Earlier this year, brand leaders from across the country gathered in Austin, Texas at SXSW to explore the future of marketing. Lindsay Teague, SVP, Advanced TV Sales and Solutions, led a discussion featuring Kamala Avila-Salmon from Lionsgate, Laura Gardner from Outfox Hospitality, Beth Malafa from Under Armour, and Nandini Sankara from Suburban Propane for the Women in Marketing Leadership Forum panel during the Brand Innovators Leadership in Brand Marketing Summit @ SXSW. The executives shared their perspectives on Women’s History Month, leadership styles, and marketing tactics. Kamala, Laura, Beth, Nandini, and Lindsay also touched on their career journeys and the importance of mentorship and community.
March is Women’s History Month – a time to celebrate women’s contributions and achievements across different careers and spheres of life.
Now more than ever, women are forging paths in a variety of once male-dominated fields, including ad tech. These trailblazers are sparking conversations around critical issues to the empowerment of women at work, including opening doors and access for women early in their careers so they can progress to C-suite, supporting women to choose and stay with STEM careers, and helping women achieve a work-life balance.
This month at Cadent, we’re profiling women who are leaders in their departments, asking about their career journeys, the importance of Women’s History Month, and what advice they would give to women entering the workforce.
Bonnie Fisher, VP, New York Sales Lead, has been with Cadent for over five years and has seen both the company and TV advertising industry through some major changes! A native New Yorker, after graduating from Brooklyn College, Bonnie jumped right into the world of TV. Her previous positions include roles at CNN, TV Guide Network, and NBCUniversal’s Syfy channel. Always ready to tackle a new challenge, Bonnie was recently promoted from a Senior Account Executive to her current role as a VP.
To learn more about Bonnie, check out our Q&A below.
The following interview has been lightly edited and condensed.
Tell us about your role.
I am in a new role on the sales team! I’m now leading New York sales and couldn’t be more excited to tackle my new priorities with the hardest working team I’ve ever come across.
Where can we find you when you’re not at work?
On the weekends, I am on the soccer field or basketball court, watching my kids play.
What does Women’s History Month mean to you?
Women’s History Month is important to me because I can show my daughter all the amazing, fearless women who have paved the way for us to succeed, live in equality, and showcase our talents freely.
Are there any resources you have found valuable while building your career?
The resources I have found most helpful are my mentors and the ability to network. I am fortunate to have met incredibly generous people along the way who helped guide me through my career by giving me great advice and teaching me important life lessons. I highly recommend for everyone to network at every stage of their career – meeting people and learning from them provides perspective and helps us grow.
What advice do you have for women starting their careers?
My advice to anyone starting their career is to find your passion and stick with it. It’s important to follow your gut, trust your instincts, and stand up for what feels right. I’d also recommend learning the art of assertive communication, so your voice is heard in an impactful way.
Last week, Cadent Account Executive, Lauren Treinen hosted a panel with Christy Hedgpeth, COO, WNBA for NBA/WNBA, Kate Johnson, Director and Head of Global Sports & Entertainment Marketing Partnerships, Content and Media for Google, and Lisa Woodward, Director, Sponsorships for AB InBev as a part of the Brand Innovators’ Sports Marketing Upfronts livecast series. Their conversation focused on the growth of women’s basketball, the importance of women leaders in sports, and how their personal experiences shaped their professional journeys.
Leaders from across the world of sports marketing and sponsorships, Shawna Burtscher, Director, Experiential Marketing, Audi of America, Kerry Scalora, Director – Sports Marketing, Michelob Ultra, Anheuser-Busch, Bridget Sponsky, Executive Director – Brand, Sports & Sponsorship Marketing, Ally, Dana Dar, Director of Strategic Business Development, Intel Sports, Intel, and Marissa Weseloh, Director of Sponsorships, Verizon, joined Stacie Pearson, Account Executive, Cadent for a panel during Brand Innovators’ Sports Marketing Upfronts: Soccer. The executives shared their perspectives on what it means to be a woman in sports leadership and how the women’s sports landscape is changing.
