A View from the Top: Jacqueline de Rojas on discrimination in tech

So many business people profess to have stumbled into their highly successful career path that it’s started to ring hollow. However, when Jacqueline de Rojas says she didn’t go looking for a career in tech, rather, it found her, she’s got the backstory to prove it. She studied for her European business degree in Germany, where she “picked up a language or two… or three”, but: “My burning ambition was to be a newscaster on the BBC.”

When that didn’t pan out, De Rojas got a job in tech recruitment, where she stayed for two years, until one of the companies she was working with offered her a job “because I spoke German”, and they needed a German speaker to help them understand a new client. That was the beginning of a 30-year career which has included stints at Novell, McAfee and Sage, and De Rojas has never looked back. She is now president of techUK, the body that represents the tech industry, as well as holding a raft of directorships at some of the UK’s biggest companies.