the same. And that’s what I that’s how I try to be an authentic role model to others.
Mark McBride-Wright 3:17
Well, for you, described yourself as an unlikely engineer and a recovering wallflower, and I think they’re taken from your TEDx talk, if I remember rightly so, for listeners that haven’t watched that. And I’d encourage everyone to go and watch it, because it’s a brilliant talk. What’s your origin story, then, for moving into engineering?
Alex Knight 3:37
I grew up with a sister who had multiple disabilities. She still has multiple disabilities, and I once was in terms of how I got into engineering. My physics teacher once said to me, engineering opens doors, and I was never the best at maths or sciences. I was okay at them. I could scrape through, but I felt like I wanted to do something that was a vocation, that that was practically making a difference, and if I could help people like my sister who needed practical interventions to help her live her daily life. So she used to have a splint on her leg, a splint on her arm, she would have equipment to help her physically with rehab. And I just felt like this, there’s there’s jobs out there that can really help people. And I just felt like that was my connection to engineering, although I didn’t really know it at the time, that it was kind of subconscious, but that was definitely, I think, looking back now, connecting the dots. That was one of the things that drove me to want to do biomedical engineering, which is where I started,
Mark McBride-Wright 4:42
interesting interest. So you did, so you did biomedical engineering, and then went on to specialize in that. Did you? Yeah, so
Alex Knight 4:50
I actually, I wanted to do biomedical engineering at university. I got rejections from a couple of universities. I didn’t get the a level grades that they were looking. Four I got accepted into Brunel University to do mechanical engineering with biomedical specialism in the final year. Again, I didn’t get the grades to get in to do that degree, but they they let me come and have an interview with them, and after the interview, they offered me a place. So I did mechanical engineering with a specialism in biomedical in the final year, and then after Brunel used that as a springboard to go to Imperial College London and did biomedical masters at Imperial College London. And then after that, I worked for a small startup med tech company for a few years. So that was my, yeah, initial start in engineering. And then after that, I went on and did design and systems engineering and asset management in consultancy companies,
Mark McBride-Wright 5:41
right? I see i The one area of engineering that I feel is so chronically under focused on, yeah, it possibly has, relative to others, one of the most potential impactful ways to create stories that resonate with, you know, biomedical, biomedical interventions, and just the medical sector in general, hospitals, healthcare, you know, it’s front and center and everyone’s life. You know, how have you kept that side alive in terms of your technical origin, and in in the profession, I
Alex Knight 6:26
think you’re exactly right. It’s people at the end of the day. And even though, in engineering, some people think that that’s just machines and engines and fixing stuff with spanners and, you know, fast trains, fast cars. Actually, biomedical engineering is a huge sector in engineering because it’s so connected to people. I think we all as humans can relate to that. And you’re right. We need to leverage that more in terms of attracting the next generation into engineering. And every single day, I feel like I’m seeing examples of how important that is. My dad is currently recovering from having heart bypass surgery. He’s had a couple of stents put in his heart, a valve replaced. He’s in hospital in London at the moment as we speak, and without medical engineering, none of that would be possible. So yeah, absolutely. I feel like even when I moved out of working specifically for bio med tech companies, even in my consulting career. So the first consulting company I went to, they didn’t have a health and medical sector, and I said, I really feel like we’re missing a trick here. Can I create one? And they gave me the freedom, a bit of budget, to go out there and try and make sector for the company, which we did successfully. It’s still going now, even though I left years and years ago. So, yeah, that’s how I try and stay connected. It’s always looking for those opportunities. I love it when we have amazing women in our community that that can represent an area of engineering connected to people and health and medical, pharmaceuticals. Yeah, even the water industry, things that are crucial to everyday life, that may improve quality of life, that that’s what you know really, really resonates with me.
Mark McBride-Wright 8:10
So tell us about moving into entrepreneurship, moving into going off on your own, setting up your own thing. I think I met you just you’re a couple years behind after me setting up equal engineers. I think we met when you were still at your consultancy role at the time. And so how are you finding it six years in running your running your business?
Alex Knight 8:39
I mean, we’ve had so many conversations about this, haven’t we? Mark there are definite highs and lows, but at the end of the day, but at the end of the day, I feel like I needed to do it. It wasn’t even a question of, really, should I? Shouldn’t I? It was like, I’ve got to do this. Yeah, I’ve got to give this a go, but always without putting too much pressure on myself to say this is my only route, like I I can go back into, you know, being an employee of another company, if, if I need to, and want to, at some point I so I always felt like it’s almost like an experiment to see if it works, how well it works. You know, what we can achieve? And I’m constantly still having that mindset of, like, constant experimentation, iteration, evolution, with the sort of, maybe like safety net, of like I feel like I’ve got options. It’s not this one route that I have to do no matter what. And I think that that comes from having built my confidence over years is you feel you’ve always got choices, and you’re not trapped in a box. But yeah, the leaving a secure what, seemingly I mean no job. Is 100% secure, but leaving what felt like, you know, a standard, secure job, pension, you know, health benefits, all of that, to go out with literally nothing, starting from scratch is terrifying. I’m sure, like you can absolutely testify to that as well, and without the support of my husband, Josh, you know my family and friends around me saying, Yeah, Alex, you know you’ve got to give this a go. I don’t think I could have done it. It was, yeah, scary times, but no regrets,
Mark McBride-Wright 10:34
really, no and what do you find? Well, tell, tell, I’ll come on to the question I was about to ask there in a moment, though, but tell, tell people about STEM amazing.
Alex Knight 10:48
So stemazing is a non profit social enterprise. All about, as you said in your intro, inspiration and inclusion in STEM. So I decided to focus on a very sort of niche area. I suppose you could consider it in that I want women role models, or non binary role models in STEM to get in front of young children and show them that this is just normal for for women to be in STEM jobs. So we specifically train and support women in STEM role models to go into primary schools and run hands on practical activities, focusing on schools with a high percentage of free school meals, so that we’re trying to reach the families that need these opportunities the most. And then we’ve just scaled that kind of same thing over and over, over the years, and now we’ve done over 165,000 stemazing Kids engagements, all led by women in STEM role models, and the program that we’re partnering on together with dne echo program in Scotland, and we also did work in the southwest of England, like branching out From our core, sort of just doing this as amazing and link, and linking with organizations like equal Engineers has really helped us grow what we’re doing and reach an even bigger audience. Fabulous.
Mark McBride-Wright 12:13
Yes, with that, that opportunity, the equal engineers and amazing are working together to, as you say, do STEM engagement activities to primary school secondary schools, and that that fundings really helped. It really helped bring together what I see as tertiary support organizations, micro SMEs like ours, come together and work on something that’s more than just let’s be on a panel together at an event and talk about what we could do. It’s actually funding to do what we do and what we’re good at, and recognizing the synergies of the two respective organizations. And I’m just curious about what you feel, you know, entrepreneur to entrepreneur, founder to founder, when it feel like you can be on the hamster wheel, constantly running an organization and you’re focused on just getting the business right, rather than out there doing the good work of what needs to be done. Do you feel there’s something that industry, you know, if someone’s listening to this work in an industry that’s in charge of social value or wants to figure out, how does their business? Just make stuff happen. You know, just activate. What would be your what’s one of your biggest barriers? I’m guessing that might be similar to mine. What’s one of your what do you what frustrates you the most? I guess that holds you back from not being able to just scale and do more and deepen and have more stem role models and more relationships with schools like what’s what’s one of the biggest things holding you back,
Alex Knight 14:03
it is funding, isn’t it. It is funding, and it is access to an army of role models that can give their time to be able to disseminate at the scale that we need to disseminate these engagements. And the two are very connected. We work with a lot of volunteers, but without the support of their organization, giving them the time away from their day job, paid time away from their day job, so paid volunteer days, it’s it’s not going to happen, and it’s not sustainable. So yeah, funding to be able to grow what we do, because it’s amazing. We do online training for role models, but then the role models go into the schools that we work with, and we send stem kits of all the resources they need to do the activities for every child to the school. And that takes money. It’s stuff we have to pay for to send out. We have to. Pay for our team. We’ve got a very small team. We’ve got six of us now in the team, I myself and one other are the only ones working full time. We’ve got the others are part time staff members, but that they do incredible work on a shoestring budget, but it still takes money. They still need to be paid, obviously. And so, yeah, it’s all that, isn’t it? It’s funding its access to the people to get on board with this mission. So my biggest frustration, in answer to your question, I suppose, is when people talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk, with regards to actually putting their money where their mouth is, in terms of saying, right, like we want to do this. We want to we want to grow our talent pool of diverse people applying to our organization, but there’s not enough diverse people in that talent pool, and they’re not thinking long term enough ahead to say, well, we’ve got to start a grassroots to to to basically attract a more, a wider, diverse pool, and therefore a larger, stronger, diverse pool of talent to ultimately come into businesses like ours, and they think maybe that they can pay lip service to it, rather than actually investing fully in what needs to happen and work with experts like us who are really skilled and experienced with this now that know what works in an efficient, effective way.
