While plenty of tech leaders tend to be pretty guarded about the setbacks they’ve faced throughout their careers, Liz Rhodes instead greets me with a determined look on her face as she talks me through some of the battles she’s had to navigate and, ultimately, how she came through the other side.
Now in the top job as CEO of Leeds-based tech consultancy Art of Cloud, she’s no stranger to the highs and lows of business, from steering the company back into growth after a ‘tough’ period during Covid to securing investment for her former business on Ireland’s version of Dragons’ Den.
We first take a trip down memory lane as she reflects on her wide-ranging career, from working at the likes of Warburtons before “falling” into the world of IT, and later setting up her own baby accessories business, Ruby and Ginger, alongside her then business partner, Brenda Darnhill.
It led the duo to pitch on Ireland’s Dragons’ Den in 2012. While she still describes the experience as “terrifying”, they successfully secured a €50,000 investment from entrepreneur and Dragon Norah Casey in exchange for a 35% equity stake in the business.
“In Dublin, there was a nice twist. It was filmed in a pub – and you started the day with a gin and tonic,” she laughs.
“It was terrifying but they made us really at ease. We won some money and we got some support, which was great. Our products made it into places like House of Fraser and we worked with places like Mothercare. But the cost of shipping, design and manufacturing was too much.”
The business was ultimately forced to close under those pressures, a setback she now sees as an early lesson in the realities of running a company.
After pivoting back into IT, an opportunity popped up at Art of Cloud, a consultancy that helps businesses implement bespoke Salesforce and CRM solutions to improve efficiency, profitability and growth.
Since joining in 2018 as employee number one, she has been part of the company’s journey from day one, helping to grow it from start-up into a scaling business.
“I’ve grown with Art of Cloud, taking it from a small start-up to 20% growth this year and we’re into the millions in turnover. It’s exciting times.”
While the business now works with Premiership football clubs, rugby and cricket brands, racing teams and the likes of Jet2, Rhodes is equally open about the more difficult chapters in the company’s growth story too.
“Covid hit us massively. Like lots of IT companies during the pandemic, we had to pivot the way we worked and operated. We had to put some of our team on furlough and they were supported through that.
“We had some tough times through the economic changes as businesses were not spending in the same way. So, around three years ago, we trimmed the team back down, then we’ve grown again. But we’re in a really good, stable place at the moment. And we’re ready for the next jump.”
For Rhodes, having to make staff redundant remains one of the hardest things she’s had to do in her job and it’s something she admits left her feeling like “the biggest failure”.
“One of the trickiest things about leadership is the personal side of it. You’re deeply invested in your team, but you also have to make decisions that are right for the business,” she explains.
“We’re a values-led people company, so letting people go feels like you’re breaking your own values. But it wasn’t that. It was about protecting the business and the people who remained.”
She pauses, reflecting on some of those decisions.
“You have to step back and look at the bigger picture. It’s life, isn’t it? You go down a few paths thinking they’re right, and then realise you need to go in a different direction. That’s the reality of a growth journey.
“The learning curves are tough, for sure. As a leader, you feel so responsible but you can also feel quite isolated, because you’re doing it for the good of the business, but sometimes it has an impact on specific people.”
“You can’t be everything to everybody when you’re a small company”
Despite some of those earlier challenges, Rhodes says the business now has 25 staff and is in a strong position thanks to its specialist expertise in Salesforce and growing reputation within the sports sector.
“We’ve specialised in Salesforce. It’s where our expertise really sits and we have a mix of certifications, hands-on experience, and practical delivery,”she explains.
“Where we’ve done really well is in the sports field. We understand the market, what they’re trying to achieve, and we’ve built some tools within the platform specifically to help them leverage those things.
“It’s really important to not see a CRM 360 platform like Salesforce as just an efficiency tool, it’s also a growth tool or profit margin tool. We work really hard on making sure that when we’re building systems or scoping systems, that people can look at it from different lenses across the business to help them get better results.”
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Much of the company’s success has come from being “really good at listening” to customer problems and being able to be reactive as a small team.
“When you’re in a start-up, you try and be everything to everybody, because it’s about getting the cash through the door. But then you start refining that,” she says.
“We have a 1% principle where we all look at how we can improve by 1% each week. That includes honing down on your client base, what you’re good at, and if we’re not the best, bringing in a partner. You can’t be everything to everybody when you’re a small company.”
‘There are still barriers for women in tech’
Our conversation turns to leadership and the Women in Tech Task Force, an initiative launched by the UK government in December 2025 in a move it says will help shape future action and “break down the barriers” for women working in the tech sector.
It follows recent research from BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, which revealed only 22% of women work in IT roles.
For Rhodes, it’s a topic she’s deeply passionate about for a number of reasons.
“When I’m working in our partner ecosystem, there are definitely more women. There’s only a handful of us in similar leadership positions. But I don’t think it’s because the roles aren’t open to women. It’s because they haven’t had the same opportunity to build that experience. That will change over time but don’t get me wrong, there are still barriers,” she explains.
She says Art of Cloud “actively tries to pull down those barriers” although she admits wider societal expectations still have a long way to go, especially when it comes to things like job opportunities for women emerging from maternity leave to visible female leadership.
Rather than dwelling on some of those frustrations, she spends her spare time visiting schools to educate children about the varied careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths).
“I do it voluntarily and love it because I get to go into schools, talk about STEM, and help with mock interview days. When I’m talking to some of them, they tell me they didn’t know they could do something like this. I tell them they can do anything.
“I was very fortunate growing up as my parents told me if I didn’t like something, I could always try something else. I try to instil that now, which is why I spend so much time in schools. I also run a brownie unit with 30 kids a year coming through. Even if you influence 30 people’s lives, that’s 30 lives, isn’t it?
“If everybody can use their influence and say something is achievable and encourage people to follow their dreams, not just in STEM but in life, it can help people break out of that mould.”
And while running a business takes “a lot of tenacity”, she places a big emphasis on encouraging people from all backgrounds into the world of tech.
“My job as the leader of this business is to see in you what you potentially are not seeing in yourself. You come to work for a lot of your time, we want you to come and love it. It’s about making it a good place for everybody to enjoy their job and then the business is successful because people are good at what they do.”
And while she’s faced her fair share of challenges over the years, Rhodes is confident about where the business is headed next.
“We want the business to double the size in the next couple of years. We’ve got some ideas in the pipeline to do that, and how we’re going to do that, and the best route to market for that. We’re taking that credibility that we’ve worked really hard to get and now pressing the rocket ship button on it,” she says.
While those ambitions might be soaring ahead, she insists that the focus remains firmly on sustainable growth.
“You don’t want to peak too early. We’re now ready to go again because we’ve got a really solid team, a confident ability and a really good reputation. There’s more behind that but I can’t tell you yet. Watch this space!”