Read our 5 key insights from their discussion below, including why there is still a long way to go for women’s equity in sports, as well as how today’s leaders can create change for tomorrow’s women advertisers and athletes.
The following has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Build sponsorships with purpose.
Sports sponsorships are about so much more than brand awareness. It’s a critical opportunity to show consumers what matters most to your business stands. “Our values are the most important part of our company and they’re all rooted in doing what’s right. The customer is at the center of every single thing that we do, and we have this firm belief that the diversity of thought is critical to progression and success. In the end, we believe in deeds and not just words, and that values-based spirit is how we approach our alignments in sports,” Bridget explained. “We’re very purposeful with the sponsorships that we have in that they align with those values and that they have a voice in culture… How are we an ally to athletes, to fans, to the league, to the communities we serve?”
Offering her take, Kerry said, “Our brand purpose is to show consumers that living an active and balanced lifestyle doesn’t need to be stressful. […] In our ads, we want to show that these athletes aren’t just happy because they win – they win because they’re happy people. We’ve leaned into these big sporting moments and athletes to help us amplify our brand message and make it that much more relatable. Consumers are aspiring to be these athletes, so ultimately we hope our brand ethos and message is transferred on to them.”
Vote with your engagement & your wallet.
Touching on the subject of inequities between men and women athletes, Shawna called out, “We all can vote with our viewership and dollars – where we’re paying attention to content and who we follow. What’s happened over the past few years has made people a bit more vulnerable and more open to talking about [inequality].” She went on to highlight, “We’re also seeing more people support one another – not just the trailblazers who are willing to speak up – but being less afraid of the backlash that could come. […] When people see others leading with that kind of integrity, they feel empowered to do so too.”
Normalize women in sports leadership roles.
“I think they’re helping to change the conversation and debunk this myth that women are not qualified or don’t have the capabilities to take on these roles – that’s important and they’re inspiring the next generation,” Marissa said.
Yet despite the strides women have made in sports, we still have a long way to go. “I had an executive in a previous role say to me, ‘It’s great that we have a female on this sports account.’ And I remember thinking, I’m here because I’m qualified, but what is that statement implying? That it’s an exception that a female runs a sports account. So, the more we see the momentum of women taking these positions – which I’d love to continue to see – the more it’s changing the conversation, to where it becomes the norm. In the future, we’d get to the point where this panel doesn’t exist and it’s just about leadership in sports because there’s natural representation across the board.”
Watch a video of the session on demand now:
Use your platform to create opportunities.
A repeated theme of the discussion was women supporting women. As Dana noted, “All these amazing women athletes you mentioned have such a great platform, so when they voice something, it amplifies the message. But it is also up to us – those who are behind the scenes on the business side of sponsorship side within sports – to create that same conversation so that the next woman who’s up and coming doesn’t hear the same comment that Marissa just mentioned.”
This emphasis on using your voice and creating opportunities for one another drives home the importance of mentorship among women in sports, as well as other industries and professions.
Don’t be afraid to take risks!
The panelists also took a moment to reflect on their journeys and how they’ve found success as women in sports marketing.
“Not only was I a woman in sports, but a saleswoman in sports. That being said, I’ve always counted on myself to put in the work and make a name for myself. The gender bias in sports motivates me to work harder and stay on top of my game,” said Kerry.
Shawna explained, thinking back to the beginning of her career, “One day, I invited myself into an agency’s office because I knew they were hiring a new division, and it was the first time they were getting into sports marketing. At that time, I had worked extensively in motorsports, so I realized – they didn’t know anything! […] The reactions I was getting from people were like, ‘should I not know some of these things?’ Yet I was hired on the spot, in what was probably a more elevated role than had I just sent in a resume.”
Leaving us with a powerful piece of advice: “A lot of it was my naiveté and passion to be there, but I knew what I knew. I would say you should follow your intuition and don’t be afraid to take risks. If you’re an expert at something, don’t be afraid to showcase that you are.”
March is Women’s History Month, a time to celebrate women’s contributions and achievements in different fields and spheres of life.
