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Inside a CTO’s Career: Culture, Leadership & Scaling with Meri Williams
12/03/2025
Inside a CTO’s Career: Culture, Leadership & Scaling with Meri Williams
In this episode of Her Future Bright, Chanelle Pattinson sits down with Meri Williams, former CTO at Monzo and Pleo, engineering leader, NED and adviser, to unpack the making of a standout career in technology leadership. Meri shares how a childhood fascination with hardware and gaming led to a decade at Procter & Gamble, before stepping into roles that shaped some of the UK’s most important digital services, including building the team behind GOV.UK. She reflects on the intense realities of scaling engineering teams at pace, the lessons learned from hyper-growth environments, and what it really takes to lead with purpose, autonomy, mastery and inclusion. The episode dives into why hiring for culture add (not culture fit) creates better products, how neurodiversity and disability have shaped Meri’s leadership journey, and why embracing flexibility, including a four-day week, can unlock stronger performance and healthier teams. It’s a conversation filled with honesty, humour and the kind of hard-won wisdom that only comes from a career built on curiosity, courage and continuous reinvention. This series of the Her Future Bright podcast is sponsored by . Find out more about our . Produced by .
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