Mark McBride-Wright 16:24
I think that absolutely bizarre that we see these massive whether it be conservative or labor, you know, massive investment in infrastructure projects, in new new organizations like skills, England, etc, being set up, being stood up, and all this talk and all this like we’re going to do this. We’re going to do that. And money here, money there, and disseminating out regionally, here, there, and then, when it comes to actually doing the work on the ground, running the sessions, running the why, it’s just not naturally coming together. Why people aren’t approaching you, you know, your phone should be ringing off the hook, and your emails should be like, knee deep in, you know, whatever you get my point, like, you know, like that. There should be such a demand. You shouldn’t have to be generating a demand. There should be a demand on your time and your team’s time. You know you’ve certainly been recognized for it nationally with all the awards that you’re getting. So I just, I just wonder when that’s going to happen, if it’s going to happen, or do you have to keep being the one that’s banging the drum and pushing out there? I just, I just, I just, I just don’t know. I just
Alex Knight 17:42
think you’re right, like I would be, and I am. There is clearly a demand there. The bit that’s missing is people being willing to pay the money to invest in it. And I think because it is there, there are a lot of organizations like ours working in the space of diversity and inclusion in STEM there are some big national bodies and institutions also driving that. But where, where is the joined up approach that allows sort of like the Best Collaboration partnership, like we’re doing with equal engineers, and it’s amazing to provide the best solutions with everybody’s niche USP, able to bring that to the fore in an effective way. Like sometimes it feels like some people’s have this maybe slight fear of competition over collaboration, and so it’s confusing the picture for everybody, and it’s not allowing a clear strategy for how to ultimately reach the goal that we’re all striving for. And all agree is the best thing to do, because money is limited at the end of the day. But how do we ensure that the right people in the right way at the right time are getting that limited money so that you get absolute maximum value for your investment.
Mark McBride-Wright 19:06
Yeah, true, but, but then I’ve sat in some very senior meetings in the last couple of months since I’ve been back where they’re talking about hundreds of millions of pounds being spent on X, Y and Z, and like, you know, a small point of that percentage wise, wouldn’t even touch the sides yet would be, you know, massively, massively beyond what either organization of ours has ever received, you know, and then what we could do with that would be phenomenal. But I think we need to keep, yeah, keep, keep. We need
Alex Knight 19:38
mark like it’s amazing that leaders like you. You approach me to say, Alex, let’s partner on this. You didn’t think you know what I’m going to do. It on my own. I can do this. You went, who do I know? Who’s doing amazing work in this space? Who can I collaborate with? So it’s a win win for all of us. I think if more people have that mindset of like, where do i Who can I collaborate with? Yeah, rather than reinventing the wheel, then we might see a better, more joined up approach. So yeah, I do think, and I feel like it’s all connected to the messages that you put in your book around how you know, if we had those kind of collaborative, psychologically safe spaces where people were really able to connect and understand each other and work together in the way that best fits whatever problem we’re trying to solve, whether that is a health and safety issue at work or whether that is solving, you know, the diversity crisis in STEM we need to create the spaces where we can bring everybody together to have a safe and open and maybe challenging discussion, and not everybody’s at you know, they’re not yet comfortable to do that true.
Mark McBride-Wright 20:53
I certainly feel like I’ve had a year out since being being over in the States, and just having that that perspective, or that that distance, and it’s certainly readied me for coming back and but, yeah, you’re right. I mean, I, I would, I really think that the way forward is growth for equal engineers, is growth through collaboration. And it’s, you know, I like working in the way that our organizations have been working. You know, it’s nice. It’s created meaningful employment for some people that are, you know, leading on those projects. And you and I, as the founders of our businesses, they’re spinning plates that we can just still oversee, but we entrust to others, to manage, deliver, and it’s a great step up opportunity for for them. And so, yeah, I think we’ll get there. I think we just need to keep it’s friendships as well, right? And trust and friendships like, you know, in the background like that. I don’t know if organizations really under like big companies, if they really understand the extent to which there are those of us running these organizations at our level actually are all sort of connected in the background and but because we’re all so time poor and and just like running from pillar to post, we it’s refreshing when we get that opportunity to come together and work on something. So I’m continually looking for big projects that can scaffold together, you know, working with yourself and Natalie, it’s stem returners, you know, I’ve got some, you know, I’m always having those sort of because in my mind, that’s the ideal rhythm, you know, having that, that beaten heart of training the existing workforce through safe leader principles, whilst then enabling them to do the good work, to then bring in talent from inspire talent, to consider engineering and and I think,
Alex Knight 22:59
with our businesses being the size that they are, like, you know, collaboration, like you say, I feel is so powerful because each of us are still agile and able to innovate and pivot and, you know, solve the problems that right here, right now need to be solved. If we grew massively and sort of conglomerated everything, would we have that agility, still probably not. So actually, keeping us small, agile, innovative is great, but combining our strengths, partnership is absolutely the way forward. And I think if, if more organizations could, if decision makers, budget holders in larger organizations, could see the benefit of bringing together that kind of partnership approach with lots of agile small organizations that are social enterprises doing really, really good work that think of the benefit they could get, not trying to do it all in house, but working with these agile teams outside, but showing their support and Ultimately investing in the future of their business, their industry.
Mark McBride-Wright 24:03
That’s, I mean, I was at an awards dinner once, and I was sat next to someone who, you know, high up in the company, won a ton of energy contracts, a whole bunch of social value commitments there. They recruited a couple of people internally to deliver against the social value requirements. They still couldn’t fulfill all the social value metrics that they needed to meet for the funding that they’d received. And so we were having a discussion about, Well, how could we then sort of employ the team of amazing equal engineers like the DNA model that we’ve had, badge, badge, the team as whatever the organization was, and then go out and deliver, you know, stem inspiration, activities and stuff. And of course, like anything in life, you have that conversation, and then it just goes quiet when you then try and follow up. But I think if to your to your message to budget holders and people in businesses, i. There. If you do have social value obligations under contracts that you’ve won, your company doesn’t have to be the one that delivers it. You can support SMEs, minority owned SMEs, like STEMIs and like equal engineers, to come together and and and support and deliver. Yes. So tell us a bit about then, a bit about some of your favorite sessions that you’ve delivered. You’ve been in front of lots and lots of young people. What are they like? What are some challenging questions you’ve been asked? What? What’s made you go, Oh my I don’t know how to answer that.