Ad tech is still a mostly male industry, but there are more conversations than ever around critical issues to the empowerment of women at work, including opening doors and access for women early in their careers so they can progress to C-suite; supporting women to choose and stay with STEM careers; and helping women achieve a work-life balance.
This month at Cadent, we’re profiling women who are leaders in their departments, asking about their career journeys, approaches to growth and mentorship, and their philosophies on leading others.
With more than a decade of legal experience, Senior Counsel Camille Marcos Napa held public-service posts, advised tech start-ups, and taught Intro to Business Law at Bentley University before joining Cadent. Her legal background included representing people before a judge, an experience that many attorneys, even at large law firms, don’t always have in their backgrounds.
“That was a true growth opportunity, to represent cases and make arguments that had successful outcomes,” Camille said. “Now, when I have to deal with a multitude of issues that come across my desk, I have some point of reference, whether it’s in the litigation matter, a vendor issue or otherwise.”
With her varied background and willingness to try new areas of law, it’s no surprise that Camille believes in the importance of taking on new challenges in order to learn and grow. Read more about Camille’s career journey in a Q&A below.
The following conversation has been lightly edited and condensed.
Can you describe your path to Cadent and the experiences that have helped you grow along the way?
It was definitely not linear. As a law student, I worked for the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, and in that capacity, I did a lot of the research and writing for the state’s Universal Health Care initiative. I’ve also worked for an advocacy group that represented employees in cases of wage and hour violations, done family law and immigration work, and consulted for various technology start-ups.
I didn’t come from a media background, and I hadn’t worked at a media or advertising law firm, but when I approached Cadent, they saw I was driven and hungry for the opportunity. I had learned to be agile and handle a broad range of legal and business issues, and I did a lot of research on the ad industry. Chris Poindexter, General Counsel at Cadent, mentored me, taught me about the company, and introduced me to what the media industry was like. He also supported me in joining the Association of Corporate Counsel, a group for in-house attorneys, and that was really helpful to me to grow professionally.
Cadent has changed a lot since you joined the company; has that posed any challenges for you?
I had to evolve very quickly and become knowledgeable about brokering data in the ad tech ecosystem. Because my background is multidisciplinary, I was able to pivot quickly and adapt. So as the company has grown and evolved, I’ve grown and evolved right along with it.
As an example, in January 2020, the CPPA or California Privacy Act was enacted the same time, January of 2020, as we acquired 4INFO, a data activation company. Our team had to learn a lot and evolve very quickly.
What’s your approach to leadership?
I focus on being an effective communicator, understanding what people want and what motivates them. Transparency is also important; when you’re clear about your goals or the problems you’re trying to solve, that gives your team incentive and empowers them.
I truly believe that showing you trust and value people and are empathetic to them makes for better leadership. Above all, as a leader, I focus on helping my team members develop into effective leaders themselves.
At Cadent, you’re known as someone who makes an effort to mentor others and be available to junior employees and interns. Can you talk about why that’s important to you?
Absolutely. I love that I could have an impact on younger, just out-of-college or in-college people, because I feel like I’ve been in that place and I didn’t necessarily have that guidance when I started out. If there’s an opportunity to give back and be accessible and relatable to new employees, I welcome it.
It can make a world of difference when you’re just starting out in an industry to have someone take an interest in you and provide you with guidance.
Do you have any favorite books on women’s leadership?
I would argue that all women should read about negotiation. My favorite book right now is Getting More: How You Can Negotiate to Succeed in Work and Life, by Stuart Diamond, a professor at the Wharton School of Business. I think women sometimes have a hard time negotiating for themselves, so having the set of common sense tools he describes is invaluable. As a parent, I often find myself negotiating with a five-year-old and a two-year-old, so I constantly use these skills.
How has being a parent had an impact on your perspective as a Legal professional?
I think it’s so valuable for people who read this to understand what it means to be a working parent or a working mother. It’s probably the biggest asset that I have, that I’m a working mother. It’s taught me to be more patient, understanding, and efficient; to get more things done in less time while keeping perspective on the bigger goal.
