More than 30 female fleet professionals gathered at Horwood House in Milton Keynes for the fourth Empowering Women in Fleet meeting.
The network, launched by Fleet News, highlights the achievements of women in the fleet sector while promoting role models and encouraging more women to reach their full potential. It is open to fleet end-users at every level.
Attendees can look forward to inspirational speakers and group roundtable discussions sponsored by network partners Ayvens, Chery, Sortimo Van Racking Solutions and Webfleet.
At the latest meeting, attendees were led through confidence-boosting training exercises by Katy Leeson, who talked about how people can use imposter syndrome as their superpower.
The event also featured a Q&A with Sarina Vale, senior contract manager – fleet services, Environment Agency, who shared her experience of stepping into a new fleet leadership role.
Recent research by KPMG has found that 75% of female executives suffer from imposter syndrome; the psychological experience of feeling like a fraud despite clear evidence of their abilities and accomplishments.
Those who experience it constantly doubt their competence, fear being ‘found out’ and attribute their success to luck rather than their own hard work and skills.
However, inspirational speaker Katy Leeson told the recent Empowering Women in Fleet event at Horwood House, Milton Keynes, that it can be used as a superpower to spark further development and success.
“Imposter syndrome always pops up when something goes wrong. We’re all so scared of failing, but when I think about failure it has actually been my biggest moments of growth.
“When things went wrong, when we lost a client, when I made a mistake – those were the moments when I’ve learned the most.
“Try to reframe failure as an expansion. Flip it with this prompt: ‘this fear means I’m levelling up because... for example, you’re taking on more complex work and are growing.
“If you feel like an imposter right now, it’s not a sign you’re failing; it’s a sign that you’re actually growing.”
She adds: “That voice doesn’t pop up when things are easy; it shows when things are changing.
“I realised I sat back in meetings. I used to physically hide. I didn’t ask questions out of fear of getting it wrong.”
Leeson became MD of marketing agency Social Chain, overseeing it grow from 30 to 130 people with revenues growing 650% in her time at the company. She now works as a consultant.
“I was so insecure that I felt if I’d said the wrong thing, I’d get the sack,” says Leeson. “Who was going to believe in an MD who didn’t believe in themselves?
“If I wasn’t owning that role, how was I going to grow the team and how was the company going to grow with me if I don’t believe in myself?”
Social Chain offered therapy as one of its staff benefits, so Leeson started sessions. “I walked into Karen’s office and she said to me ‘OK Katie, what do you do?’ And I went empty; I physically shrunk in the chair.
“She told me she thought I had imposter syndrome and that was the first time I’d ever heard of it.”
Imposter syndrome is defined as the persistent inability to believe one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills.
Research has found that 75% of successful people struggle with the syndrome, with 80% of CEOs and 81% of MDs in the UK admitting to sometimes feeling out of their depth in their role.
“It doesn’t go away as you become more senior, it actually gets louder,” says Leeson. “One thing you need to do is understand, when your imposter syndrome pops up, is what it is pulling out of you.
“One of my values is learning; I absolutely love learning. If I get an opportunity to learn, I thrive. I get energy from it.
“What I’ve realised is my imposter pops up when I don’t know something, so I can use my value of learning to help my imposter syndrome.
“Instead of being ‘I can’t do this because I don’t know it’, I can lean into that value and it actually helps me grow and develop,
“Sometimes imposter syndrome isn’t always your enemy; sometimes it’s a real signpost to help you lean into the things that make you you, and the things that motivate you.”
To counter it, Leeson recommends a technique called the ‘boost folder’, into which you file a number of positive outcomes or achievements carried out recently
“You need to give seven bits of good feedback for your brain to recognise it, versus one piece of negative,” says Leeson. “Our brain will always hold on to the negative, but it won’t remember the positive.
“The boost folder is where you put every little win you’ve had in the past week, and refer to that if you need that little boost of confidence.”
She adds: “I don’t want you to wait to feel confident to contribute, I want you to contribute and let your confidence catch up.
