202. How To Build Trust In a Fast Paced Work Environment

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In this episode, Julia speaks with Geetanjali Sampemane talks about how to build trust in a fast paced environment through systems that people are willing to rely on, even when they do not fully understand how those systems work. Geeta reflects on her early work helping connect institutions in India to the internet, and how mistrust of new technology gradually shifted through familiarity, experience, and positive outcomes. She shares how trust is rarely based on complete knowledge — it is a judgement call, shaped by risk, context, and past experience. The conversation explores why trust is fragile and difficult to rebuild once broken, and how negative experiences undermine not only our trust in systems, but also our confidence in our own judgement. Geeta also speaks about the role of those designing systems — the importance of clarity, reliability, predictability, and security — and why trust is strengthened when expectations are shared, behaviour is consistent, and mistakes are acknowledged rather than hidden. This episode is a reminder that trust is not blind belief. It is built through constant attention, thoughtful design, and the quiet work of making systems worthy of the people who depend on them.

About the Guest:

Geetanjali Sampemane

Geetanjali Sampemane is a software engineer at Google London, where she focuses on designing systems for security, privacy and transparency. She started her career helping countries get connected to the Internet, first in India with the ERNet project, and then with the UNDP’s Sustainable Development Networking Programme. She got to see first-hand how people and organisations learn to trust new technology.

About the Host

Julia Middleton

Julia Middleton is the host of the Women Emerging podcast and a best-selling author of “If that’s leading, I’m in” as well as two previous books: “Leading beyond Authority” and “Cultural Intelligence”. She is deeply committed to helping people from all backgrounds to find their own approach to leading. In 2020, Julia launched Women Emerging and in 2022 she lead an expedition of 24 women to find ‘an approach to leading that resonates with women’. She now leads expeditions with women all over the world based on 4Es methodology, discovered in the first expedition.

Prior to that, Julia was founder and, for over thirty years, Chief Executive of Common Purpose, which grew to become one of the biggest leadership development organisations in the world.
Julia is also an Ambassador for the Aurora Prize based in Armenia, on the boards of Alfanar Venture Philanthropy in the Arab World and Equality Now, which operates globally, and on the Advisory Councils of Fundacao Dom Cabral in Brazil and Synapse in Pakistan. Born in London and brought up in New York, Julia was educated at French Lycées and graduated from the London School of Economics. She is married, with five children and lots of grandchildren.