March is Women’s History Month, a time to celebrate women’s contributions and achievements in different fields and spheres of life.
Ad tech is still a mostly male industry, but there are more conversations than ever around critical issues to the empowerment of women at work, including opening doors and access for women early in their careers so they can progress to C-suite; supporting women to choose and stay with STEM careers; and helping women achieve a work-life balance.
This month at Cadent, we’re profiling women who are leaders in their departments, asking about their career journeys, approaches to growth and mentorship, and their philosophies on leading others.
Alex Grier, Senior Director of Broadcast Media Buying, has been with Cadent for nearly four years, and in that time, she has seen the department evolve and expand rapidly as a more strategic partner to the Cadent Sales team.
As a manager, Alex advocates presenting your human side to employees and striking a balance of support with constructive criticism. “It’s important that people feel heard, whether you agree or not,” Alex said.
In her role negotiating with Broadcast inventory partners, honesty is key, she said, adding, “All you have in this business is your word. Whether it’s with your team or your external partners, I strive to be fair so everyone involved knows they’re dealing with a person who is going to try to find a middle ground where we both win, as much as we possibly can.”
Read a Q&A with Alex below.
The following conversation has been lightly edited and condensed.
What does your day-to-day look like?
On a daily basis, I lead a team of 11 amazing people. It’s a really great, trusting, “we all have each other’s back” type of team.
I’m proud to come in every day and work with them. Every day, we’re securing media on a local level for our clients and trying to get the best deals out there for our business.
My job is to be there for our internal and external partners, stakeholders and my team when they have questions and need answers. I encourage my team to be very solution-based. Like, “Here is the issue, and here are some suggestions I have to resolve this.” It’s always helpful, in business and in life, too, when people are more solution-based.
What’s your approach to learning new skills?
At Cadent, the business has evolved so much since I started here. I basically had to bring in my whole medical kit when I came onboard, prepared to educate and create processes because the business had just been brought in-house at Cadent, but it was fun and I enjoyed it. Learning new things makes the day go fast, and I love teaching and showing people things if they really seem interested. Their interest is important – I don’t try to force knowledge on people if they don’t want to hear it.
Can you talk about your team and how you relate to each person?
There’s always more to learn. My team has said I’m relatable, and that’s because I’m still just me. Even with a title next to my name, I’m still just a person who wants to learn things the same as you, who wants to figure out how to build things together. If someone does something great, I want them to be acknowledged for that the same way as a person, I would want to be acknowledged for that.
Is there a particular person you’ve worked with in the past who had a big impact on you?
Yes, a previous manager. She was the person who mentored me and cultured me and helped me learn this media world. What I took from that experience is, if you see that people have talent or that they’re hard workers and they want to try and learn, you should definitely invest in them. It’s never a waste of time to invest.
To this day, when I hear someone say, “Oh my gosh, I remember when you taught me this,” it’s the most rewarding feeling in the world.
Do you have a favorite book, movie or piece of music that has inspired your journey as a leader?
I really loved “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” It’s about a Black woman in 1951 whose cells were taken, unbeknownst to her, and harvested in the lab. It created the HeLa cell line. HeLa, for Henrietta Lacks. It’s a beautiful and a sad story.
It makes me think of the contributions of Black women – even when they don’t even realize they’re contributing – and just how difficult it can be as a person of color, just people not understanding or treating you the same. That’s what I love about the book, knowing her contributions and knowing that we have all these different cures for cancer, just based on studying her cells.
What makes a successful leader?
If you can make someone else better, that shows you’re successful. Regardless of how people see you, envision you, whatever doubts they try to cast on you.
You’re not always going to get credit. Rely on knowing what you did was good or great. And don’t worry about naysayers or looking for that kind of outside gratitude. I don’t look for the accolades from the outside. If they come, I’m very appreciative because I know it’s hard for people to say, “Thank you, you did a great job.” That’s what makes me say thank you even more to my team.
