Finding better ways of working

Sophie manages the company’s DESAIMS contract, coordinating more than 30 delivery teams, overseeing renewals and commercial negotiations, and working closely with DES Digital and the Head of Engineering Assurance. It also involves managing the internal stakeholder, working with the team of customer integration engineers who work with the users, to ensure that collectively tlmNexus is delivering a good service and keeping the customer happy.

 

It is a role that demands precision, diplomacy, and an instinct for bringing the right people together at the right time.

 

From geography graduate to Defence digital specialist

Her journey into software was, she asserts, ‘completely accidental’.  After graduating with a geography degree, it was the mapping-focus that attracted her to her first employer, a company whose client base stretched across Defence, local government and central government.

 

“I never set out to work in software,” she explains, “but as time went on, the geography faded away, and the software stayed.”

 

At that first company, she worked her way up quickly from telemarketing executive (“calling people who didn’t want to talk to me”) through sales executive, to business development. Events, customer meetings, and large-scale opportunity management soon became her everyday world.

 

Attracted by the strong footprint in Air Defence and a drive towards new products and markets, a move to tlmNexus followed, initially in BD, where she supported the growth and diversification of the company before taking on the DESAIMS contract as it expanded.

 

What keeps Sophie motivated

“It is such a different field from anything I would have imagined. The platforms we interact with are fascinating. They include planes, helicopters, and UAS’s (Uncrewed Aerial Systems) and encompass the whole engineering ecosystem. When you are working in a safety-related domain, where people rely on the data and tools we provide, it seems to matter much more than selling some other software.”

 

Delivering solutions in a complex environment

The MOD contracting landscape is constantly shifting and Sophie is candid about the challenges.

“The ways of contracting are always changing. Even with G-Cloud making things easier, setting up new contracts still involves navigating different portals and inconsistent processes. It’s not the simplest sector to work in, particularly for an SME, (Small-to-Medium Enterprise), but we’re fortunate to have focused, committed customers.”

 

And those customers often arrive with familiar pain points including disparate data, and no single source of truth.

 

“They do not have time to hunt for information. They want trusted evidence, they want security, and they want everything in one place. That is exactly what we deliver.”

 

Security is a thread that runs throughout. “There is always a lot of change such as secure-by-design expectations, compliance reviews and sensitive data requirements. That is the job. We have to get it right, and we do.”

 

Where digital capability creates real impact

Having worked in more than one area of the Defence digital ecosystem, she has seen the difference cutting edge tools make.

“We replace unreliable spreadsheets and disconnected systems with something people can trust. Visualisation tools in DaRT (Damage and Repair Tracker), for example, give a coherent picture of damage and repair data. Teams spend less time searching and more time making decisions. And Resolve (tlmNexus’ well-known collaborative issue management system) contains a world of data that is only just beginning to be fully utilised.”

 

When digital capability ‘lands’, she says, the shift is visible. “You see the relief, the confidence. Suddenly people have the evidence they need at their fingertips. It changes the tone of the whole working group.”

 

Leadership, change and building confidence

In an environment defined by regulation, scrutiny and safety, leadership behaviours make a huge difference.

 

“The people who lead well are the ones actively looking for better ways of working. They want decisions to be auditable. They want the justification to be clear. They are rightly strict about data management because they understand the consequences.”

 

Her own approach centres on responsiveness and reliability.
“We respond quickly. Our support desk and our customer integration engineers do not keep people waiting. We’re an SME and this means we are dynamic, so we turn things around fast. That builds trust.”

 

Looking to the future

There is no hesitation when asked what will shape the next few years.
“It has to be AI. It is everywhere. Every sector, every conversation, every tool. The challenge, especially for Defence, is how to do it securely and responsibly. If we can apply AI to trusted datasets in the right way, it will be transformative. If we don’t, we will be left behind.”

 

Security will remain critical, she emphasises, but the human element matters too.

“With AI becoming so normalised, people risk losing critical thinking. The next generation will succeed if they keep questioning, keep interrogating evidence, and do not just accept what a tool tells them.”

 

A career rooted in people, purpose and… cool aircraft

For all the technical complexity of her role, what she enjoys most is simple: people.

“Anything customer-facing brings me job satisfaction. I love being out on bases, and meeting users. You realise how diverse the teams are and how passionate they are about what they do. It is easy to stay stuck behind a screen, but when you get out there, you remember why the work matters.”

 

The aircraft still hold their appeal. “They let me sit in cool planes. That definitely helps!”

 

Sophie is equally grounded outside work, taking long dog walks along the South Downs, enjoying gym sessions, parkrun and paddle boarding in summer. In winter, she loves nothing better than a good veggie roast (or “a trio of starters and a side of chips”) at the pub.

 

Her favourite unexpected fact?

“My cousin married Matt Damon’s brother-in-law… and I had a photo with Matt Damon at the wedding.”

A story that would land well in any meeting.