“Imposter syndrome thrives in silence and isolation. When you go back to your desks, your job isn’t to manage your own doubt. It’s to create the environment where we all admit we’re feeling it as well, so we don’t have to hide it anymore.
“I want you to use it as your superpower, because when we all talk about it collectively, we’ll be able to grow and develop and create real change within the industry.”
Sarina Vale has spent nearly two decades building a career in fleet management, but it didn’t begin with a clear plan or a love of vehicles. It began, as she tells it, with survival.
“I started my journey 2008, just trying to survive being a young mother to my daughter, and just trying to just do the best that I can to give her what she needed, really,” she told EWiF members.
Vale joined the fleet team at HomeServe as an admin, with “no fleet experience at all,” and learned on the job. When a fleet manager left, she stepped up, moving from paperwork to leadership, managing admins and delivering key projects.
That early promotion set a pattern: each move brought more responsibility, more complexity – and more pressure. When she was made redundant from HomeServe, it shook her deeply.
“It hurt my feelings and my confidence,” she says. “But then you move on.”
Roles at Palmer and Harvey and Carillion followed. In one, she walked into what she describes as a very “old school transport manager department,” where it was “hard to get the strategy that I would like to put in place”.
Skills learned in those roles included account management, project delivery and dealing with commercial pressure.
Her longest stint was at Aggreko, where she spent six and a half years and truly went global. “That role took me all over the world, and I was very grateful for the opportunities that the business gave me.”
As effectively a team of one for fleet, she was the single point of knowledge. “I was the only person within that business who knew anything about fleet, so I had the upper hand to a certain degree, but imposter syndrome was always there, I was always wondering, am I doing the right thing? Am I hitting the right mark, am I engaging with people in the right way?”
Despite that self-doubt, she rose to European and then global fleet responsibilities.
“It also taught me that I am doing a good job,” she says.
Her next move, to Otis Elevator, was a turning point but one where she admits left her “feeling out of my depth”.
Leaving in July last year, Vale enjoyed a summer break with her beloved dog, Orla.
In November, she joined the Environment Agency as senior contract manager, fleet services.
“It feels like I've been there years. I really enjoy the place and the atmosphere. My team is amazing. I feel like I'm really making a difference.”
Alongside her day job as senior contracts manager, Vale is a keen advocate for women in a traditionally male-dominated sector through the EWiF initiative, where she serves on the board and as a mentor.
“With this initiative, there's nothing else in the market that is available to women,” she says. “It's empowering the next generation with the confidence, the knowledge, the power and the insights that we, as women, have.”
On ongoing challenges, Vale says: “We always need to try harder, we always need to push, we always need to get ourselves a seat at the table where ordinarily we wouldn't be invited or nobody would consider us.”
But she argues that women bring a fundamentally different, and valuable, way of thinking: “Being a woman gives us a different insight. We think about things in a whole different line from start to finish, in terms of that cycle of what we need, what the problem is and what we need to do to overcome that.”
Her leadership philosophy centres on kindness, empathy and trust.
“You have to have some kind of ethic in terms of you treat people how you want to be treated. People need to trust you, because if people don't trust you, they're not going to want to deal with you,” she explains.
She adds: “If you approach things in a certain way kindly, with empathy, but making the point that you need to make, I think that makes the difference.”
This people-first approach extends to her view of what makes a great fleet leader. Operational knowledge, compliance, cost control and strategy matter but safety is also key. “I want to make sure everybody gets home safely at night to their families.”
For younger women in fleet, or those starting out in admin roles as she once did, her advice is: “Believe in your own capabilities. Stay resilient and don't wait to be asked for your opinion, just go in there with it.”
Learning, she says, is their superpower: “The more that you learn, the more that you know, the more that you can prove that you're worth being in that room.”
A key take away for those in the room at the EWiF meeting, was that resilience, reinvention and quiet determination, along with kindness, courage and capability, all have a place at the fleet leadership table.
Imposter syndrome as a superpower
Training with Katy Leeson
Lessons in leadership, resilience and breaking down barriers for women in fleet
Q&A with Sarina Vale, senior contract manager – fleet services, Environment Agency
How do you build the confidence to make sure your insights and data are valued at the leadership table?