Alex Knight 25:42
It’s always, it’s always a joy working with young people, because it they always throw something at the you that you were not expecting. And to be honest, that is literally the joy of it. It’s, it’s both humorous and surprising and like validating, in a sense as well, because you’re like, yes, okay, the curiosity, the creativity, is absolutely there in these minds. So I mean some of the brilliant, amazing kids workshops that we run. For example, we you mentioned energy just now, we do an exploring energy session where every single child makes their own little energy transformation device, and we talk about transfer and transformation of energy from potential energy to kinetic energy, and give them all sorts of different examples in the real world. And it’s just joyful seeing them have fun and play with STEM and seeing them just get creative, creative with their own little you know, thing that they’ve made. And talk about how they’re going to show their brother or sister at home. And we talk about, how could you tweak us at home? Could you make another one? And all of our activities use simple household resources so that the children can recreate them at home and bring feel that sense of accessibility and and basically like, feel like they can do STEM it’s not something you have to be a maths or science genius to be able to do, but also things like, you know, I love bringing in topics like around sustainability. We make these tiny wind turbines. Take them outside, play with them. Move right, go up and down the corridors with them. Get them moving. We do one for slightly older children, where we connect the mini wind turbine, just made from wooden skewers and paper and a bit of blue tack and a straw to a paper cup that we can lift with different weights in it, so things like marshmallows to begin with, and then maybe move on to like Maltesers or jelly beans or things that as they get slightly heavier, and see how much effort and energy is needed to put into the system for it to do work at different levels, sort of thing. So love that. Love seeing how left field some of their ideas are and their creativity. We did a brilliant one collaboration with UK AEA and women in nuclear recently on magnetism, and we made these magnetic storyboards, where the children created like a little story and then made a magnetic mini me character that they couldn’t touch, but they could move around the board with their magnet and hearing them explain to each other what their storyboard was about and their creative idea. And like, you know, we asked that, we posed them the question, how would you solve the idea of being able to create limitless energy in future ideas they come up with, it blows your mind, because there are no boundaries. Imagine if industry can tap into that source of innovation and creativity in a productive way. You know, we can be accelerating the levels of innovation in our in our businesses. So yeah, that’s what I just love, working with young people. And even though I’m running stamazing, we’ve got a team, we’ve got loads of volunteers, I always make sure that I am out there delivering amazing kids activities in schools and different events around the country as well, because I love it, and also I feel like I need that like, connection to what we do. Yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 29:07
well, tell us about then, what are your future plans for? Stay amazing, where? How would you like to see it, flourish, develop, grow?
Alex Knight 29:18
Yeah, there’s, you know, I suppose I have to be honest, I have severe shiny object syndrome, so I am constantly going, Oh, that’d be amazing. That’d be amazing. And I have to, I’ve really worked on this as an entrepreneur to try and prioritize and focus, and now have, I’ve got a business coach. I’ve got a woman called Anne hodgett. She’s come on as a non exec director, that I can have meetings with them where I bounce ideas off and kind of get that reality check and also help prioritize. Like we’ve got limited resources, limited time. What is the thing that we. Can do that’s going to help us add most value to the problems we’re trying to solve. And so two key things for me, the way I want to gross amazing, I want to definitely keep doing what we’re doing around gender diversity with female role models going into primary schools. I also want to bring more active allies into what we do. So we already have this amazing mentoring program where allies is open to all genders to be mentors. In fact, you did a you did a video for asked amazing community around being an ally, which was fantastic. So we welcome allies into asked amazing community. I did that. Yeah. Okay, yeah. But we always we the next thing where we’re going to bring in all genders and allies is with us, amazing spark initiative. So that’s for young people with additional support needs. So young people with disabilities, young people with neurodivergence. And instead of just focusing on women as the role models, we want relatable role models who are people who also have lived experience of neurodivergence or a disability. And so, you know, we want all genders to get involved in that, and then it’ll be a similar model of supporting and training them to deliver just amazing kids sessions in scnd settings. That’s special educational needs and disabilities special needs schools. But also, there’s a lot of children with scnd in mainstream schools as well. So it helps us ensure all the sessions we do are accessible. And the other thing is really trying to help us think like, where, how do we bring those communities together? Because something that we’ve talked about before as well is that focusing on one area of diversity with a with a narrow lens is potentially Well, you know, missing the power of of the majority supporting it. So I would love to grow our amazing community, which is sort of less intense than the programs we run, but people can join our community, learn some amazing kids sessions and then deliver them as and when it suits them, needing to be fixed to a program of one a week, and you will do it at this time. So yeah, those are my sort of two key things that I’m I’m focusing on, and also the strategy around growing the number of partners that support us, and growing the number of collaborators that we work with, such as equal engineers, because, like you say, it’s got to be collaboration and partnership as the way forward.
Mark McBride-Wright 32:32
Definitely, definitely we when we ran the equal engineers careers fairs, we did about 50 in the space of six years. And in the morning, 10 till 12, we used to be open exclusively for schools, schools and colleges, and then afterwards for university students and what have you and other people. One thing I found there was a pattern we sort of saw in the outreach we were doing for Sen and Sandy schools, in that there’s a spectrum of need even within that broad category. And I found that sometimes there were gatekeepers that you had to get around in order to get to the the teachers, you know, and I found there was sometimes secretaries or people who were managing the inbox, basically of the inbound inquiry, effectively selecting out the opportunity for the children, for the students, the pupils, to come to the careers event, because their perception was, well, these people are never going to be engineers. Are, you know, like a real glass half empty attitude. So, but, but then when the schools that did come, and then you met with them, and you met with some of the careers well, not careers advisor, but just the people who’d brought them, the teachers that had brought the groups. And it was incredible, because very rarely had these students been at an environment to to explore opportunities or to find out more about opportunities in STEM and it was, it was a really interesting learning forum, because a lot of the exhibitors that were there, well, they’d normally be going to like the graduate recruitment bureau or whatever, and it’s the same profile of people university students that they have coming up and you know, we used to always say, look, you’re going to be challenged in a good way in this setting, because you’re going to go from speaking to a young person who has autism that isn’t given the usual neurotypical cues that you’re experience expecting from an applicant. Through to a female returner, or, you know, a black engineering undergraduate, etc, in the afternoon. So it was really interesting seeing kind of in a good way, like being open to like they were properly being challenged on what practice and inclusive role modeling and thinking through difference was like. So I think the spark program sounds like like a great idea. I think it might be challenging, but you know, everything’s if you know what you’re going into and you’ve got bad things in place to mitigate difficulties and stuff, then it’s just
Alex Knight 35:47
part of your so like, we’ve internally funded pilots around this, so that we know for ourselves it has the potential exactly like you say, it’s challenging in different ways, but that challenge is Healthy challenge, and we’re always saying we need to widen the talent pool of people that we’re attracting into STEM and we also recognize that difference of thinking is a positive thing when it comes to innovation. So we have to try these things. We have to try and open the doors wider to a more diverse range of people to at least appreciate stem could be an option for them, and I think with relatable role models going and talking to young people with autism with different disabilities that they’ll be able to see actually, yeah, that there, there are options for me, maybe their teacher or other significant adults in their life might have set barriers to say you’ll never do that, maybe even you won’t even get a job. But actually, with the right support, we can turn into that potential talent, innovation, diversity of thought. So I really feel passionately that it’s something we need to explore. We need to we need to try and experiment with, in a way, internally, in our own ways of operating as a business. Yes, I think getting the funding for it is going to be difficult, but I’m willing to do the work and push as hard as possible to make it happen. And we’ll do what we can internally, funding it as well.
Mark McBride-Wright 37:21
Fantastic, fantastic. Well, let us know if you need any help or support on that absolutely and so you were at an award ceremony at the weekend national diversity awards. How? How are you? How are how is so you create a platform where you’re trying to recognize role models and uplift role models. But how does it feel when you yourself are then honored and recognized in that way?
Alex Knight 37:55
Have you seen the video of it? Is highly embarrassing.
