International Women’s Day 2025 is on 8 March, a day 'for ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment'. But Livingstone’s Managing Director Lisa Maines has spent 25 years empowering others in the ITAM world. We invited Lisa for a one-on-one chat to learn more about her career, where she sees the ITAM world going, and what she’s most proud of.
I've been in the IT world for almost 30 years now, 20 of those in senior IT leadership positions, working for organizations like Britvic, PepsiCo and Lloyds Banking Group. My roles have focused on service delivery, customer experience and senior leadership roles within IT Asset Management (ITAM). I also spent time working in India managing large outsourcing and cultural change programmes, a job I loved.
In those early days, I was the customer and used ITAM service providers for support. I’ve personally gone head-to-head with some of the mega vendors during audits. I know what it feels like to be the person responsible for an organization’s compliance and costs and I can really relate to our customers now that I’m the service provider. I’ve been in their shoes, and I know their pain points.
When I left school I went to university and became a history teacher. As far removed from ITAM as you can get! I moved into adult learning focused on softer skills around presentation and negotiation. After that, I fell into IT and ITAM and never left. I think most people do. But those early negotiation training skills certainly came in handy when dealing with contract negotiations.
When I first started out, the industry was very male dominated. But it is changing and we certainly have a good balance in Livingstone. 50% of my leadership team is female, two thirds of our sales team are female, one third of our delivery team are female, and we have women leading on the delivery of some of our biggest innovation projects like our AI-powered Acuity platform.
ITAM requires empathy, which I think is a trait normally associated with women. I consider my superpower to be getting people to do things they don’t want to do with good grace. Some of the best leaders I've ever come across have been female. They’re the ones I learnt the most from in my early career.
I joined in August 2020, responsible for business strategy, governance and partnerships. I then became Global Head of Customer Success and Delivery, before becoming Managing Director at the end of 2023. It was something of a whirlwind, meteoric rise but I have loved every minute.
I think one of my biggest strengths is my people-centric approach, both in how I relate to employees and customers, and how I think about what we sell. When I do my elevator pitch about Livingstone being a software asset management consulting business, I labour the point that we don’t sell technology or tools. We don’t even sell data aggregation. We sell people. Our really, super smart people are the magic that create positive commercial outcomes for our customers, that’s what we sell, and we are amazing at it.
I think it's a great privilege to be responsible for not just the growth of the company, but also for the people that work within the team. I feel responsible for their development, for their livelihoods and it's a huge responsibility and privilege I don't take for granted.
There are days when I think, thank goodness I haven't broken anything today! And there are other days where I'm euphoric about what the team has achieved. It makes me feel very vulnerable at times, but also ecstatically happy. I've been promoted and been given the opportunity to develop and accelerate action at Livingstone. During my career here, I’ve promoted 18 people. The majority of my leadership team have all been internal promotions, which makes me super proud and long may it continue.
My advice is the same regardless of your gender - be honest, be consistent, be kind. I believe that every single person has potential. Choose your attitude, be authentic, and your background, gender and accent don’t matter. Work hard, have a desire to learn, behave ethically, and the opportunities will come!
If you are a woman, resist the temptation to be a 'good girl', something I think is ingrained in us as children. I would encourage all women (and men) to be gutsier. Being gutsy doesn’t mean being aggressive. You can be assertive, have high expectations of others but still be kind.
Finally, if any women find themselves feeling out of their depth, don’t lose sight of your potential. I often suffer from imposter syndrome and worry about not being good enough. My advice is to find a mentor that you can talk honestly to, someone who always sees the amazing person you are, and remember one day you might be that person for someone else.
I am proud of building the Livingstone Academy – a programme for people just starting out in work or who wanted a career shift. We didn't just focus on people with degrees, we focused on people with the right attitude and mindset. They could be any age, from any background, any gender, all levels of education. And as a result, we found some superstars, like Liv McKenzie. She was a bar manager before she joined us, but since leaving the Academy, she’s been promoted twice, first to a customer success role and now as a technical account co-ordinator.
I am most proud of the wonderful team at Livingstone, I'm proud of our high level of staff retention and the high level of internal promotions we have within the organization, and that we've been a Gartner recognized Leader for the last four years.
I have 36,000 free range hens.
I play a very non-active part in the family free range egg production farm. Very non-active. I've got all the gear. No idea. You can quote me on that. Outside of chickens, I love to cook and I'm an avid Aston Villa fan. I live in Solihull in the West Midlands.
When I started work in ITAM 20 years ago, it was all about risk mitigation and compliance. The narrative is changing to focus on cost optimisation and ESG reporting and if that can be delivered using AI all the better.
Of course, AI is another major trend and I’m genuinely excited that Livingstone is on the front foot with it. Our Acuity platform is a great example of that. We’re going to be one of the first to bring something to the market that will literally revolutionize our industry.
Our customers are smart. But they're also under growing pressure. My advice is that you don't have to figure this out alone. The ITAM world is changing. Technology and vendors are changing. Pressure on costs and compliance aren't diminishing. It's almost impossible to manage it all in house. Do what you're good at and get help for the rest from people who do this day in, day out. Livingstone is here for you whenever you need it.
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Thanks to Lisa for her time and insights. She has certainly been #AcceleratingAction in her career and how she is shaping the future of SAM Managed Services at Livingstone.
Follow Lisa on LinkedIn > Lisa Maines | LinkedIn