This roundtable explored how operational and fleet professionals can turn raw data into insight that leaders will actually use.
Participants highlighted the recurring problem of being asked for ‘data’ without clarity on the underlying decision.
When stakeholders frame the wrong question, they often receive a technically accurate answer that still feels unhelpful, leading to frustration on both sides. Clarifying the ‘why’ behind each request was seen as essential.
Contributors stressed that fleet and operational functions carry significant risk and spend but rarely enjoy direct board‑level visibility. Senior leaders tend to prefer concise headlines, trends and visuals over detailed technical analysis.
Some are responding by creating structured annual reporting packs that explain what the function does, the value it delivers and the legal and compliance exposure it manages.
The group discussed how data can drive behaviour when presented in the right way.
Examples included comparative reports between teams or directors and accident summaries copied to both drivers and line managers, creating peer pressure and accountability.
A recurring principle was that organisations should listen to the professionals they employ and act on their evidence.
Culture and gender dynamics were another strong thread. Women often find themselves as the only female in heavily male, technically oriented environments, facing everyday safety concerns, dismissive comments, and higher scrutiny of their competence.
Building credibility frequently requires over‑preparation: deep technical research, clear calculations, and, increasingly, smart use of digital tools and AI to close knowledge gaps.
Finally, the conversation touched on careers, capacity, and the reality of change. There are clear pathways from administrative roles into data, insight, and process‑improvement positions, but participants describ ed tensions between progression, workload, and mental wellbeing.
Many are expected to deliver strategic change while still handling day‑to‑day operational tasks, underlining the case for dedicated support roles to free specialists to focus on higher‑value work.
Discussion covered the fact that managers sometimes dismiss or avoid certain data or insights.
The importance of asking why data is requested and what outcome decision‑makers really want was stressed.
There is a risk that stakeholders ask the wrong question, receive unexpected data, and then blame the analyst.
Roundtable discussions
Attendees shared their opinions and insights on current issues and challenges faced across the sector.
imposter syndrome with katy leeson
Roundtable discussions
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Making fleet attractive to the next generation
The fleet industry needs to be more visible to young people, through experience programs and apprenticeships, to reveal the truth around the ‘rollercoaster’ experience it can offer and dispel myths it’s only about ‘servicing and MoT bookings’.
A roundtable debate at the June meeting of Empowering Women in Fleet looked at the misconceptions and opportunities, and action points to tackle them.
I fell into the role completely accidentally, like most people do. My line manager at the time was very keen on bringing me out to conferences and events. My response to realise fleet was much more than an admin role, which was my preconception.
We wouldn’t consider it as a job coming up through education because you wouldn’t know of its existence. It wasn’t a career identified as a career path at secondary school. But most businesses wouldn’t be able to function fully without its fleet.
Fleet is like a trip to Disney World. From one day to the next you don't know what ride you’re going to be on; the dodgems at one minute, the log flume the next or on the helter-skelter.
There are so many facets to fleet management, it should have a widespread appeal to different types of people, different personality types and with different interests.
It runs from the technical – telematics, data handling, the technologies on the vehicles - to mathematical, the accounting, the processing and interpretation of data, and the personal, personality side, through people management and HR and training. There’s something for everyone. It’s a multidisciplinary role.
I was working in a bookies before I got into fleet and if you’d have asked me what it was I’d have said it was about booking vehicle services and MoTs.
The amount of technology in cars, and the fact a whole host of new manufacturers are coming to this country, makes the prospect of a job in fleet particularly exciting now, allied to the transition to EVs and the technology inherent in that, in the vehicles and the charging networks.
Inherent in making fleet an attractive career proposition to young people, through ensuring they undertand what it means is the need to have continuity and succession plans for when you’re either unable to do your job on any given day or you have left the business.
Action points
“We, as businesses, should be talking to schools and colleges, to 16 to 19-year-olds, whenever there is an opportunity, to pique the interest in the job, and to explode the myths and misconceptions they will likely have about it.”