Mark McBride-Wright 37:59
So earlier,
Alex Knight 38:02
I was not expecting it just to be, yeah, just to be shortlisted, and be in that room of incredible people like just doing such amazing work across all fronts. It, it’s so inspiring, so so motivating, and I was just absolutely loving having the time of my life, basically when with my husband as well, considered it like a date night. We don’t often get date nights. I was like, fantastic. Get dressed up, go out to this lovely, lovely dinner and celebration and just enjoy it. And then when my name was read out, luckily, somebody on the table who I hadn’t met before that night, but she was videoing me just in case, and when my name was out, there’s like, a short pause, and then I just, like, screamed, and she videoed me. And I just went to Josh, what am I going to say on stage? What am I going to say? And he burst out laughing. And then I went up the stage, and as I was walking up to the stage, there’s got all these big screens, and the team had done little videos about me, and they were playing these videos. So you’ve got, like, Sue jesha Michelle talking, saying how much they love working for amazing and what great work we’re doing. And I was just in bits. I was literally sobbing, and I got up on stage, and Claire balding went, you can do this. You can say a few words, you can do this. And Gail Porter was there. She handed me the trophy, and she was like, you’ve got this, you’re fine. And so, yeah, I don’t know what I said, But I rambled on and barely held it together. And yeah, even now, you know, that’s kind of like going back to how we started this conversation. You know, I’m still that eight year old girl inside who really is not as comfortable as I’d like to be in the spotlight, but when I’m prepared, like when I did my TEDx, I was super prepared. I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I knew exactly why I was doing it. I had a mission. It was not about me. It’s about getting the message out there. When it is more about me, that’s when I struggle, and I really went so. Wobbly on stage. Got really lightheaded, and I, I much prefer being in the spotlight to amplify the spotlight of others. So being on me, it was uncomfortable, but I feel like I just have to keep working through that, because it’s part of the mission that I’m on, being visible. And so yeah, but it’s, it’s an, it’s a continual evolution I’ll ever be comfortable with it. But yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 40:28
it’s when that and me, and it’s that servant leadership. It’s doing what you do for a greater purpose, but you are tied to the in a positive way, like the brand of stay amazing and you know, you being out there and winning This then helps the business. It helps get more, you know, coverage in the media, and then eyeballs on the video, and it helps spread the word. It’s validating for for what you’re doing. So it’s all if you just lean into that, that grounding, and also, well, I mean, personally, I’ve when you said about shiny syndrome, you know, I think every entrepreneur has that. I think it’s just being an entrepreneur as well and knowing when you need to put the guard rails there, like you’ve done with a business coach and on executive director to keep me grounded, but also not to lose that spark, because if you know he didn’t have that, then you wouldn’t have created the amazing and you do have to be thinking ahead sometimes with with where things come. So I sort of accepted that I’ve always got this bubbling of ambition and push, and I don’t think that drive will ever go like I don’t think that drive will ever ever go away, and if it does, then it’s time to move on to something else or find a new challenge in one’s life. But yeah, and I’ve sort of got comfort in that now, knowing that that’s how I am and how I maintain. You know, when I get really frustrated, let’s just still maintain some energy to keep to keep going.
Alex Knight 42:10
That is really good advice, actually. Yeah, it’s more accepting that it’s, it’s actually, like any part of our character, it can, it can be a strength, and it is a strength, but sometimes we view it as a weakness, but embrace it like channel and direct it, yeah? But that’s why it’s helpful chatting to people like you to kind of know that, yeah, actually, there’s similarities.
Mark McBride-Wright 42:35
And I, yeah, I did a, I did a when I when I was in New York in 2021 and my now coach said to me at the time, you need to know, start synthesizing your story. Understand, be coherent in your message. Comb the spaghetti mark that you’ve got all the stuff that you’re doing. And she introduced me to I did a three hour I invested in a three hour session with Erin weed, who runs something called the dig. Erin was one of the founders of TEDx boulder. She was the founder of Girls fight back that she set up in the US when her best friend got murdered. And anyway, the dig process helps distill everything down to one word that describes why you do what you do, and then a sort of operating system built around that. And my word was justice. So I’m always like looking for justice in a situation when I see it, and also the operating system. One of the words that I could have chosen was ameliorate, so wanting to make things better. And it absolute that framework, that kind of three hour session of story mining and digging and digging and digging to then arrive at one word that really helped me understand myself and about how I show up in different situations where I can’t just be happy at a networking function if I hear someone that has an idea or someone else my network could Help. I’m always like wanting to be a dot joiner and and help so that, that that that process helped me get comfort with myself in terms of how I am and so yeah, that, if that helps,
Alex Knight 44:14
yeah, think about that. That can be a little bit of homework exercise for me to try and think about my word. Yeah.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:20
What’s your word? Right? Quick Fire question around, yeah, okay, what’s the best piece of speaking advice you’ve ever received?
Alex Knight 44:30
Courage comes before confidence.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:33
What’s once amazing success story that gives you goosebumps.
Alex Knight 44:37
I mentioned it in my TEDx, when Kaylee delivered a series of amazing kids activities, all in British Sign Language to a school of deaf children,
Mark McBride-Wright 44:51
tea, coffee or an outdoor adventure?
Alex Knight 44:55
Are they mutually exclusive? Outdoor Adventure? Then close the. Followed by coffee,
Mark McBride-Wright 45:01
a flask of coffee. One thing inclusive leaders need to unlearn,
Alex Knight 45:17
that you need to have all the answers.
Mark McBride-Wright 45:22
Well, it’s a go to book podcast or TED talk that you recommend often.
Alex Knight 45:31
Brene Brown’s one about
Mark McBride-Wright 45:35
courage there to lead. That one, yes, dare to lead. How do you personally recharge your creative energy?
Alex Knight 45:45
Beach, cold water, dipping
Mark McBride-Wright 45:49
a method or tool you swear by for helping women find their voice.
Alex Knight 45:56
Very simple, record yourself giving an opener about yourself on camera. Watch it back.
Mark McBride-Wright 46:06
What’s a young who is a young person who’s recently inspired you
Alex Knight 46:11
my daughter?
Mark McBride-Wright 46:13
What do people most often misunderstand about STEM outreach?
Alex Knight 46:19
That you can only talk about STEM careers to older children.
Mark McBride-Wright 46:25
Finally, what advice would you give to your 2019 self before she made the leap?
Alex Knight 46:33
It’s not going to be easy, but you won’t have any regrets.
Mark McBride-Wright 46:37
Amazing, amazing, amazing. Thank you very much, Alex. I’ve really enjoyed this session. If people want to get in touch with you, find out more about stim amazing. Get in touch with you directly. How should they do that?
Alex Knight 46:51
You can find me on LinkedIn. I’m there, Alex Knight and stamazing. If you search me there, also, you could go to our website, which is stimmazing.co.uk, wonderful.
Mark McBride-Wright 47:03
Thank you very much. I’m sure there will be many more activities to come. Really enjoyed it. Thanks. Alex mark, take care. Bye.
E042: Being Visible in STEM
Podcast Description
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:00
Mark. Hello. Welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. I am your host, Mark McBride-Wright, and today I am joined by Alex Knight, who is the award winning founder and CEO of STEM, amazing, a social enterprise leading a revolution in STEM inspiration and inclusion in 2025 Alex was honored with the Royal Academy of Engineering rook award for the public promotion of engineering, a recognition of her groundbreaking work to empower women in STEM as visible role models to inspire the next generation. She also recently won the national Diversity Award 2025 for positive role model in the gender category, a chartered engineer TEDx speaker and visiting professor at Brunel University London, Alex brings over 15 years experience across systems engineering, asset management and innovation consulting. In 2019 she made the bold decision to sell her house and leave a successful engineering career to focus full time on driving equity in STEM through the award winning stem amazing inspiration Academy, Alex helps women build confidence find their voice and model inclusive leadership for young minds across the UK and Beyond. Her mission is rooted in visibility, belonging and bold, joyful disruption of the status quo.
Alex Knight 1:25
Mark, I couldn’t have said that better myself. Thank you.
