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Harley Cunningham

Harley Cunningham

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Harley Cunningham

One of the Tech Women Celebration 50 - women changing the ratio of the tech workforce

Harley Cunningham, who works in engineering at Virgin Media O2, spent nearly 20 years working for FTSE 100 companies in sales and marketing roles. A personal tragedy led her to focus her efforts elsewhere.

"My new life purpose is to improve bereavement policy and practices within workplaces to better support employees. When my 2 year old son died in 2021, I identified a big gap between what support employees need from their workplace and what companies actually offer. I started in Virgin Media by creating management and employee grief toolkits and a Hug in a Box (a box sent to a bereaved employee) to help support employees through their traumatic major life events."

Harley considers her work at Virgin Media O2 to improve bereavement policy which involved building a business case for the Hug in a Box scheme and persuading the board of the importance of supporting bereaved employees her biggest achievement. She continues to work to help others.

"I've been training and mentoring new managers on compassionate management and what I've learnt from my Cruse bereavement training. I work in the engineering team in Virgin where there aren't many women and even fewer in senior positions. On International Women's Day, I set up a webinar to bring all the women together for a lunch and learn to meet each other. We now have monthly meet ups to talk about development and topics of the day."