Hope you're all doing well!!
Lavanda
Operations Manager
McCarthy
London City
Honestly, coming back from maternity leave after eight months was a bit of a shock to the system, not in a bad way, but AI had moved so fast while I was away that I knew straight away I needed to properly get myself up to speed. It really opened my eyes to just how quickly things are changing, and I didn't want to be playing catch-up any longer than necessary! On the business side, we've set ourselves a pretty exciting (and ambitious!) goal of becoming an agentic AI business by the end of 2026. We're figuring out a lot as we go, things like how our organisation needs to be structured differently, how to bring our teams along with us through the change, and how to build a proper AI strategy rather than just reacting to things as they come up. The leadership team has had a bit of a lightbulb moment recently and we're all aligned that it's time to put our heads together and plan this out properly. On a personal note, I'm also up for a promotion to Director of Operations in the next couple of months, which feels like brilliant timing to be doing something like this! I really want to step into that role feeling confident and informed, not just excited about AI, but actually equipped to help lead the business through it in an informed way. So yes, very motivated to learn, very much in the right place at the right time, and on top of all of that, I'm genuinely excited to get back into the Operations Nation community too (it's been too long)!!