Jessica Laan is Chief Revenue Officer at Channable, the multichannel eCommerce platform. Laan spent 20 years as a brand side marketer with international roles for Sony, Dyson and Sonos, before crossing to the vendor side. She now leads revenue at Channable at the point where retail, performance marketing and AI search collide.
What are the biggest opportunities for women in your sector of the digital industry right now?
Now is a great time for opportunity as eCommerce in particular is a fast moving landscape. AI-driven discovery shoppers asking an agent for the right product instead of typing keywords into a search bar is resetting how the industry works. Nobody has twenty years of experience in agentic commerce, because it barely existed two years ago. The pecking order is being redrawn. At Channable we work with +17,000 brands and retailers, and a common question we hear is “how do I get my products recommended by ChatGPT?” Nobody senior, regardless of years of experience, has an inherited advantage in answering that. If you’re a woman building a career in eCommerce or performance marketing right now, that levelling moment is the opportunity, expertise is being re-earned from scratch, by everyone.
What are some of the challenges that you still see for women in the industry?
Commercial and technical leadership roles in eCommerce SaaS are still heavily male, particularly at C-level and in the boardrooms where revenue strategy is set; and women are still more often routed toward marketing and CS leadership than toward P&L ownership. Fortunately, at Channable our Management Team is well balanced and has true 50/50 equal representation between men and women. I’m quite aware that this is still a unique situation in the technology sector, and as a hiring manager, I have therefore made a conscious effort to put together a diverse team in the broadest sense of the word. Diversity goes beyond gender, and for every underrepresented person it’s immensely powerful to no longer be ‘the only different’ person in the room. I’m firmly convinced that diverse teams make better decisions.
What support structures and organisations are most important and effective to you as a woman in the digital industry?
I want to help build an organization that shares a deep conviction that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking: that people will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up, asking questions or admitting mistakes. That creates an environment where it’s OK to think differently and look at problems from different angles, while still respecting each other’s opinions and listening to one another rather than judging or shutting down other perspectives. This extends to respecting the different priorities employees have around managing their work and personal lives, never expecting certain behaviour based on stereotypes, and speaking up when you see someone else being treated unsafely.
Psychological safety is a way of being and working for the entire organization. It should be deeply ingrained in how the organization operates and in the choices it makes day to day. Its impact is so strong that it doesn’t just benefit women; it strengthens diversity of thought across the whole organization.
What is the biggest misconception (a) about women in the digital industry, and (b) by women in the digital industry?
(a) About women: that commercial roles rely on “soft skills” and relationship-building while technical teams handle the hard work. Revenue leadership in eCommerce is a data discipline—pipeline models, feed quality, and channel economics. The soft-versus-hard skills divide is a fiction, and a gendered one.
(b) By women: that you must check every requirement before putting yourself forward. Transitioning laterally from the brand side into SaaS leadership wasn’t a linear, box-ticking path, but having been my own customer became my greatest commercial asset.
Diversity fuels innovation, and visibility matters. Having visible female role models early on shapes how we view leadership behaviors. As leaders, we have a responsibility to step into the spotlight so emerging talent can see what’s possible and aspire to reach it.
What one piece of advice would you offer a woman starting in the digital industry today?
Step outside the boundaries of your strict role: connect with people across different disciplines, learn from their experiences, and keep going through adversity. Broadening your perspective and taking initiative beyond your job description is how you build rare skills, stand out, and make a real impact.
Get closer to the data than your job description requires, and actively push beyond your comfort zone. The industry used to reward people who simply managed channels; today, it rewards those who understand the performance and product data underneath them—because that data now dictates what AI systems recommend, advertise, and buy.
When you connect performance data directly to revenue and explain that chain to executive leadership, you earn a seat at every decision-making table.