March is Women’s History Month, a time to celebrate women’s contributions and achievements in different fields and spheres of life.
Ad tech is still a mostly male industry, but there are more conversations than ever around critical issues to the empowerment of women at work, including opening doors and access for women early in their careers so they can progress to C-suite; supporting women to choose and stay with STEM careers; and helping women achieve a work-life balance.
This month at Cadent, we’re profiling women who are leaders in their departments, asking about their career journeys, approaches to growth and mentorship, and their philosophies on leading others.
Sarah Collie, a Technical Project Manager based in the UK, has 20 years of experience in the broadcast and advertising industries. As a PM, Sarah said she likes to help teams self-manage and lead themselves, providing frameworks and guidance for the groups she collaborates with, adding, “I like helping teams improve and identifying processes that can be made better.”
Read a conversation with Sarah below about her path to ad tech and Project Management, and a manager who made an impact on her journey.
The following conversation has been lightly edited and condensed.
What led you to Cadent?
At university, I studied the History of Art, then began on the administration side of projects at BSkyB (which later merged with Sky), and progressed to Project Management roles. One of my managers from BSkyB led in a way which has really inspired me and has stuck with me. She knew her business area inside out, actually gave her team ownership and let people pave their own path.
How did your manager influence your career path?
She helped me find the confidence to become a Project Manager.One lesson from her leadership was that it pays to be open to any kind of commentary. There are always benefits from listening and communicating, just allowing people to empower themselves, run with ideas and learn from mistakes or from successes. She put a lot of faith in me, and she really set me on my career path. I wanted to learn a lot more about the business area I was working in rather than the administrative side.
So it’s fair to say this manager enabled you to make this change.
She was kind of the springboard. After making the shift away from administrative work, I had a wide variety of roles. I was a business analyst, worked in pre-sales and was a project manager. I don’t think I would have done any of that without having her support to make the initial change.
I felt that if I didn’t make the leap, then maybe I wouldn’t have the career I really wanted, and I wanted to have a career that I could really get involved in and find interesting. I wanted to understand the specifics as a Project Manager, and I wanted to transform the processes involved and be more involved with the stakeholders and clients.
How do you enable your teams today?
I work with three different teams, and they’re all very different.
You have to understand your team, their work motivation, and then you also have to help them understand the external influences, the stakeholders and how the teams are working together. It’s quite dynamic. We do these retrospectives every two weeks, where we reflect on the previous sprints work, and look to identify improvements we can implement as part of the teams continued growth, and the next sprint-worth of work can therefore be entirely different.
Senior leaders in cross-functional roles often have to work hard to reach a consensus. How do you encourage people to follow your process?
I’m honest with my team. If I’m asking them to do something that I don’t think they would like to do, I explain the positives and the downsides of not doing it. I find clarity around what’s been asked, and then I’d probably just say “please.”
Can you name a few qualities that make a great Project Manager?
I appreciate honesty, patience and calmness. Humor is important. Being someone that people want to talk to and engage with is important, someone who encourages open dialogue. I want to communicate with others, and I want people to feel comfortable talking with me. I want to be able to listen.
Andrea Brimmer, Chief Marketing and PR officer, Ally
Two leaders in data-driven marketing, Andrea Brimmer, Chief Marketing and PR Officer, Ally Financial, and Jamie Power, COO of Advanced TV, Cadent, took part in a chat for Brand Innovators’ Women in Marketing livecast recently. The executives shared their takeaways on leading during challenging times, what CMOs should focus on now and how brand marketers can learn from the COVID-19 crisis.
Read seven insights from their fireside chat below, including why there are some crises you can’t fully prepare for and why humanity should always be at the center of marketing.
The following has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
1. Provide levity to customers at the right moments.
Ally’s tag phrase is “Do It Right,” driving the brand to do what’s right for their customers. With that in mind, Jamie said, how is Ally engaging with consumers differently, and how is the brand practicing being “customer obsessed?”