Mark McBride-Wright 1:29
Yeah, you got me all fired up. That’s great. I love that. I love that. So welcome to the podcast. We it’s always strange when I when I’m interviewing someone that I know and who I feel classify as a friend. So hopefully that energy comes across as we as we have our chat. So let’s go back tell us about the young Alex. Are you doing there? What you thought you would be doing back in the day?
Alex Knight 2:01
No, is the answer to that? Absolutely not. No. I mean young Alex, if you can picture this little, shy, Ginger kid with I mean, people used to say I had hair like Ronald McDonald back in the day, when he used to be the character of McDonald’s, and I was just like, super shy, very introverted. Didn’t really like being in the spotlight at all. In fact, I actively avoided that so to consider that I would ever be in a career where I have to, like, stand up and speak to people, run hands on activities in primary schools and support other women to be more visible role models would have been completely ridiculous. But, yeah, no, I think it, but it’s it’s part of my story, isn’t it, as part of that journey that actually my starting point is something that a lot of people can relate to. Yeah, and when you see somebody else Breaking Through Barriers and growing their confidence every single day, like proactively, then it gives you the hope and the motivation that you can do the same. And that’s what I that’s how I try to be an authentic role model to others.
Mark McBride-Wright 3:17
Well, for you, described yourself as an unlikely engineer and a recovering wallflower, and I think they’re taken from your TEDx talk, if I remember rightly so, for listeners that haven’t watched that. And I’d encourage everyone to go and watch it, because it’s a brilliant talk. What’s your origin story, then, for moving into engineering?
Alex Knight 3:37
I grew up with a sister who had multiple disabilities. She still has multiple disabilities, and I once was in terms of how I got into engineering. My physics teacher once said to me, engineering opens doors, and I was never the best at maths or sciences. I was okay at them. I could scrape through, but I felt like I wanted to do something that was a vocation, that that was practically making a difference, and if I could help people like my sister who needed practical interventions to help her live her daily life. So she used to have a splint on her leg, a splint on her arm, she would have equipment to help her physically with rehab. And I just felt like this, there’s there’s jobs out there that can really help people. And I just felt like that was my connection to engineering, although I didn’t really know it at the time, that it was kind of subconscious, but that was definitely, I think, looking back now, connecting the dots. That was one of the things that drove me to want to do biomedical engineering, which is where I started,
Mark McBride-Wright 4:42
interesting interest. So you did, so you did biomedical engineering, and then went on to specialize in that. Did you? Yeah, so
Alex Knight 4:50
I actually, I wanted to do biomedical engineering at university. I got rejections from a couple of universities. I didn’t get the a level grades that they were looking. Four I got accepted into Brunel University to do mechanical engineering with biomedical specialism in the final year. Again, I didn’t get the grades to get in to do that degree, but they they let me come and have an interview with them, and after the interview, they offered me a place. So I did mechanical engineering with a specialism in biomedical in the final year, and then after Brunel used that as a springboard to go to Imperial College London and did biomedical masters at Imperial College London. And then after that, I worked for a small startup med tech company for a few years. So that was my, yeah, initial start in engineering. And then after that, I went on and did design and systems engineering and asset management in consultancy companies,
Mark McBride-Wright 5:41
right? I see i The one area of engineering that I feel is so chronically under focused on, yeah, it possibly has, relative to others, one of the most potential impactful ways to create stories that resonate with, you know, biomedical, biomedical interventions, and just the medical sector in general, hospitals, healthcare, you know, it’s front and center and everyone’s life. You know, how have you kept that side alive in terms of your technical origin, and in in the profession, I
Alex Knight 6:26
think you’re exactly right. It’s people at the end of the day. And even though, in engineering, some people think that that’s just machines and engines and fixing stuff with spanners and, you know, fast trains, fast cars. Actually, biomedical engineering is a huge sector in engineering because it’s so connected to people. I think we all as humans can relate to that. And you’re right. We need to leverage that more in terms of attracting the next generation into engineering. And every single day, I feel like I’m seeing examples of how important that is. My dad is currently recovering from having heart bypass surgery. He’s had a couple of stents put in his heart, a valve replaced. He’s in hospital in London at the moment as we speak, and without medical engineering, none of that would be possible. So yeah, absolutely. I feel like even when I moved out of working specifically for bio med tech companies, even in my consulting career. So the first consulting company I went to, they didn’t have a health and medical sector, and I said, I really feel like we’re missing a trick here. Can I create one? And they gave me the freedom, a bit of budget, to go out there and try and make sector for the company, which we did successfully. It’s still going now, even though I left years and years ago. So, yeah, that’s how I try and stay connected. It’s always looking for those opportunities. I love it when we have amazing women in our community that that can represent an area of engineering connected to people and health and medical, pharmaceuticals. Yeah, even the water industry, things that are crucial to everyday life, that may improve quality of life, that that’s what you know really, really resonates with me.
Mark McBride-Wright 8:10
So tell us about moving into entrepreneurship, moving into going off on your own, setting up your own thing. I think I met you just you’re a couple years behind after me setting up equal engineers. I think we met when you were still at your consultancy role at the time. And so how are you finding it six years in running your running your business?
Alex Knight 8:39
I mean, we’ve had so many conversations about this, haven’t we? Mark there are definite highs and lows, but at the end of the day, but at the end of the day, I feel like I needed to do it. It wasn’t even a question of, really, should I? Shouldn’t I? It was like, I’ve got to do this. Yeah, I’ve got to give this a go, but always without putting too much pressure on myself to say this is my only route, like I I can go back into, you know, being an employee of another company, if, if I need to, and want to, at some point I so I always felt like it’s almost like an experiment to see if it works, how well it works. You know, what we can achieve? And I’m constantly still having that mindset of, like, constant experimentation, iteration, evolution, with the sort of, maybe like safety net, of like I feel like I’ve got options. It’s not this one route that I have to do no matter what. And I think that that comes from having built my confidence over years is you feel you’ve always got choices, and you’re not trapped in a box. But yeah, the leaving a secure what, seemingly I mean no job. Is 100% secure, but leaving what felt like, you know, a standard, secure job, pension, you know, health benefits, all of that, to go out with literally nothing, starting from scratch is terrifying. I’m sure, like you can absolutely testify to that as well, and without the support of my husband, Josh, you know my family and friends around me saying, Yeah, Alex, you know you’ve got to give this a go. I don’t think I could have done it. It was, yeah, scary times, but no regrets,
Mark McBride-Wright 10:34
really, no and what do you find? Well, tell, tell, I’ll come on to the question I was about to ask there in a moment, though, but tell, tell people about STEM amazing.
Alex Knight 10:48
So stemazing is a non profit social enterprise. All about, as you said in your intro, inspiration and inclusion in STEM. So I decided to focus on a very sort of niche area. I suppose you could consider it in that I want women role models, or non binary role models in STEM to get in front of young children and show them that this is just normal for for women to be in STEM jobs. So we specifically train and support women in STEM role models to go into primary schools and run hands on practical activities, focusing on schools with a high percentage of free school meals, so that we’re trying to reach the families that need these opportunities the most. And then we’ve just scaled that kind of same thing over and over, over the years, and now we’ve done over 165,000 stemazing Kids engagements, all led by women in STEM role models, and the program that we’re partnering on together with dne echo program in Scotland, and we also did work in the southwest of England, like branching out From our core, sort of just doing this as amazing and link, and linking with organizations like equal Engineers has really helped us grow what we’re doing and reach an even bigger audience. Fabulous.
