(Voice off-screen) Asking important people questions
as the camera moves closer to their face.
What advice would you give to your teenage self? I didn't find being a teenager very easy at all
actually and I wasn't very good at talking about my feelings and my uncertainties and I just sort
of got my head down and carried on with studying and didn't really think about the wider world so
I think I'd try and advise my teenage self to step back a bit and look about what I was
doing within the wider world and recognize all the exciting opportunities there are out there
and to not worry because actually there'd be lots and lots of things that
would be okay in my life in the future. What motivates you in work or in life?
Seeing evidence that I'm making a difference, it doesn't have to be
in terms of the traditional indicators but you know just one student kind of saying "oh I get
it" or one student saying "I agree with you Stacy, I am good enough"
um you know "I don't have to be perfect." Is there a woman in your life who's inspired
you in some way and can you talk about that? It would be very remiss if I didn't mention
my wife who has had to put up with a lot. I can be a handful and some of the things
that I've been through over the last 10, 15 years that she's supported me with
I think she has tremendous strength. I think she also doesn't necessarily see herself as a role
model and sometimes undervalues what she does and definitely suffers from imposter syndrome.
What keeps you motivated? I always want to make
change uh you know I'm really interested in women and development issues especially growing up in
you know Ghana where I grew up in it's not you know it's not a massively poor country that you
see on tv but there are still some issues and you know women do suffer around the world. Even if i
can make a little change that's the most helpful thing. When I was in high school my principal you
know when I got really good grades people used to tell me "oh we didn't expect you to get this far"
and I guess just you know kind of continuing to prove them wrong just really helps me because I
knew that I could do it I just want to make other people see that I can too.
How does being a parent impact the way you think and feel about something like gender equality?
So I'm very acutely aware of potential differences in raising a daughter to raising a son so I try
really hard not to distinguish between them because of gender at all but to pay a lot
of attention to their character their kind of personal likes and dislikes and just to forget
that one of my offspring is a girl and one of my offspring is a boy and I'm super proud of
both of them because I think neither of them have ever been so far um defined by gender but
more defined by what they're comfortable with, that's that's how I want them to grow up, that's
the kind of like mother I want to be kind of do it just go smash it out of the ballpark try it.
I'm a big believer you know in inclusion that is transformational so you know it's not just about
inclusion as in do we have the right colour of people and the right mix of genders but are we
accepting and really accepting I don't just mean tolerating but accepting that difference
IS what we are. Right, so you know this whole idea that difference is a problem to be solved
and that we need to tolerate difference? Don't believe in any of that nonsense, right,
and so I think part of what motivates me is getting people to see that and seeing
indicators that they see that you know we should be chasing and seeking difference,
difference in teams difference in organisations. People in this sector, this university,
the schools that I'm working with across the University of Nottingham are beginning to
understand the difference is it, difference is the thing that we actually should be seeking.