Andrea replied that the brand has increased its frequency of customer communications, emailing customers at least once a week with relevant information. Additionally, the brand has increased its velocity in social, and generally, Ally is taking advantage of new opportunities popping up. For instance, the brand is sponsoring Jimmie Johnson, a NASCAR driver, and as NASCAR pivots to virtual racing, Ally outfitted Jimmie’s entire iRig with Ally branding, including a hat and backdrop.
“We’re having some fun with it, where we actually are surprising and delighting some of our customers,” Andrea said. The brand has also partnered with Katie Couric on a series called “The Bright Side,” focusing on stories of “the heroes, the helpers, and the people who are finding joy” under these unprecedented circumstances.
2. With the right tone, brand-customer communications can be a salve.
Jamie asked Andrea how Ally is being brave with its marketing in light of the pandemic. “In a lot of ways,” Andrea said, “brands are like a warm chocolate chip cookie right now,” reminding people that everything will be ok.
Andrea said for Ally, being brave at this time means focusing less on short-term business implications, and thinking more in terms of being human beings and good corporate citizens as a brand. The brand has implemented a comprehensive relief package for its customers including suppressing all auto payments to customers for 120 days, suppressing all mortgage payments for 120 days and waiving all fees. Ally is also focusing on providing helpful information like what customers can do with their stimulus checks, how to think about FDIC insurance and the importance of it right now.
3. TV’s reach is as powerful as ever.
As the COO of Advanced TV at Cadent, Jamie said she’s a believer in the power of data to communicate at the household-level. So is now the right time to get more targeted or more broad with TV messaging?
Andrea responded, “I think people that draw a line in the sand and say it’s ‘either/or’ are really not looking at the full picture, and not giving themselves an opportunity to reach the number of people that they need to reach,” adding that in many regards, there’s still no better medium than television to gain mass appeal.
4. CMOs should dig into the details with their data right now.
Andrea generally is a big proponent of keeping an active learning agenda as a CMO, aiming to allocate a third of her time to learning.
Under the current circumstances, she said, CMOs should “ferociously read every piece of information that they can get their hands on right now,” adding that they need to be more involved than ever in the social listening process, and actually listening to what customers are saying, and how they’re feeling.” Andrea said recently, she’s closer to the creative process than ever before, meeting more frequently with Ally’s various agency teams in order to stay fluid and adjust on a weekly basis.
She added that CMOs shouldn’t be afraid to get into the details of customer feedback right now: “The people that pay attention to the details, are the ones that are going to make sure that they don’t do any harm to their brand, and they actually thrive coming out of this.”
5. Show your humanity.
Andrea said her team is finding ways to connect remotely, from virtual happy hours and fitness bootcamps to a game of Marco Polo, adding, “I’ve literally sent a Marco Polo video message to all 120 individually, and I’m keeping in touch with anybody that’s responding on a really regular basis.”
Jamie said right now is an important time to support Cadent’s brand and agency clients: “As a technology partner, we’re looking for ways to be supportive to our agency and brand clients in any way we can. We’re not necessarily selling right now; we’re looking for solutions.” To stay connected to her team, Jamie said she learned how to use TikTok to regularly share silly videos.
6. Lean into your brand, in the good and bad times.
During the last recession, the brands that went dark took nine times longer to recover, Andrea said, adding, “We also know that a large portion of brands that go completely dark, will lose at least 1X their brand measures, and we’ve worked too hard, particularly over the course of the last two years, to have dramatic brand acceleration.” Ally has accelerated its brand valuation, doubling it in each of the last two years, Andrea said.
7. Learn from times of crisis.
Jamie asked about Ally’s history of handling national crises; the brand launched during the financial crisis in 2007. Did her team take learnings from the previous crisis into this one? Andrea said that while there’s no playbook for a crisis like this, and no one would have imagined they’d have to live through a pandemic, Ally was born out of customer pain points. Now, as people flock to digital brands that help them adjust to the new normal, like Netflix and Zoom, customers are also flocking to Ally, a digital-only bank.
“We will use the lessons that we learned of solving for customer pain points and providing great digital utility to carry us through this,” Andrea said.
