Empowering women. Every day.
When I was updating the VerveIQ website, I took soon time to read through the blog articles….all the way back to 2015. As there’s no automatic way to move from Squarespace 7.0. to 7.1, this meant manually moving articles over - so, I made a call to only move content over that was still useful or provided some context to VerveIQ’s on growth journey.
There’s one article that I decided to re-write/update, rather than simple cut and paste. It’s an article I wrote on 8 March 2020 for International Women’s Day.
As I originally wrote, and as we all state each 8 March, IWD is a chance to shine a light on progress made but also to highlight how much more work there is to do to achieve enduring equality.
The work towards a gender-equal world happens Every Single Day.
For #IWD2020 I chose to reflect on the remarkable women who have supported and inspired me to advocate for myself and other women - my mother, my grandmother, my aunt, my closest friends, my coach - and some of the fiercely talented and generous women I’ve had the good fortune to work with over the years. They’ve shaped my world and my vision of what women can be and what we can achieve individually and collectively.
It was also a good opportunity to reflect on what I had done to support women and progress gender equality - and to consider what more I could do. Three things stood out:
#1 Making a conscious choice to work with people and companies who actively support women and gender equality.
I launched VerveIQ in 2015 so I could focus on working with people and businesses that demonstrate integrity and a desire to make the world a better place; either through their products and services or by creating diverse and inclusive workplaces that afford flexibility to all their employees.
I’ve worked with large corporations like Samsung and dunnhumby who’ve invested in their own Women’s Networks to advance women through the ranks and close the gender pay gap. A smaller business I worked with - a visionary data science consultancy called Peak Indicators (now part of TPXimpact) made great progress with 48% of their staff being female which is impressive given male analysts and scientists typically outnumber females 4 to 1 across the data industry.
#2 Finding ways to be an advocate to women in the marketing industry.
As a long-standing member of the DMA, I’ve been involved in their many initiatives over the years to promote best practice in the data and marketing industry and encourage rising talent. I absolutely love being part of their Mentoring Scheme as well as supporting other DMA Talent initiatives such has the Creative Data Academy and Summer School.
I enjoy mentoring and coaching women I work with so much - it’s become something I do more and more of. I’ve developed a number of useful tools to help women assess and work towards their short and longer term career goals - very much in line with IWD’s mission “to support women to earn and learn on their own terms and in their own way”.
#3 Stepping up my commitment to promote diversity and inclusion.
I joined the DMA Board at the start of 2019 and appointed Deputy Chair - giving me a further opportunity to influence and support how they promote responsible marketing and raise the bar on diversity and inclusion across the industry. It’s a privilege to be part of a progressive leadership team who are a force for good.
Three years later and I’m still enjoying mentoring and supporting women in the marketing industry as well as supporting DEI initiatives through my role on the DMA Board. Since moving from London to Lancashire, I’ve extended my mentoring and networking into new communities like the DMA North and Northern Power Women and am working on a ‘marketing mentor toolkit’ that brings together all the brilliant tools and techniques I’ve used to help women (including myself) develop their marketing careers. That’s another blog post for another day - hopefully soon!
