Tell us a little bit about your background and the work you do at BKFC.
Hi, I’m Christy King. I am the Chief Technology Officer of the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship. I have been with the company for almost two years now and I am on the north shore of Massachusetts. Our company headquarters is in a suburb of Philadelphia, many of us are remote, and I happen to be located on the beach in Massachusetts.
What have been your barriers and how did you overcome them?
I think the biggest barriers for me and my career were myself. It’s never been an outside source. It’s never been a lack of people supporting me or letting me try things. It’s really just been my own belief that I wasn’t ready to do something.
I’ve held myself back several times in my career, not being brave enough to put myself out there. And by that, I mean, I didn’t think I was qualified. I thought I had to know how to do something before I could do it … We should all assume that we’re smart enough to learn the skills and figure it out and be successful.
And if we have good support from above and from our fellow workers, we will be successful.
So, don’t get in your own way. I was my own biggest barrier to entry, so to speak. And I would just say to all women out there, just don’t let yourself do that. Don’t convince yourself that you’re not ready. You are, you just need to start doing it.
This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is “Embrace Equity” – what does this mean to you?
I think that means we all need to do a better job of listening, and as leaders, we need to do a better job of making the time to ask.
If, in leadership positions, we don’t take the time and energy to really talk to our folks and make sure they’re sharing all of their great ideas about how to solve our businesses’ problems … Encourage everyone, including the person who doesn’t say much, no matter what color they are, what flavor they are.
What has been you greatest skill that helped you get to where you are today?
I am a 55-year-old woman all by herself in sports technology, for the most part. And what I think often is my biggest skill in this role is the fact that I am a naturally good communicator and a good listener. I have spent a long part of my career often being the middle person between the IT guy and the finance guy … Good communicators typically put [themselves] in between groups of people that aren’t understanding each other and help them understand each other.
