Katrina Smart, VP Digital Commerce – Europe at Mars United Commerce, has worked across customer experience and retail media for more than a decade, helping clients such as Asda and Walmart with their retail marketing strategies.
What is the biggest opportunity for women in your sector of the digital industry today?
First, a core role of senior women in the digital industry is to act as a voice and an outlet for other women rising through the ranks. It now falls on other women to provide the right resources, guidance, and counsel across the industry. By doing this, more junior women in the digital space will hopefully feel as though they’re supported from the ground up from day one.
Second, LinkedIn has become an incredible platform for women to share their professional experiences, personal stories, trials, and tribulations. It can often be a real comfort to know that you’re not alone and there’s others in the industry facing the same challenges as you. We need to focus on creating a culture in the industry where women always feel as though they can reach out to one another for support.
And third, yes, the conference circuit is really heading in the right direction when it comes to showcasing some of the amazing female leaders that the industry has produced. For instance, Shoptalk is a perfect example of this in action. However, I do think there’s still more that can and should be done consistently across the industry to showcase female talent.
What is the biggest challenge to you as a woman in the digital industry and how are you overcoming it?
While this isn’t exclusive to the digital industry, rather the wider working world more generally, our industry needs to better support women as they navigate maternity leave and the return to work. Simultaneously navigating being a mum and building a career in the industry is an incredibly difficult task, and employers need to try their best to be as understanding as possible of the day-to-day existence of women in that very position.
As I say, this isn’t solely an issue that affects the digital industry. The impact of motherhood on a woman’s career needs to be highlighted more. The knock-on effect of taking the time out for maternity leave often isn’t spoken about enough, but it’s something that every mum has to grapple with.
What three things could employers do to make the digital industry better for women?
First, I think our industry could be much better at providing opportunities for mentorship and in doing so, supporting more women who are either starting out in their career or breaking through the mid-level to leadership. Connecting those rising through the ranks with women in leadership positions and enabling access to those insights for individuals in the more junior years of their careers can be invaluable.
Second, representation really does matter – in so many ways. Specifically, we should focus on ensuring that women in leadership positions in our industry feel as though they’re operating in the same playing field as senior men in said leadership positions. Women can provide a different perspective, way of thinking, and leadership style compared to men.
Third, having a clearly defined HR team with a strong presence within an organisation will hopefully ensure a fair approach to hiring and progression between men and women, as well as supportive and fair maternity/paternity policies. Having a child knocks multiple years off your career trajectory, which only increases the importance of HR departments, and the need for them to give equal footing to mothers and pregnant women.
What support structures and organisations are most important and effective to you as a woman in the digital industry?
Women having access to open forums to share their own triumphs and challenges has always been hugely important to me.
Here at Mars, we have recently been working with a company called Mindless Academy who have an incredible ethos and mission behind them. They provide personalised virtual work experience modules and courses to university students. We recently partnered with them to co-create six digital marketing modules on topics such as retail media, commerce strategy, and winning the digital shelf. All aimed at providing real experiences and skills to empower university students in digital marketing.
We didn’t have something like that when I was at university, and I’m very passionate about how we empower and shape the career progress of young women who want to excel.
What is the biggest misconception about women in the digital industry?
Despite tech having been a historically male dominated industry, many of the incredible colleagues I’ve worked with and friends I’ve made in the industry are women – they’re phenomenal. Not only are they incredibly tech savvy and data oriented, but they are also fantastic communicators, listeners, and leaders.
I think there is a common misconception that women are not as competitive or ambitious about reaching leadership or c-suite roles, and that they don’t carry the same qualities that men in leadership roles do. This certainly is not the case. Women bring a completely different perspective and range of qualities to men which is why having fair representation at the top is so important.
