I sat down with Daisy Leak, to hear about her journey to Director of Production at ��ݮ��Ƶ���� and her thoughts on women in tech. As one of LA’s leading women in creative technology, her path here has not been a straight one. From improv comedy and a stint as an actress on Criminal Minds, Daisy has a wealth of different experiences that she’s leveraged to get her where she is today. 

Tell us where your career started

I came to LA to do TV and comedy, and I was making decent money–getting some spots in films and on TV shows like Criminal Minds. And then came the Writers and Actors Strike of 2008, all work just stopped for six months. During that time, I started to look at other avenues of entertainment. I’d always had a weird itch to do something different and new. I’d played video games since I was 4 years old and my mom worked in tech for a long time, so tech was not frightening or intimidating to me. It was part of my childhood, and I remember thinking that tech might be more influential to entertainment than I’d thought.

Unable to work in films or movies, I was doing YouTube content during the day and I got a night shift at Disney working on their games customer support team answering questions from kids who got stuck on level 95. This part-time job became my passion, and I spent eight years as a producer at The Walt Disney Company, working on social games and interactive—from initial idea through to launch and live ops.

I loved entertaining people in a traditional way as an actor, but I came to the realization that by combining technology and entertainment, it’s possible to transform the very nature of entertainment. You are not just the entertainment, you are literally changing the game itself.

Has the time you spent as an actor helped with where you are today? Is there any cross-over between what you did then with what you do now?

During my training as a professional theater actress, my acting instructor told me something that has helped me throughout my career. He said to always look at the other perspective. When you’re reading a screenplay or anything about someone who you don’t like, or who does things you don’t understand, you need to discover what went on in their life that led them to behave in that way, and then be empathic to that. 

In the world of tech, it’s certainly mostly male right now, you need to see their perspective in order to effectively communicate. What’s really interesting is that even in a field with perspectives very similar to mine, you realize that everyone is deeply different. And 9 times out of 10, they all just care about making interesting things. They don’t care what you look like, or where you come from. If you can create something cool you will always gain the trust you need to move forward.

The Dubai Expo Xplorer cross-reality experience won Best Use of AR at the Lumiere Awards 2022. Daisy attended and collected the award as Executive Producer on the project.

In terms of inclusion, is tech changing?

Gradually the space is being filled with different faces, different gender identities, races, and ethnicity. It’s better than it was for sure. But I think there’s still a lot of room to go. One day we’ll get into a situation where we don’t need to think about it anymore and it’s just as diverse as walking down the street in Los Angeles.

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned coming into tech as a woman?

One thing I’ve noticed as a female coming into an industry that is predominantly male with a Western mentality – sometimes you need to switch up the way you communicate. You don’t need to change who you are, but you do need to learn to communicate effectively with those audiences that dominate the landscape. It’s not about compromising your identity or playing by their rules, it’s about understanding how they hear solutions and how to communicate your perspective so you can be heard.

Do you remember the first time you ‘switched’ up your comms?

I remember sitting in a room years ago with my project leader who wanted to move forward with a feature I knew wouldn’t work. I’m this 5’5” 20-something girl from the Midwest who says sorry too much (because in the Midwest that’s what everyone does!) in a room full of men in the industry who generally just tell it like it is. And in that moment, I learnt to speak up and stop being so apologetic. I had to interrupt them to say “no it’s not going to work”, and I said it with certainty.

To this day, my mother still thinks that was rude, but to that audience, I showed them I could talk to them the way they talk to each other, and I was heard. 

Communication styles aside, if you’re tenacious, that’s the most important thing. Be actively involved in a conversation at all times, you simply cannot afford to be passive. It all goes back to grit. You have to be confident about who you are and what you want. You need to be real about it with yourself and the people you work for. I mean, when you give 140 per cent every day of your time and energy to the work, you need to honor the fact that your perspective and your point of view, matter. They do. They matter a lot.