Danone CMO Linda Bethea had a difficult challenge early in her career. She was a young marketer from Texas with no sales experience and was put in charge of a group of sales guys over the age 45 in New Jersey. Needless to say, it was a learning experience.
“It taught me about leadership not just about sales, but how to connect with people, how to motivate people and how to build careers, which helped me once I did get a seat at the table,” she said during a Brand Innovators Women in Marketing breakfast event at Cannes on Wednesday morning.
During the session, Bethea pointed out that while men are often apply for a jobs for which they are only 50% qualified for, women tend to be more careful and won’t take the chance. She encourages women to not hold back and to go after what they want with the same confidence, which will serve them well in their career.
During the pandemic, Surabhi Pokhriyal, chief digital growth officer, Church & Dwight, started an organization Elevating Women in Digital to help women immigrants in the US – a group of women whose visas are tied to their company they work for which puts them in a bad position for salary negotiation. “Employers know you don’t have flexibility for job changing,” she said.
The mentor-mentee network created a spreadsheet in which women shared their salary for different job titles at major organizations to help these women ask for appropriate salaries to help overcome the pay gap. Out of school with their first job, men will usually negotiate salary giving themselves a better base to grow from, said Pokhriyal. “The women will usually just be happy to have the job,” she said, also encouraging women to apply for a job even if they don’t have every single skill listed.
Kristin Kroepfl, vice president of marketing, PepsiCo Foods North America PepsiCo, advises women to think about their careers like a marathon and not a sprint, suggesting those early in their career not to just go after promotions but to go after roles that will build their experience so they have the skills they need to succeed in the role. Alyssa Buetikofer, CMO, Canada at McDonald’s took this approach in her career.
“I have been purposeful in my career to have different experiences,” she explained, holding eight different jobs across five different departments, across different global regions at the QSR giant to learn everything she could about how the business works. “I knew it would be better for my career long term,” said Buetikofer.
Many of the women during the sessions discussed the importance of showing up as your authentic self at work. Being a mom inspires Sanofi Consumer Healthcare CMO Claudine Patel in the workplace. “When you are a mom, nothing ever phases you anymore, you always lead with calmness,” she said.
Not only is it important to support the younger women coming into the industry, it is also key to cultivate allyship among men. Diana Haussling, SVP, GM, consumer experience & growth at Colgate highlighted working with partners like VML CEO Jon Cook to give guidance on how not to be the old dude in the club and keep the conversation about supporting women active.
“We need to raise better sons,” said the mother of a son. “We spend a lot of time overcoaching women talking about a problem that they didn’t have; race that they need to solve.”
Allyship should be an active verb, said Haussling. “There is an opportunity to shift the conversation from what women need to do, to bring men into the conversation to make them change the systems that were built for them to work for all.”
Leslie Malcom, VP Marketing, Molson Coors Beverage Company, advises her younger female staff to not only pursue a mentor, but to “be really specific about what need do you want out of the mentorship and then be really choiceful that it is not about any mentor, it is about the right mentor,” she said. “The fit has to be right.”
Molson Coors supports women with an internal organization called BREW –Building Relationships Empowering Women. She has one mentor that helps her juggle being a working mom and another that helps figure out how to hold a board seat. Malcolm leaves the office every day at 4pm to be with her family, and she hopes this sets an example for younger women about what a leadership career can look like.
Courtney Benedict, VP marketing, above premium beer, Molson Coors Beverage Company, suggested a way to help women at work is to pay attention to a small comment from a woman at a meeting that might be overlooked “to be that source of advice, comfort and encouragement,” she explained.
