For Angela Prentner-Smith, the founder of This is Milk, the people-focused business and digital transformation company, neurodivergence is a superpower. In fact, it’s being neurodivergent that compelled her to forgo a stifling corporate world and, instead, carve out a more meaningful and impactful path as a progressive tech entrepreneur.

“With everything I’ve done, I don’t believe I would’ve done it if I wasn’t neurodivergent, and didn’t have that propensity to take risks; the deep drive for passion and justice; the obsession with things—it all comes from being neurodivergent,” she explained. But, as a neurodivergent female founder in the Scottish business and tech sphere, it also hasn’t been plain sailing.

To learn more about the highs and lows of Prentner-Smith’s journey thus far, and also hear about where she’s at with her latest business, Neve Learning—an inclusive digital learning platform that she began creating during maternity leave—we sat down with the passionate, forward-thinking entrepreneur.

Here’s what she told us. (And if you ever needed more evidence that neurodivergence can be a superpower, this is it.)

Difference, Difficulties, and Dyspraxia

As is the case for most neurodivergent folks, school—which she attended in the 80s and 90s—was something of an ordeal for Prentner-Smith. “I never, ever felt like I fit in—and it was very difficult for me,” she recounted. “I was the youngest, I was the smallest in the class, and I was unknown dyspraxic.”

While dyspraxia can manifest itself differently in people—and also morph and shift over time—it can commonly affect how you think and remember information, how you learn new skills, and your physical co-ordination. Further, it can impact how you function in social situations, how you deal with your emotions, and how you tackle day-to-day activities such as preparing meals and cleaning, meaning there’s a significant overlap with autism and ADHD.

On top of not being able to concentrate and falling asleep often at school, the social aspect was a particular hurdle. “I really struggled with social skills—I never felt like I got the other kids’ jokes, and I didn’t know how to make friends. They even thought I was mute,” she explained. However, at the same time, Prentner-Smith was also showing incredible capabilities, not least with reading and learning. “I was obsessed with words and letters, and I now know that’s called hyperlexic; so I could read before I went to school at four years old.”

Although inherently knowing and feeling she was somehow different, it wasn’t until her 20s—(“I didn’t actually learn social skills until my 20s,” she also divulged)—that Prentner-Smith was formally diagnosed with dyspraxia. “I was referred to an educational psychologist while studying for a Master’s degree, and she took me through the assessment for dyslexia and dyspraxia, which is the same test. Before I even finished, she said, ‘Well, you’re definitely not dyslexic, but you are dyspraxic.’”

There’s a feeling of consolation and reassurance that can come with being able to point to why, exactly, you operate differently to many others—and this is something Prentner-Smith attests to. “When you get a late identification of any kind of neurodivergence, it’s a relief in a sense because there’s a reason for all of the struggles that you’ve had all of your life. It’s not just that you’re lazy, that you’re stupid, or anything else. There’s a reason for it,” Prentner-Smith described. “But at the same time, it changes nothing. You are who you are, and your brain is your brain.”

Being neurodivergent, and specifically dyspraxic, means Prentner-Smith has more of a spikier profile in terms of cognitive abilities. “I’ve got some really high highs and some really low lows,” she explained. “When I got my dyspraxia assessment, in which they take you through a scale—that’s how they identify if you have these particular neurodivergences; you’ve got spikes on your profile—I was up in 99th percentile for verbal reasoning, but my processing speed was in the ninth.”

Commenting on being neurodivergent, and how she perceives the upsides and downsides it can bring, she remarked: “An ex-colleague of mine used the phrase ‘superhero with a limp.’ That’s how I see it; we can do super things, but we do have these genuine hardships that go along with that as well.”

Ultimately, though, it was her neurodivergence that prompted Prentner-Smith to become a founder in the first place—which, as is widely known, no small feat.

Marching to the Beat of Her Own Drum

Listening to Prentner-Smith, it quickly became apparent that marching to the beat of her own drum, professionally speaking, was always an inevitability. “There are elements of how you have to assimilate in a workplace that I wouldn’t have been able to tolerate for the rest of my life,” she candidly noted. Specifically, the employee hierarchies involved and having to firmly stay in your prescribed lane, as well as the pencil-pushing (and by virtue, boredom) that occurs in a lot of modern work were both significant issues.

Regarding the former, Prentner-Smith—a neurodivergent woman—was often perceived as a troublemaker or “difficult” while working in the corporate world, simply for trying to put her head above the parapet, help fix knotty problems, and speak up with solutions.

“What I kept finding was, I’m intelligent; I can call out what’s going wrong; I can solve complex problems; but there are very few workplaces that actually like a woman doing that,” she explained. “I don’t understand hierarchies—I just want to do the right thing. I remember leaving the last proper job that I did and getting feedback afterwards that was, ‘She has some good ideas, but she didn’t get on with people.’ I was like, ‘No, you’re misunderstanding, because the people you think I didn’t get on with I was out drinking with the night before. I’m just saying what needs to be done here; I’m calling out the problems and you don’t want to see it because it doesn’t fit your narrative, and it doesn’t fit this hierarchy.’”

What also helped lead Prentner-Smith into entrepreneurialism was her readiness to take risks, a trait that can stem from different neurodiversities. “The risk-taking that you need as an entrepreneur doesn’t come naturally to most people. When I said I was going to start this business, a lot of people looked at me like I had two heads. Even my own mother, who has always been self-employed, was like, ‘Angela, why are you doing that?’ So that propensity for risk helps.”

