Women in leadership: The future demands equality
The future is built on emotional commerce. To compete economically, businesses must advance equality and place women in leadership.
“You are an analog girl, living in a digital world.”
– Neil Gaiman, American Gods
Recently, a marketer I admire on Twitter posted an article that grabbed my attention. It was a piece strongly declaring the value of and need for the individual contributor.
After all, I’ve had a different career path than most.
In February of 2021, I celebrated my 40th birthday, and at the end of June, I’ll celebrate 15 years at SAP.
I started here as a contractor in 2005 – when I was 25 years old. After 15 months, I converted to a full time executive assistant, and spent 13 years in the role, serving various organizations at all levels of SAP.
After two years of partnering with CMOs, I transitioned fully into marketing – in 2020. (Welcome to it, right?) While I very much knew what I was getting into, the experience since joining the marketing team full time has only deepened my love and appreciation for SAP and for CX as an industry.
See, I was part of SAP #CX from the very beginning, as SAP pulled together Cloud for Customer, combining it with Hybris, which later became SAP Hybris. I was there, too, for the evolution to SAP Customer Experience with the addition of Abakus, SeeWhy, Gigya, and Callidus.
CX feels like home to me, and my colleagues over the last 15 years, well, they are family. We share a passion for improving the customer experience – yes, for our customers, but also for ourselves.
The future is built on emotional commerce. To compete economically, businesses must advance equality and place women in leadership.
It’s unusual for Xennials, those people who were born on the edge of the Gen X and Millennial generations, to stay at a single company for as long as I have. But the employee experience at SAP is something I could never bring myself to trade in.
And the company just keeps getting better. Flex schedules and remote work have been common at SAP for the last five years, long before the pandemic made it necessary and, dare I say, cool.
But it’s not just about SAP or even the individual employee. The company highly values sustainability, diversity and inclusion, women in leadership, and so much more. SAP stands on the right side of history – and is a global force for good, with the power to impact true change for causes like these.
Sustainability and fashion appear to be on opposing catwalks destined for collision. Fashion is a $2.5 trillion industry, producing 10% of global carbon emissions, 20% of global wastewater, and vast biodiversity loss. Consumers are demanding change, forcing sustainability in fashion as a requirement, not a trend.
I’ve changed over the last 15 years. My family, my education, my career – they’ve all morphed into something beyond my wildest expectations. SAP has changed, too. Leadership, strategy, culture: nothing is static, and I’ve been here long enough to see the inner workings of this place.
People stay here for decades because they are truly, deeply happy with their work, with their colleagues, with the satisfaction that they are a drop in an ocean of SAP employees helping to solve world-wide issues like sustainability and diversity.
SAP is chasing zero with the world’s biggest business network, and innovations to drive digital transformation, sustainability, and equality.
CX has been my career passion, and what SAP has taught me about how to take care of customers is exactly how they take care of employees. I’ve been lucky to have the opportunity to optimize my career for personal happiness and growth, all while at the same company.
My 16 year old self would be incredibly proud.
My final piece of advice would be to treat your career path like CX: Always optimize for the user – and that’s you!