Mark McBride-Wright 12:13
Yes, with that, that opportunity, the equal engineers and amazing are working together to, as you say, do STEM engagement activities to primary school secondary schools, and that that fundings really helped. It really helped bring together what I see as tertiary support organizations, micro SMEs like ours, come together and work on something that’s more than just let’s be on a panel together at an event and talk about what we could do. It’s actually funding to do what we do and what we’re good at, and recognizing the synergies of the two respective organizations. And I’m just curious about what you feel, you know, entrepreneur to entrepreneur, founder to founder, when it feel like you can be on the hamster wheel, constantly running an organization and you’re focused on just getting the business right, rather than out there doing the good work of what needs to be done. Do you feel there’s something that industry, you know, if someone’s listening to this work in an industry that’s in charge of social value or wants to figure out, how does their business? Just make stuff happen. You know, just activate. What would be your what’s one of your biggest barriers? I’m guessing that might be similar to mine. What’s one of your what do you what frustrates you the most? I guess that holds you back from not being able to just scale and do more and deepen and have more stem role models and more relationships with schools like what’s what’s one of the biggest things holding you back,
Alex Knight 14:03
it is funding, isn’t it. It is funding, and it is access to an army of role models that can give their time to be able to disseminate at the scale that we need to disseminate these engagements. And the two are very connected. We work with a lot of volunteers, but without the support of their organization, giving them the time away from their day job, paid time away from their day job, so paid volunteer days, it’s it’s not going to happen, and it’s not sustainable. So yeah, funding to be able to grow what we do, because it’s amazing. We do online training for role models, but then the role models go into the schools that we work with, and we send stem kits of all the resources they need to do the activities for every child to the school. And that takes money. It’s stuff we have to pay for to send out. We have to. Pay for our team. We’ve got a very small team. We’ve got six of us now in the team, I myself and one other are the only ones working full time. We’ve got the others are part time staff members, but that they do incredible work on a shoestring budget, but it still takes money. They still need to be paid, obviously. And so, yeah, it’s all that, isn’t it? It’s funding its access to the people to get on board with this mission. So my biggest frustration, in answer to your question, I suppose, is when people talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk, with regards to actually putting their money where their mouth is, in terms of saying, right, like we want to do this. We want to we want to grow our talent pool of diverse people applying to our organization, but there’s not enough diverse people in that talent pool, and they’re not thinking long term enough ahead to say, well, we’ve got to start a grassroots to to to basically attract a more, a wider, diverse pool, and therefore a larger, stronger, diverse pool of talent to ultimately come into businesses like ours, and they think maybe that they can pay lip service to it, rather than actually investing fully in what needs to happen and work with experts like us who are really skilled and experienced with this now that know what works in an efficient, effective way.
Mark McBride-Wright 16:24
I think that absolutely bizarre that we see these massive whether it be conservative or labor, you know, massive investment in infrastructure projects, in new new organizations like skills, England, etc, being set up, being stood up, and all this talk and all this like we’re going to do this. We’re going to do that. And money here, money there, and disseminating out regionally, here, there, and then, when it comes to actually doing the work on the ground, running the sessions, running the why, it’s just not naturally coming together. Why people aren’t approaching you, you know, your phone should be ringing off the hook, and your emails should be like, knee deep in, you know, whatever you get my point, like, you know, like that. There should be such a demand. You shouldn’t have to be generating a demand. There should be a demand on your time and your team’s time. You know you’ve certainly been recognized for it nationally with all the awards that you’re getting. So I just, I just wonder when that’s going to happen, if it’s going to happen, or do you have to keep being the one that’s banging the drum and pushing out there? I just, I just, I just, I just don’t know. I just
Alex Knight 17:42
think you’re right, like I would be, and I am. There is clearly a demand there. The bit that’s missing is people being willing to pay the money to invest in it. And I think because it is there, there are a lot of organizations like ours working in the space of diversity and inclusion in STEM there are some big national bodies and institutions also driving that. But where, where is the joined up approach that allows sort of like the Best Collaboration partnership, like we’re doing with equal engineers, and it’s amazing to provide the best solutions with everybody’s niche USP, able to bring that to the fore in an effective way. Like sometimes it feels like some people’s have this maybe slight fear of competition over collaboration, and so it’s confusing the picture for everybody, and it’s not allowing a clear strategy for how to ultimately reach the goal that we’re all striving for. And all agree is the best thing to do, because money is limited at the end of the day. But how do we ensure that the right people in the right way at the right time are getting that limited money so that you get absolute maximum value for your investment.
Mark McBride-Wright 19:06
Yeah, true, but, but then I’ve sat in some very senior meetings in the last couple of months since I’ve been back where they’re talking about hundreds of millions of pounds being spent on X, Y and Z, and like, you know, a small point of that percentage wise, wouldn’t even touch the sides yet would be, you know, massively, massively beyond what either organization of ours has ever received, you know, and then what we could do with that would be phenomenal. But I think we need to keep, yeah, keep, keep. We need
Alex Knight 19:38
mark like it’s amazing that leaders like you. You approach me to say, Alex, let’s partner on this. You didn’t think you know what I’m going to do. It on my own. I can do this. You went, who do I know? Who’s doing amazing work in this space? Who can I collaborate with? So it’s a win win for all of us. I think if more people have that mindset of like, where do i Who can I collaborate with? Yeah, rather than reinventing the wheel, then we might see a better, more joined up approach. So yeah, I do think, and I feel like it’s all connected to the messages that you put in your book around how you know, if we had those kind of collaborative, psychologically safe spaces where people were really able to connect and understand each other and work together in the way that best fits whatever problem we’re trying to solve, whether that is a health and safety issue at work or whether that is solving, you know, the diversity crisis in STEM we need to create the spaces where we can bring everybody together to have a safe and open and maybe challenging discussion, and not everybody’s at you know, they’re not yet comfortable to do that true.
Mark McBride-Wright 20:53
I certainly feel like I’ve had a year out since being being over in the States, and just having that that perspective, or that that distance, and it’s certainly readied me for coming back and but, yeah, you’re right. I mean, I, I would, I really think that the way forward is growth for equal engineers, is growth through collaboration. And it’s, you know, I like working in the way that our organizations have been working. You know, it’s nice. It’s created meaningful employment for some people that are, you know, leading on those projects. And you and I, as the founders of our businesses, they’re spinning plates that we can just still oversee, but we entrust to others, to manage, deliver, and it’s a great step up opportunity for for them. And so, yeah, I think we’ll get there. I think we just need to keep it’s friendships as well, right? And trust and friendships like, you know, in the background like that. I don’t know if organizations really under like big companies, if they really understand the extent to which there are those of us running these organizations at our level actually are all sort of connected in the background and but because we’re all so time poor and and just like running from pillar to post, we it’s refreshing when we get that opportunity to come together and work on something. So I’m continually looking for big projects that can scaffold together, you know, working with yourself and Natalie, it’s stem returners, you know, I’ve got some, you know, I’m always having those sort of because in my mind, that’s the ideal rhythm, you know, having that, that beaten heart of training the existing workforce through safe leader principles, whilst then enabling them to do the good work, to then bring in talent from inspire talent, to consider engineering and and I think,
Alex Knight 22:59
with our businesses being the size that they are, like, you know, collaboration, like you say, I feel is so powerful because each of us are still agile and able to innovate and pivot and, you know, solve the problems that right here, right now need to be solved. If we grew massively and sort of conglomerated everything, would we have that agility, still probably not. So actually, keeping us small, agile, innovative is great, but combining our strengths, partnership is absolutely the way forward. And I think if, if more organizations could, if decision makers, budget holders in larger organizations, could see the benefit of bringing together that kind of partnership approach with lots of agile small organizations that are social enterprises doing really, really good work that think of the benefit they could get, not trying to do it all in house, but working with these agile teams outside, but showing their support and Ultimately investing in the future of their business, their industry.
