If you had a collective of Super Women by your side, what help would you ask for? This was the question that Are Media’s Jane Huxley asked more than 800 incredible attendees at B&T’s Women in Media awards in August this year.
Last week on B&T’s Superwomen Series we spoke to Women In Media Power List inductee Beverley McGarvey, president Network 10 & head of streaming, Are Media representative Carly Bowra and representatives for The Aunties about celebrating yourself, feeling proud and creating pathways. To view last week’s instalment click here.
The women of the Australian media, marketing and advertising spoke out loudly, sharing their biggest fears and doubts. So, now, in partnership with Are Media, B&T has called upon our legion of superwomen – that’s our winners and the Women in Media Power List inductees – to guide this generation of women through some of the industry’s most consistent problems.
This week, we were so overwhelmed by responses that we had to go twice. Today, we tackle the same empowerment questions with Power List inductees Nat Havery and Jacquie Alley and Glass Ceiling winner Vanessa Liell.
Why does celebrating myself feel like bragging? How do I stop downplaying my wins and really own my successes?
Vanessa Liell: For many women, celebrating our achievements can feel uncomfortable – almost like we’re breaking an unspoken rule. I see a lot of LinkedIn posts start with “I don’t normally like promoting myself… “ reflecting that we are taught to be humble, to let our work speak for itself, and to avoid being seen as boastful. However, I think celebrating our successes isn’t about ego – it’s about acknowledging the effort, resilience, and skill it takes to get there. I’ve learned that when I share my wins, I’m not just celebrating myself – I’m also making space for other women to do the same. It’s a ripple effect. The more we talk openly about our achievements, the more we normalise women’s success and inspire others to step forward too. I personally love seeing the women around me achieving and am genuinely thrilled to see both small and large milestones celebrated by my industry and networks.
Nat Harvey: Why does it feel like bragging? Because for too long, society has expected women to be excellent and quiet. We’re conditioned to be the silent architects of success, quietly delivering outcomes while others dominate the microphone.
I say, why not own every single win, every breakthrough transformation, every great commercial outcome? Look, downplaying success is not humility. It’s an absolute disservice to the industry. It creates a vacuum of visible female power. When I stand up and talk about driving a $X million digital pivot, or how we’ve integrated generative AI to deliver extraordinary efficiencies, that’s not ego. That’s a proof-of-concept for every woman who thinks her ambition is too loud.
My job isn’t just to lead a media company; it’s to model a new architecture of leadership. You want to know how I stopped downplaying my wins? I reframed them: They are not ‘my’ success… they are unambiguous data points of possibility. And data is non-negotiable.
Jacquie Alley: What a great question. Considering I value humility, see wins as a team-effort, and don’t need a lot of external validation, it is an area I’ve struggled with. I believe it comes down to the intent and focus. For me, celebrating is that sense of sharing an achievement with the intent to share the joy, uplift and inspire others, whilst bragging feels like pride on display, with the self-focused intent to compare yourselves to others and potentially make them feel bad about themselves. Some say that women are more relationship focused, valuing social connections and emotional empathy, hence the idea of talking about personal wins or successes doesn’t always feel natural. In the context of celebrating together and inspiring the next generation of women to stop and enjoy the shared successes, it is important to model it.
How do we create real pathways for women, where knowledge, support, and opportunity are passed down to help the next generation soar further, faster?
VL: Creating real pathways for women isn’t something we can or should do alone, and it certainly shouldn’t fall solely on women to solve these challenges in their own time. Men still hold many of the leadership roles in our industry, and their experience and influence are critical to helping emerging women leaders overcome hurdles. The most meaningful progress happens when we work together – women and men – sharing knowledge, opening doors, and actively supporting each other.
At the same time, there’s a vital role for women to play as role models. Sharing our stories – the real, nitty gritty details of the hurdles we’ve faced, what helped us, and what we learnt along the way—can be incredibly powerful. It’s also about creating environments where women feel safe to take risks, ask questions, and learn from setbacks. Hearing how others have navigated tough situations can spark ideas, highlight where support is available, or simply give someone the confidence to tackle a difficult conversation. Importantly, it also validates the very real barriers women encounter and just how challenging it can be to confront systemic and entrenched biases. Tackling these issues at a workplace level can feel isolating – especially in leadership roles. For me, hearing the honest stories and lessons from women who’ve gone before, and those around me, is not only energising but a constant source of support.
