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Women's History Month
In Conversation with
Tricia Harrison
A Techronicler interview with Tricia Harrison
Welcome to Techronicler’s special interview series for Women’s History Month, where we amplify the voices of women redefining the global tech and operations landscape. Today, we are thrilled to feature Tricia Harrison, a Business Operations Consultant and the founder of Barbados-based consultancy, The Remote Catalyst. Tricia sits at the critical intersection of operations, technology, and scalable growth. She works with service-based founders to dismantle “The Router Effect”—an operational bottleneck where leaders end up running the business instead of leading it.
Through her STEPS framework, Tricia champions a vital message for today’s hyper-paced industry: sustainable beats fast. Join us as we discuss the realities of being the only woman of color in the room, the danger of “cultural fit,” and why she believes the future of tech relies on invisible systems and precise communication.
Techronicler: Thank you for joining us, Tricia! What was the first piece of technology you ever broke, built, or fell in love with?
Tricia Harrison:
A computer. I remember the moment I realized you could make a machine do exactly what you told it to, no more, no less. That logic appealed to me. I’ve been building systems ever since, just not always the software kind.
Techronicler: How was your career different from a straight line?
Tricia Harrison:
I didn’t set out to be a consultant. I was the person inside businesses who couldn’t stop noticing what wasn’t working. Like the missing handoffs, the processes living inside someone’s head, the founder who was somehow both the CEO and the receptionist. Eventually, I stopped fixing other people’s businesses from the inside and started doing it from the outside. That shift wasn’t planned. It was just the logical next step once I got honest about where I actually added value.
Techronicler: What is taking up 80% of your brain space this month?
Tricia Harrison:
Systematizing my own business the way I systematize my clients’. It’s the cobbler’s shoes problem. Easy to see the gaps everywhere else, harder to stop and do the work on your own operations. Right now, I’m building out internal systems so that my business can scale without me becoming the bottleneck I help everyone else avoid.
Techronicler: When you’re the only woman — or only WOC — in the room, how do you use that visibility instead of letting it weigh on you?
Tricia Harrison:
I stopped trying to shrink it. When you’re visibly different in a room, people are already paying attention, whether you want them to or not. I’d rather use that attention deliberately and say the thing nobody else is saying, ask the question that reframes the whole conversation. Being the “only” means you’re not competing with the noise. That’s an advantage if you’re willing to use your voice.
Techronicler: Have you ever had to consciously unlearn being “too nice” to get something across the line?
Tricia Harrison:
Yes, and I’d push back on the framing slightly. It wasn’t about being nice. It was more so about being unclear. I used to soften things so much that the message got lost. The fix wasn’t becoming sharper but instead becoming more precise. Direct doesn’t have to mean harsh. It means saying exactly what you mean without burying it in qualifications. That’s a skill, and it took practice.
Techronicler: Tell us about a deeply unpopular technical decision that turned out to be right.
Tricia Harrison:
A client’s team had been using the same project management tool for years. It was familiar, it was comfortable, and it was quietly killing their ability to scale. Nothing integrated properly, tasks were falling through the gaps, and the founder was manually chasing updates every week. I recommended they scrap it entirely and migrate to a new platform. The team pushed back hard and I mean hardddd. Change fatigue is real, and nobody wants to relearn a tool mid-project. But we built the migration into a proper transition plan, trained the team properly, and within six weeks their operational visibility had improved completely. The founder stopped being the default follow-up system. That was the whole point.
Techronicler: If you had $10M to start a company outside your current field, what problem would you solve?
Tricia Harrison:
I’d open a physical space. A building where people can come and learn how to find and secure remote work. Not an online course. A real place. Somewhere you can walk in, sit down, and get the practical help you need to access the global remote job market. Technology would be central to it: how to use the tools, how to present professionally in a digital workspace, and how to compete internationally from a small island. The infrastructure for remote work exists. What’s missing is the on-ramp for people who don’t know how to access it.
Techronicler: How do you see AI changing the trajectory for women entering engineering today?
Tricia Harrison:
It’s lowering the barrier to entry in ways that could genuinely level the field or concentrate power faster than ever, depending on who builds the tools and who gets access. For women entering tech right now, the opportunity is in learning how to direct AI, not just use it. Prompt well, think in systems, understand the output. That’s the skill set that won’t age out.
Techronicler: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received about negotiating?
Tricia Harrison:
Don’t negotiate against yourself before the conversation even starts. Most people talk themselves out of asking for what they want before the other person has said a word. Know your number, say it clearly, and then stop talking. Silence is not your enemy in a negotiation.
Techronicler: What is one book every woman in tech should read this year?
Tricia Harrison:
Multipliers by Liz Wiseman. It’s not a “women in tech” book but it’s a leadership book about the difference between leaders who expand the intelligence around them and those who accidentally diminish it.
Techronicler: What is a piece of “common wisdom” you completely disagree with?
Tricia Harrison:
That you need to move fast and break things. That worked for a specific era of software in a specific geography with a specific type of funding. For most founders, especially those building service businesses or running small remote teams, moving fast without solid foundations just means you’re breaking things that cost you clients and good people. Sustainable beats fast almost every time.
Techronicler: If you could change one thing about how we hire in tech to make it more equitable?
Tricia Harrison:
Stop hiring for cultural fit and start hiring for cultural contribution. “Fit” almost always means comfortable: someone who looks, sounds, and thinks like the people already in the room. Contribution asks a different question: what does this person add that we don’t already have? That single shift changes who gets through the door.
A massive thank you to Tricia Harrison for bringing such precise, actionable wisdom to Techronicler for Women’s History Month. From rethinking how we approach negotiations to tearing down the myth of “moving fast and breaking things,” Tricia’s playbook proves that sustainable foundations always win.
Tricia Harrison is the founder of The Remote Catalyst, a business operations consultancy based in Barbados. She works with service-based founders who have built teams but are still the bottleneck in everything; a pattern she calls The Router Effect. Through her STEPS framework (Systems, Team, Efficiency, Processes, and Strategic Growth), she helps founders build the systems and team structures that let them lead their businesses instead of running them. Her work sits at the intersection of operations, technology, and scalable growth.