“I suggested to the business, and we’re carrying it out, an experience programme for young people, with the help of the social mobility charity ‘Futures For All’ (https://www.futuresforall.org/).
Arrange one-to-one sessions with transport managers to hear their views and use their feedback to shape succession plans and identify any required training.
How to achieve more with fewer resources
Attendees discussed how they were able to do more with less through smarter fleet partnerships during one of the event’s roundtable debates.
The session opened with a challenge familiar to all fleets: how to create and measure value when resources are constrained.
One delegate framed it simply as reducing avoidable downtime: consolidating servicing, MOTs and defect work so a vehicle comes off the road once instead of three times.
If three separate events can be turned into one “then I know that’s only one or two more days off the road”, she said.
For many fleets, the real cost is not the garage invoice but the lost operational capability when a vehicle is unavailable at peak periods.
Against this backdrop, supplier relationships were repeatedly described as the biggest lever. Several delegates felt the industry has “lost a lot of the old school style of working” where suppliers spent time on-site and truly understood strategy and operational nuances.
Those who still do are seen as delivering outsized value. In some organisations, fleet teams have taken ownership of disruption management, using leasing providers and maintenance partners as enablers while retaining control of scheduling and risk.
Technology and AI are becoming increasingly central. Examples included AI-based damage detection to identify when and where damage occurs, camera and routing systems that divert drivers away from low bridges, and analytics platforms such as Power BI for interrogating tyre performance and downtime trends.
However, several warned AI can generate noise as well as insight. One predictive maintenance trial actually raised costs until the fleet team applied a “human overlay” to categorise alerts into emergencies versus items that could wait for the next planned visit, preventing unnecessary interventions.
The group also explored electrification. Some attendees said their company car fleets were fully electric, while the use of the zero-emission technology in vans was more selective and tailored to the specific operations of those vehicles.
There was also a need to manage driver perceptions of EVs if early experiences had been mixed.
Others highlighted the difficulty of electrifying specialist vehicles and the need to manage driver perceptions when early EV experiences have been mixed.
Supplier partnerships again proved key: close relationships with OEMs, leasing companies and bodybuilders enable early trials of new EV variants and charging solutions, backed by shared data.
Highlights from other roundtable discussions
How do we ensure that the fleet industry of the future is not only more efficient and sustainable, but also more attractive to the next generation of talent:
Sustainability in fleet:
Ongoing learning
Training for drivers/awareness
Home chargers and how to navigate charging for new drivers to EV
Support for drivers with home charging. How to charge back if they leave the company within a certain timeframe
Move to PHEV and EV. Challenging drivers perceptions and objectives.
Education is the strapline for future efficiency
Technology continues to improve
Group discussions and networking with other
Next generation of talent:
Personal strengths required
Strong people skills.
Ability to build relationships and networks.
Experience and knowledge that can be shared with others.
Interested in mentoring and supporting people.
Interests and opportunities
Interest in electric vehicles (EVs) and the automotive sector.
Exploring opportunities in charging infrastructure.
Interested in renewable energy and sustainable technologies.
Open to learning and developing new skills.
Discussion around EV charging
Growing demand for charging infrastructure.
Potential opportunities for individuals leaving traditional sectors.
Networking and community
Networking is extremely important.
Support groups can provide valuable guidance and connections.
LinkedIn is a powerful platform for building professional networks.
LinkedIn has grown significantly since covid.
Career exploration
There are many different avenues to explore within the fleet industry.
The industry is not saturated.
Strong culture and community within the sector.
Plenty of opportunities for people with transferable skills.
Advice for someone considering a similar move
Get out and meet people.
Attend events and build connections.
Become more visible within the industry.
Explore different opportunities before committing to one path.
Leverage existing knowledge and experience.
Focus on networking and relationship-building.
Overall takeaways
Networking is one of the most important success factors.
The fleet industry offers diverse opportunities.
Experience from other industries can be highly transferable.
Education, training, and continuous learning remain essential.
Significant opportunity for those willing to engage, learn, and build relationships.
leadership, resilience and breaking down barriers with sarina vale