NH: Pathways? Let’s be honest, we don’t need ‘pathways’ anymore. We need high-speed rail lines with no stops and no gatekeepers. The old model of slow, incremental mentorship is dead. Modern Mentorship isn’t about holding a woman’s hand, it’s about giving her a rocket-booster and the flight manual. The industry is changing at warp speed thanks to Gen AI and data flows. The distance to success has to be shortened aggressively. True mentorship now looks like:
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Transferring Capability: Not just sharing war stories, but handing over the actual code, the tech playbooks, and accelerated fluency in AI tools and data strategy.
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Radical Honesty: It’s telling the mentee the unvarnished truth about where the real power sits, the moves she needs to make, and where the market is going, even if it’s uncomfortable.
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Scaling Impact: The goal isn’t just a promotion for her. It’s training her to become the next transformational leader who can accelerate ten other women. If she’s not moving faster than I did, the mentorship is failing.
The pace of change driven by things like AI and data transformation demands that the next generation doesn’t just catch up; they have to leapfrog us.
This means our focus shifts from simply ‘mentoring’ to ‘accelerating capability.’
I’m not interested in just getting women into the room, I’m interested in giving them the keys to the operating system. That means sharing the actual P&Ls, the full strategic playbooks, and critically, deep-diving on AI literacy right now. If we don’t give women the tools to command these new technologies, we are inadvertently designing them out of the future of power.
JA: As I shared in my B&T Women in Media awards speech, I truly believe change doesn’t occur without personal cost. If we truly want to create real pathways for women, it requires each of us to be willing to sacrifice something. For some, it may mean being patient for that next pay rise so your fellow female colleagues can achieve pay equity. For some, it may be giving up regular time and being willing to be vulnerable and curious within a mentoring relationship. If it’s something you believe deeply in, my challenge is always what are you personally prepared to do, to make it happen? It is why I am so proud of our IMAA benchmarking salary surveys and our Female Leaders of Tomorrow mentoring program, where we provide data and opportunities for change to occur within our member’s agencies, and ultimately the industry as a whole. These issues can feel so big and overwhelming that we can become overwhelmed to the point of paralysis. But change happens one interaction at a time, one female at a time, one team at a time, one business at a time.
How do we learn to take stock, celebrate our progress, and feel proud of how far we’ve come?
VL: In fast-paced industries, it’s easy get overwhelmed with the workload and day to day and forget to both pause and consider how you build for the long term. I’ve found that taking stock is really about connection – making the time to catch up with people who energise me, no matter how busy things get. For me, that means spending lots of time with family, friends, and the brilliant people in my professional network. I love celebrating their milestones – whether it’s a promotion, an award, or a big life event – and having those conversations that remind us how far we’ve all come. Ultimately, we all play a role in creating community. Taking time for people, showing up at industry events, and building connections widely has been the biggest contributor to my achievements and career. Those relationships not only help us celebrate progress—they make the journey richer and more meaningful.
NH: We are culturally addicted to the next thing, the next crisis, the next innovation cycle. It’s the media industry’s default setting. But if you don’t pause to take stock, you’re not just losing a moment of pride, you’re losing critical data.
I look back at the radical transformation we’ve driven, and the successes we have had. That didn’t happen because of luck. It happened because of vision, relentless discipline, and a willingness to say ‘WHY NOT’ to every perceived limitation.
Pride isn’t a soft, retrospective emotion. It is the highest-octane fuel for the future. When you acknowledge you’ve earned your place, you build the conviction needed to make even bolder decisions tomorrow. It gives you the audacity to look at the next big challenge, the next disruptive technology, the next cultural shift, and say, ‘We did that. Now watch what we do next.’ That feeling is not arrogance. That is the engine of innovation.
JA: We often talk about this at The Media Store (TMS). Our industry is so fast paced; once we finish one campaign, the next begins incorporating those learnings. Once we finish one pitch, the next one seemingly pops up. Whilst it’s energising and exciting, the momentum can be somewhat addictive. We often don’t stop to smell the roses, to pause and truly celebrate the progress and wins.
At TMS, we are trying to be more intentional in these practices. This year we’ve introduced a new operating system into the business where each weekly team meeting starts with each person sharing both a personal and a professional highlight. Unsurprisingly, it’s become the highlight for many – to take stock and celebrate the small wins, not to mention connect us all more deeply. In terms of the wider progress we are seeing across the industry, member organisations like the IMAA are trying to highlight the progress and share the pride. As with all areas of social change, sharing positive stories which inspire others is often far more motivating than focusing on the growth still to come.
