She helped Atlassian crack the code on remote work | Emma Crockett, VP Atlassian

Emma Crockett didn't set out to be a numbers person.

She thought she'd become a vet until she went on work experience and had more fun setting up their IT systems instead.

20 years on, including seven years at Meta, she's now VP of People Insights at Atlassian, a company that's changed the game on remote work.

In this episode, Emma breaks down the data on what your first months in a new role actually look like, why the first 10 relationships matter more than you think, and one piece of advice about rubber balls and glass balls you won't forget.

Emma, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

Let's go back to the beginnings.

Were you a maths kid growing up or did this data-driven path come from somewhere else?

You know, it's funny.

I definitely did not feel like a maths kid growing up, but I think with the wonders of hindsight, I probably have always been a maths kid.

I grew up doing ballet.

I was much more interested in being on the stage and in the theatre.

I loved science.

I thought I was going to be a vet and then I did work experience and I actually had to do some hands-on vet and I spent most of my time at the vet clinic actually setting up all of their IT equipment and then I thought maybe I'm not going to be a vet and that is how I found my way into a STEM career.

I went and got an IT degree instead.

Amazing and

were many people around you getting IT degrees at the time?

No.

And I think that I was like one of three girls in my class, which like, honestly, I thought were great odds at that time for me.

But no, I was one of the only people in my grade.

There were a lot of people that went into business degrees and marketing degrees and even engineering degrees.

So lots of people that wanted to be lawyers, lots of people that wanted to be a physiotherapist, not that many people who joined me in my IT elective.

Most people have never heard of people analytics as a career.

How do you describe it when you meet somebody at, say, like a dinner party?

I will start with how I explain it to my kids, which is that I count people.