Kathryn Parsons is a British tech entrepreneur. She is the co-founder and co-CEO of Decoded, a London-based tech startup which aims to increase digital literacy. Decoded's signature one-day course claims to train participants without any background in computers to "code in a day". The company is now a global brand hosting technology masterclasses in 85 cities across the world reaching 250,000 people face-to-face, as well as hundreds of thousands more online.
From 2004 to 2007 Parsons worked as UK head of channel planning for Ogilvy. In 2008 she co-founded an advertising agency, Scarlett Mark, which applied digital technology to branding; one of its notable brands was the virtual/real-world character "Cherry Girl" for MTV.
Decoded
In January 2011 Parsons, together with Alasdair Blackwell, Steve Henry, and Richard Peters, founded Decoded to help increase digital literacy. Each of the founders provided start-up funding. After eight months of testing the curriculum the Shoreditch-based company started teaching the course, which claims to teach participants to "code in a day". It conducted its first workshop for 10 participants in August 2011. By the end of the workshop, participants – who may be complete novices at coding – can build their own app, using programming languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. As of 2013, Decoded had been attended by 2,500 employees from over 450 companies; attendance had risen to over 8,000 by September 2014. Large clients, who send "scores of employees" to take the course, include Google, eBay, and Microsoft; other participating companies include "the creative departments of advertising agencies, investment banks and entertainment firms". Employees of Facebook, BBC, Guardian Media Group, Accenture, TalkTalk, Unilever, WPP, UBS, Lloyd's of London, Thomas Cook, and McKinsey & Company have also taken the course. Additionally, over 500 teachers have participated. Decoded has opened branches in New York City and Sydney, and has "pop up" locations in 30 cities, including Shanghai, Hong Kong, Melbourne, and Los Angeles. In addition to its Code in a Day workshop, Decoded offers Data in a Day, Hacker in a Day, Innovation in a Day and Tech in a Day. It has also created "codeED in a day" for teachers, and open-sources its materials online for use by UK schoolteachers. In spring 2014, the Guardian Media Group bought a 15 percent stake in Decoded.
Honours and awards
In 2012 Parsons became the first winner in two categories in Red magazine's Hot Women's Award. She won in both UK Start-Up Entrepreneur of the Year and Digital Business of the Year. In 2013 she received the Veuve Clicquot New Generation Award and the Women of the Future award in Technology. She was named one of the 30 Most Important Women in Tech Under 30 by Business Insider, one of the 35 Women Under 35 by Management Today, one of The 1000 – London's Most Influential People 2014: Tech stars by the Evening Standard, one of the "Ten women in tech you need to meet" by The Guardian, and a "Rising Star" in Computer Weekly UKtech 50. In 2014 she won Marie Claire magazine's Women at the Top award for top tech pioneer and was included on The Sunday Times Britain's Top 30 Female Power List and The Telegraph Britons of the Year 2014. In March 2014 Parsons was named an ambassador of Tech City by London mayor Boris Johnson. In 2015 the Evening Standard included her on their Progress 1000: London's Most Influential People – Digerati, and the Inspiring Fifty organisation named her one of the Fifty Most Inspiring Women in European Tech. She was appointed MBE in the 2017 New Year Honours.
Personal
Parsons speaks Japanese, Mandarin, French and Italian. In August 2015 Parsons revealed that she had imposed a personal ban on using email at work for three months, relying on the Slack real-time messaging system to communicate with her team. After three months, she began accepting external emails but continued to refrain from internal email communication.