Mark McBride-Wright 24:03
That’s, I mean, I was at an awards dinner once, and I was sat next to someone who, you know, high up in the company, won a ton of energy contracts, a whole bunch of social value commitments there. They recruited a couple of people internally to deliver against the social value requirements. They still couldn’t fulfill all the social value metrics that they needed to meet for the funding that they’d received. And so we were having a discussion about, Well, how could we then sort of employ the team of amazing equal engineers like the DNA model that we’ve had, badge, badge, the team as whatever the organization was, and then go out and deliver, you know, stem inspiration, activities and stuff. And of course, like anything in life, you have that conversation, and then it just goes quiet when you then try and follow up. But I think if to your to your message to budget holders and people in businesses, i. There. If you do have social value obligations under contracts that you’ve won, your company doesn’t have to be the one that delivers it. You can support SMEs, minority owned SMEs, like STEMIs and like equal engineers, to come together and and and support and deliver. Yes. So tell us a bit about then, a bit about some of your favorite sessions that you’ve delivered. You’ve been in front of lots and lots of young people. What are they like? What are some challenging questions you’ve been asked? What? What’s made you go, Oh my I don’t know how to answer that.
Alex Knight 25:42
It’s always, it’s always a joy working with young people, because it they always throw something at the you that you were not expecting. And to be honest, that is literally the joy of it. It’s, it’s both humorous and surprising and like validating, in a sense as well, because you’re like, yes, okay, the curiosity, the creativity, is absolutely there in these minds. So I mean some of the brilliant, amazing kids workshops that we run. For example, we you mentioned energy just now, we do an exploring energy session where every single child makes their own little energy transformation device, and we talk about transfer and transformation of energy from potential energy to kinetic energy, and give them all sorts of different examples in the real world. And it’s just joyful seeing them have fun and play with STEM and seeing them just get creative, creative with their own little you know, thing that they’ve made. And talk about how they’re going to show their brother or sister at home. And we talk about, how could you tweak us at home? Could you make another one? And all of our activities use simple household resources so that the children can recreate them at home and bring feel that sense of accessibility and and basically like, feel like they can do STEM it’s not something you have to be a maths or science genius to be able to do, but also things like, you know, I love bringing in topics like around sustainability. We make these tiny wind turbines. Take them outside, play with them. Move right, go up and down the corridors with them. Get them moving. We do one for slightly older children, where we connect the mini wind turbine, just made from wooden skewers and paper and a bit of blue tack and a straw to a paper cup that we can lift with different weights in it, so things like marshmallows to begin with, and then maybe move on to like Maltesers or jelly beans or things that as they get slightly heavier, and see how much effort and energy is needed to put into the system for it to do work at different levels, sort of thing. So love that. Love seeing how left field some of their ideas are and their creativity. We did a brilliant one collaboration with UK AEA and women in nuclear recently on magnetism, and we made these magnetic storyboards, where the children created like a little story and then made a magnetic mini me character that they couldn’t touch, but they could move around the board with their magnet and hearing them explain to each other what their storyboard was about and their creative idea. And like, you know, we asked that, we posed them the question, how would you solve the idea of being able to create limitless energy in future ideas they come up with, it blows your mind, because there are no boundaries. Imagine if industry can tap into that source of innovation and creativity in a productive way. You know, we can be accelerating the levels of innovation in our in our businesses. So yeah, that’s what I just love, working with young people. And even though I’m running stamazing, we’ve got a team, we’ve got loads of volunteers, I always make sure that I am out there delivering amazing kids activities in schools and different events around the country as well, because I love it, and also I feel like I need that like, connection to what we do. Yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 29:07
well, tell us about then, what are your future plans for? Stay amazing, where? How would you like to see it, flourish, develop, grow?
Alex Knight 29:18
Yeah, there’s, you know, I suppose I have to be honest, I have severe shiny object syndrome, so I am constantly going, Oh, that’d be amazing. That’d be amazing. And I have to, I’ve really worked on this as an entrepreneur to try and prioritize and focus, and now have, I’ve got a business coach. I’ve got a woman called Anne hodgett. She’s come on as a non exec director, that I can have meetings with them where I bounce ideas off and kind of get that reality check and also help prioritize. Like we’ve got limited resources, limited time. What is the thing that we. Can do that’s going to help us add most value to the problems we’re trying to solve. And so two key things for me, the way I want to gross amazing, I want to definitely keep doing what we’re doing around gender diversity with female role models going into primary schools. I also want to bring more active allies into what we do. So we already have this amazing mentoring program where allies is open to all genders to be mentors. In fact, you did a you did a video for asked amazing community around being an ally, which was fantastic. So we welcome allies into asked amazing community. I did that. Yeah. Okay, yeah. But we always we the next thing where we’re going to bring in all genders and allies is with us, amazing spark initiative. So that’s for young people with additional support needs. So young people with disabilities, young people with neurodivergence. And instead of just focusing on women as the role models, we want relatable role models who are people who also have lived experience of neurodivergence or a disability. And so, you know, we want all genders to get involved in that, and then it’ll be a similar model of supporting and training them to deliver just amazing kids sessions in scnd settings. That’s special educational needs and disabilities special needs schools. But also, there’s a lot of children with scnd in mainstream schools as well. So it helps us ensure all the sessions we do are accessible. And the other thing is really trying to help us think like, where, how do we bring those communities together? Because something that we’ve talked about before as well is that focusing on one area of diversity with a with a narrow lens is potentially Well, you know, missing the power of of the majority supporting it. So I would love to grow our amazing community, which is sort of less intense than the programs we run, but people can join our community, learn some amazing kids sessions and then deliver them as and when it suits them, needing to be fixed to a program of one a week, and you will do it at this time. So yeah, those are my sort of two key things that I’m I’m focusing on, and also the strategy around growing the number of partners that support us, and growing the number of collaborators that we work with, such as equal engineers, because, like you say, it’s got to be collaboration and partnership as the way forward.
Mark McBride-Wright 32:32
Definitely, definitely we when we ran the equal engineers careers fairs, we did about 50 in the space of six years. And in the morning, 10 till 12, we used to be open exclusively for schools, schools and colleges, and then afterwards for university students and what have you and other people. One thing I found there was a pattern we sort of saw in the outreach we were doing for Sen and Sandy schools, in that there’s a spectrum of need even within that broad category. And I found that sometimes there were gatekeepers that you had to get around in order to get to the the teachers, you know, and I found there was sometimes secretaries or people who were managing the inbox, basically of the inbound inquiry, effectively selecting out the opportunity for the children, for the students, the pupils, to come to the careers event, because their perception was, well, these people are never going to be engineers. Are, you know, like a real glass half empty attitude. So, but, but then when the schools that did come, and then you met with them, and you met with some of the careers well, not careers advisor, but just the people who’d brought them, the teachers that had brought the groups. And it was incredible, because very rarely had these students been at an environment to to explore opportunities or to find out more about opportunities in STEM and it was, it was a really interesting learning forum, because a lot of the exhibitors that were there, well, they’d normally be going to like the graduate recruitment bureau or whatever, and it’s the same profile of people university students that they have coming up and you know, we used to always say, look, you’re going to be challenged in a good way in this setting, because you’re going to go from speaking to a young person who has autism that isn’t given the usual neurotypical cues that you’re experience expecting from an applicant. Through to a female returner, or, you know, a black engineering undergraduate, etc, in the afternoon. So it was really interesting seeing kind of in a good way, like being open to like they were properly being challenged on what practice and inclusive role modeling and thinking through difference was like. So I think the spark program sounds like like a great idea. I think it might be challenging, but you know, everything’s if you know what you’re going into and you’ve got bad things in place to mitigate difficulties and stuff, then it’s just
Alex Knight 35:47
part of your so like, we’ve internally funded pilots around this, so that we know for ourselves it has the potential exactly like you say, it’s challenging in different ways, but that challenge is Healthy challenge, and we’re always saying we need to widen the talent pool of people that we’re attracting into STEM and we also recognize that difference of thinking is a positive thing when it comes to innovation. So we have to try these things. We have to try and open the doors wider to a more diverse range of people to at least appreciate stem could be an option for them, and I think with relatable role models going and talking to young people with autism with different disabilities that they’ll be able to see actually, yeah, that there, there are options for me, maybe their teacher or other significant adults in their life might have set barriers to say you’ll never do that, maybe even you won’t even get a job. But actually, with the right support, we can turn into that potential talent, innovation, diversity of thought. So I really feel passionately that it’s something we need to explore. We need to we need to try and experiment with, in a way, internally, in our own ways of operating as a business. Yes, I think getting the funding for it is going to be difficult, but I’m willing to do the work and push as hard as possible to make it happen. And we’ll do what we can internally, funding it as well.