The risk consequently paid off, with the result being Glasgow-headquartered company This is Milk. Since its inception in 2015, This is Milk has become a known name in the city—and in broader Scotland—for its holistic approach to business and digital transformation, not least due to its particular emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion; key areas of focus for any business wanting to be the best it can be.

In her work as the consultancy’s managing director, Prentner-Smith has helped the firm (which currently employs around 12 people) to grow, succeed, and subsequently achieve external accolades such as being nominated as Digital Business of the Year by the Scottish Women’s Awards. Meanwhile, Prentner-Smith herself has received honours such as Entrepreneur of the Year at the Glasgow Business Awards, and was even named as one of the top ten female entrepreneurs in Scotland by Business Women Scotland last year.

However, just as there were difficulties in the corporate world as an employee, Prentner-Smith has also come up against issues in entrepreneurialism—again, simply for being who she is. One of these hurdles occurs when selling her consultancy’s transformation services to potential clients. “It’s probably a female thing and a neurodivergent thing, but I’m not what people expect to be buying from, and people like to buy from people who are like them,” she explained. “Although I get a lot of admiration and respect from people for my intelligence, for what I’ve done, and for what I can do, that sales bit? It’s still a struggle.”

There’s also the fact that the social aspect of being a founder and entrepreneur, which is nothing short of a constant requirement, takes its toll on Prentner-Smith far more than others. “I find things like conferences, networking—stuff like that—just absolutely, utterly exhausting. I force myself to do them; they’re really, really hard on me.”

Despite difficulties such as these, Prentner-Smith hasn’t been dissuaded from her path. In fact, in 2020, she began building her second tech-related business venture: Neve Learning.

A Digital Learning Platform—For Everyone

The origin story for Neve Learning is, perhaps not unexpectedly, atypical. “It was during COVID, in July, and I was on maternity leave with my second child, who was about two weeks old at the time. A CivTech challenge had just come out, and everybody sent me a link to it, and I kept saying, ‘I’ve just had a baby, I don’t want to start a tech business!’ But it was Al, who was my right-hand man at work, who convinced me that we should try it.’”

For those who don’t know, CivTech is an intensive accelerator programme in Scotland, helping to plug public sector problems through the creation of specifically-built and innovative tech tools. The CivTech challenges themselves are derived from thematic frameworks, so they are constantly changing. The one Prentner-Smith’s network forwarded to her was around reinventing workplace learning—something which the pandemic inadvertently impacted.

“Workplace learning basically went from being delivered face-to-face, to Zoom or Teams all day—which sucks, right? So, there were four of us from This is Milk on a remote call, me with a baby in one hand, and we came up with the idea for it. We pitched it, got through to the next round, and then the next round; we kept on winning. So I came off maternity leave after six weeks, and joined the CivTech accelerator with my baby in tow.”

After some extensive user research as part of the programme, as well as digging into the science underpinning the different ways in which people learn, Neve Learning was centred around three core principles: being hybrid, inclusive, and personalised. This means that, when used, employees can learn about the skills and knowledge they need to do their jobs well through a combination of in-person and online training thanks to the platform, via the different delivery methods that best resonate with them, and in a wholly accessible way.

The digital platform is being officially launched, in a commercial state, next month. Alongside this, the platform is being rolled out to the leadership community of the Scottish Digital Academy—the centre of excellence for digital capability across public and third sectors—resulting in around 300 senior civil servants having access to its courses.

Though it’s still relatively early stages for Neve Learning (on the immediate-term to-do list is to clinch more early adopters, and raise financial investment) what the future could hold for the platform is exciting, especially considering that Prentner-Smith is at its helm.

Ensuring the Success of Neurodivergent Scots Founders

Prentner-Smith’s story serves as a strong reminder of the undeniable need for neurodivergent people in our workplaces, whether they’re employees or the founders of the businesses themselves.

But while there have been more conversations on how workplaces can better meet the needs of their neurodiverse employees in recent years, less has been discussed about ensuring the success of neurodiverse entrepreneurs. And Prentner-Smith had some insightful thoughts on how Scotland, at least, could better support the next generation of them.

One aspect that can be improved is the delivery of in-person support for founders. For instance, at the induction of another accelerator programme recently, she noticed that “the slides were blurry,” meaning important information wasn’t as visually accessible. What’s more, “they were putting people into breakout rooms, and if you’re autistic, that’s really challenging.” Prentner-Smith advocated that although elements like these will be fine for the majority of people, adjusting them to be truly inclusive means everybody wins.

Further, applying for help—whether it’s to get a financial grant, or tapping into expert knowledge—from the public sector support networks available in Scotland is made needlessly difficult due to the bureaucracy. “You’re asking somebody who’s bored all the time, who has no patience, is potentially dyslexic, to work through complex forms that don’t make sense and have to be done in a certain way… all of that is a hurdle. It’s really bad for everybody, but even worse if you’ve got particular neurodivergences.” Simplifying and streamlining these processes would, again, be a net positive for everyone.

By improving aspects such as these—which are but a few examples, rather than an exhaustive list—it’s helping to ensure that there’s a constantly supportive pipeline in Scotland for neurodiverse entrepreneurs: the “superheroes with a limp” who break the mould, challenge the status quo, and push boundaries. And who wouldn’t want that?