Anita Inala-Kilby: Empowering Teams to Outsize Technological Growth in Travel and SME Market

Women in the 21st century have successfully risen above every cliche and are heading a part of digital transformation in the world. Although the gap between women working in tech is smaller than that of men throughout the globe, it seems like a first step towards achieving more in the future. Anita Inala – Kilby is one of the aspiring personalities contributing to the growth of women in technology. 

Anita is involved in two innovative companies that are changing the dynamics of the travel and SME markets. 

One is Suzie, a hotel-friendly social travel agency that allows hotels to increase profitability while helping travellers network, and connect with like-minded people. The company prefers to think that they are challenging the traditional travel industry model by promoting a movement based on a social lifestyle that combines community and innovation. 

 Suzie is about to launch Suzie Saas (suzie.app), an application that will be a breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. Suzie Saas allows travel specialists to build a pipeline of qualified leads, drive more revenue, and retain customers without increasing headcount using its no-code chatbot platform and live chat solution.  

Meanwhile, Anita is also engaged with another company – Webuildtech. Webuildtech is a bespoke IT and business partner that helps startups and small business owners build successful, scalable products that users love. It is far more than just another IT agency. At Webuiltech, the employees build cutting-edge technologies and support startup founders with IT knowledge and their business network. 

An Empowered Leader Propelling Technology 

Anita has been involved in Suzie right from the beginning. Currently, she is the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) & CEO of the company. She actively mentored and coached many key business skills to the other two founding members, from business strategy development, securing investment and raising funding to pitching on both a local and international stage. When Anita was invited to join the Board as CEO/COO, she knew that she would continue to drive these elements forward.  

 Anita is equally invested in steering business development and marketing strategy as a Director of Webuildtech. She has also brought her experience and expertise to support recruitment. Webuildtech has been sourcing some of the best developers in the world to deliver the optimum technical offering for its clients. 

Anita knows that sharing knowledge and building a network is the key to a successful business. So, it is a reward to develop a brand with such great potential. 

Anita faced a lot of adversity growing up as an Asian woman in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. But failure never felt like an option to her. She gave 110% to everything she did and had a dogged desire to succeed. 

Anita was fortunate enough to meet three incredible mentors who were generous with both their time and knowledge. The first mentor pushed Anita to succeed in a sales environment, while the other two helped her develop an IT career. She was taught to embrace the creative and entrepreneurial aspects of tech at a time when she was one of a handful of women. That's one of the major reasons why Anita is passionate about mentoring and coaching others within the industry. 

Relishing Challenges to Drive Companies Vision 

Anita opines that all startups face some challenges during the initial stages. Suzie also underwent situations where funding was tough; matching investors to opportunities is never easy. She says that investors put money into people who project a genuine passion and believe what they are doing is crucial. 

As a CEO, Anita always works hard to bring the best out of people and makes sure that everyone in the team is pulling in the same direction. She knows that it takes a lot of energy to make a business work, and the Covid-19 pandemic has brought its own problems for every sector. Everyone has had to work hard to maintain focus and adapt to the new normality in order to survive, while also remembering that the human element is the main driver. 

The major challenge that Webuildtech faced was to source good developers who deliver on-time and within budget. The company has overcome this by recruiting their own team, which means they can control what they do, when and how. 

Developing Diverse Skills to Harness Creativity and Passion 

Anita believes that to be a good leader, people have to develop in every direction. Investing in people through mentoring and coaching is very important. That is how leaders get the best out of their team while harnessing creativity and passion, which are equally vital when they work in a constantly evolving sector. 

Anita advises leaders to have a clear view on every business area, including learning from the bottom up, so they could direct with authority and earn trust both within and outside the business.  

Analyzing Services through Past Customer Experience 

Anita strongly feels that research is vital for understanding what the customer wants. It always helps if companies to do their homework so they can find a gap in the market. She adds, unless companies know whom they are selling to, it's impossible to succeed. 

Anita insists companies learn to adapt and innovate so they can face challenges head-on and survive. Anita proudly mentions that the launch of Suzie SaaS is an excellent example of this. 

Towards Dynamic Technological Advances 

The combination of AI and Machine Learning has significantly increased Suzie's productivity, and the company has seen a mix of these two technologies bringing humanity to the new era of information.  

At Suzie, the team has already built an application that can guess what sort of hotel room customers prefer, based on several data points. Anita remarks that when technology has the ability to accesses real-human data, it will achieve tremendous results. 

With Covid-19, Anita has seen substantial business growth within the e-commerce market. Henceforth, she insisted her team to focus on Webuildtech, supporting startups to find their feet. 

Webuildtech now offers a new digital transformation service offering to their clients, which can harness a lifetime of business data. The company finds ways to improve business operations, sales, and even employees' time management. Webuildtech has seen clients increasing their profits by 30% with this application. Having said that, the company is pleased to be in the position to offer such services. 

A Piece of Advice for Emerging Women Leaders 

Anita advises emerging women leaders to never give up. She adds that it is encouraging to see more women making a name for themselves within the industry. Women hold some of the highest positions in tech, but it takes passion and perseverance to achieve it. 

Anita concludes that very few women that succeed in IT get a head start. It is about beginning at the bottom and being smart, fast and adaptable on the way up. It is rarely easy, but it's worth the effort when women get to the top.