Meet the team: Grace Heppleston, operations project manager

Welcome to the latest instalment of dancerace’s Meet the Team series, where we showcase our talented colleagues, share their working wisdom and give you a flavour of what it’s like to work at dancerace. 

We sat down with Grace Heppleston, our Operations Project Manager, to learn about her journey to dancerace, people-first approach to effective project management and special talent. 

What did you do before you joined dancerace? 

I worked at a company called Felinesoft as a senior project manager. Ben Braine (development project manager at dancerace) suggested the role to me.  

I don't have a background in tech, but I learnt that I was quite good at organizing people. I'm much more interested in creating productive and healthy environments for people that are achievable and measured. 

In my work, I’ve realised that people have different motivating factors. For instance: a salesperson’s primary driver is usually profit for the business.

People who go into development have vastly different drivers: throwing money at them doesn't offer them the same job satisfaction and risks their commitment to the company. So, you need to create sustainable environments that make people feel successful and positive. 

What are your career highlights? 

I've delivered some very large and successful projects worth millions of pounds, and the teams I've set up have won awards nationally and internationally.  

I'm perpetually surprised that I know what I'm doing because I don't feel like an authority. Project management feels like common sense to me. In my role, delivering high-pressure projects without people knowing that they're high-pressure is very important. I like to say “no one's quit and no one's crying in the toilets”. That's the measure of success. It’s important to remember that it's all done by people. 

What drew you to dancerace? 

Initially, it was my former colleague Ben. When I spoke to Elliot Avison (CEO), David Heyes (Head of Security and Operations) and Jon Watts (Head of Product), it was clear that they shared a similar set of values – we are people doing a job and doing that job well. 

The fact that the team has conquered a specialised market means they're in a good position to be commanding higher quality, which is what the developers are often actually interested in. 

What do you enjoy most about what you do? 

The people. I try and make things clear, safe and respectful for people involved in projects. It’s my job to create a little umbrella for the people I work with. If things are going horribly at the top, you've got to choose how you how and if you let that trickle down. You can change an environment that's productive and has good communication into something that becomes secretive, in which people are hiding what's going on because they're scared that something's going to upset the apple cart. I need to know if something's going wrong.  

There's no blame and no one's angry. We'll figure it out! 

 How do you approach leading your team? 

Usually with self-deprecating humour, honesty and over-sharing. 

Leading people is the wrong way to put it. In project management, I'm not qualified to lead people. I‘m here to coordinate and support. All I can do for the people on my projects is to ask what they need. It’s my job to go away and make sure those things are provided and to protect your time. That's the best that I can do. 

What's something you wish you knew earlier in your working life?  

Everyone has impostor syndrome, and just keep going! 

What excites you most about the future at dancerace?    

It’s genuinely interesting watching the products dancerace has built come together to become a complete lending platform.

I think that will hold real weight in the industry in a way we don't fully understand yet. 

Tell us a fun fact about you. It can be anything! 

I can read around 300 words a minute. The average is probably around 100. I get through two books a week!  

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