Mark McBride-Wright 37:21
Fantastic, fantastic. Well, let us know if you need any help or support on that absolutely and so you were at an award ceremony at the weekend national diversity awards. How? How are you? How are how is so you create a platform where you’re trying to recognize role models and uplift role models. But how does it feel when you yourself are then honored and recognized in that way?
Alex Knight 37:55
Have you seen the video of it? Is highly embarrassing.
Mark McBride-Wright 37:59
So earlier,
Alex Knight 38:02
I was not expecting it just to be, yeah, just to be shortlisted, and be in that room of incredible people like just doing such amazing work across all fronts. It, it’s so inspiring, so so motivating, and I was just absolutely loving having the time of my life, basically when with my husband as well, considered it like a date night. We don’t often get date nights. I was like, fantastic. Get dressed up, go out to this lovely, lovely dinner and celebration and just enjoy it. And then when my name was read out, luckily, somebody on the table who I hadn’t met before that night, but she was videoing me just in case, and when my name was out, there’s like, a short pause, and then I just, like, screamed, and she videoed me. And I just went to Josh, what am I going to say on stage? What am I going to say? And he burst out laughing. And then I went up the stage, and as I was walking up to the stage, there’s got all these big screens, and the team had done little videos about me, and they were playing these videos. So you’ve got, like, Sue jesha Michelle talking, saying how much they love working for amazing and what great work we’re doing. And I was just in bits. I was literally sobbing, and I got up on stage, and Claire balding went, you can do this. You can say a few words, you can do this. And Gail Porter was there. She handed me the trophy, and she was like, you’ve got this, you’re fine. And so, yeah, I don’t know what I said, But I rambled on and barely held it together. And yeah, even now, you know, that’s kind of like going back to how we started this conversation. You know, I’m still that eight year old girl inside who really is not as comfortable as I’d like to be in the spotlight, but when I’m prepared, like when I did my TEDx, I was super prepared. I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I knew exactly why I was doing it. I had a mission. It was not about me. It’s about getting the message out there. When it is more about me, that’s when I struggle, and I really went so. Wobbly on stage. Got really lightheaded, and I, I much prefer being in the spotlight to amplify the spotlight of others. So being on me, it was uncomfortable, but I feel like I just have to keep working through that, because it’s part of the mission that I’m on, being visible. And so yeah, but it’s, it’s an, it’s a continual evolution I’ll ever be comfortable with it. But yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 40:28
it’s when that and me, and it’s that servant leadership. It’s doing what you do for a greater purpose, but you are tied to the in a positive way, like the brand of stay amazing and you know, you being out there and winning This then helps the business. It helps get more, you know, coverage in the media, and then eyeballs on the video, and it helps spread the word. It’s validating for for what you’re doing. So it’s all if you just lean into that, that grounding, and also, well, I mean, personally, I’ve when you said about shiny syndrome, you know, I think every entrepreneur has that. I think it’s just being an entrepreneur as well and knowing when you need to put the guard rails there, like you’ve done with a business coach and on executive director to keep me grounded, but also not to lose that spark, because if you know he didn’t have that, then you wouldn’t have created the amazing and you do have to be thinking ahead sometimes with with where things come. So I sort of accepted that I’ve always got this bubbling of ambition and push, and I don’t think that drive will ever go like I don’t think that drive will ever ever go away, and if it does, then it’s time to move on to something else or find a new challenge in one’s life. But yeah, and I’ve sort of got comfort in that now, knowing that that’s how I am and how I maintain. You know, when I get really frustrated, let’s just still maintain some energy to keep to keep going.
Alex Knight 42:10
That is really good advice, actually. Yeah, it’s more accepting that it’s, it’s actually, like any part of our character, it can, it can be a strength, and it is a strength, but sometimes we view it as a weakness, but embrace it like channel and direct it, yeah? But that’s why it’s helpful chatting to people like you to kind of know that, yeah, actually, there’s similarities.
Mark McBride-Wright 42:35
And I, yeah, I did a, I did a when I when I was in New York in 2021 and my now coach said to me at the time, you need to know, start synthesizing your story. Understand, be coherent in your message. Comb the spaghetti mark that you’ve got all the stuff that you’re doing. And she introduced me to I did a three hour I invested in a three hour session with Erin weed, who runs something called the dig. Erin was one of the founders of TEDx boulder. She was the founder of Girls fight back that she set up in the US when her best friend got murdered. And anyway, the dig process helps distill everything down to one word that describes why you do what you do, and then a sort of operating system built around that. And my word was justice. So I’m always like looking for justice in a situation when I see it, and also the operating system. One of the words that I could have chosen was ameliorate, so wanting to make things better. And it absolute that framework, that kind of three hour session of story mining and digging and digging and digging to then arrive at one word that really helped me understand myself and about how I show up in different situations where I can’t just be happy at a networking function if I hear someone that has an idea or someone else my network could Help. I’m always like wanting to be a dot joiner and and help so that, that that that process helped me get comfort with myself in terms of how I am and so yeah, that, if that helps,
Alex Knight 44:14
yeah, think about that. That can be a little bit of homework exercise for me to try and think about my word. Yeah.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:20
What’s your word? Right? Quick Fire question around, yeah, okay, what’s the best piece of speaking advice you’ve ever received?
Alex Knight 44:30
Courage comes before confidence.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:33
What’s once amazing success story that gives you goosebumps.
Alex Knight 44:37
I mentioned it in my TEDx, when Kaylee delivered a series of amazing kids activities, all in British Sign Language to a school of deaf children,
Mark McBride-Wright 44:51
tea, coffee or an outdoor adventure?
Alex Knight 44:55
Are they mutually exclusive? Outdoor Adventure? Then close the. Followed by coffee,
Mark McBride-Wright 45:01
a flask of coffee. One thing inclusive leaders need to unlearn,
Alex Knight 45:17
that you need to have all the answers.
Mark McBride-Wright 45:22
Well, it’s a go to book podcast or TED talk that you recommend often.
Alex Knight 45:31
Brene Brown’s one about
Mark McBride-Wright 45:35
courage there to lead. That one, yes, dare to lead. How do you personally recharge your creative energy?
Alex Knight 45:45
Beach, cold water, dipping
Mark McBride-Wright 45:49
a method or tool you swear by for helping women find their voice.
Alex Knight 45:56
Very simple, record yourself giving an opener about yourself on camera. Watch it back.
Mark McBride-Wright 46:06
What’s a young who is a young person who’s recently inspired you
Alex Knight 46:11
my daughter?
Mark McBride-Wright 46:13
What do people most often misunderstand about STEM outreach?
Alex Knight 46:19
That you can only talk about STEM careers to older children.
Mark McBride-Wright 46:25
Finally, what advice would you give to your 2019 self before she made the leap?
Alex Knight 46:33
It’s not going to be easy, but you won’t have any regrets.
Mark McBride-Wright 46:37
Amazing, amazing, amazing. Thank you very much, Alex. I’ve really enjoyed this session. If people want to get in touch with you, find out more about stim amazing. Get in touch with you directly. How should they do that?
Alex Knight 46:51
You can find me on LinkedIn. I’m there, Alex Knight and stamazing. If you search me there, also, you could go to our website, which is stimmazing.co.uk, wonderful.
Mark McBride-Wright 47:03
Thank you very much. I’m sure there will be many more activities to come. Really enjoyed it. Thanks. Alex mark, take care. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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