The Networking Group Helping Women In Programmatic Flourish

Networking groups are often touted as an effective medium for women in male-dominated industries to form strong working relationships, bond over shared experiences, and elevate each other.

The Women In Programmatic Network (TWIPN) is no different, though the idea that women are under-represented in advertising and marketing is something of a misnomer. Data from the Marketing Federation of Australia revealed that 61 per cent of people in the industries were women. However, men held 57 per cent of management roles.

“We’ve found, based on data from our surveys, that there are gaps in where women feel confident or where they’re missing skills,” said Jess Barrett, lead associate trading director at The Trade Desk.

Barrett co-founded TWIPN’s ANZ chapter in October 2021, along with Kali Guillas and Rhiannon Homer, following her move from the UK to Australia. The TWIPN was originally founded by just five women in the UK and given the “cute” name Digital Tea Time.

The group conducts monthly virtual sessions on topics chosen by its member base in quarterly surveys.

“When we first launched, a lot of the topics that people were selecting were very specific to programmatic or digital. There was some more technical stuff and some more industry stuff. For example, people wanted to know more about privacy and identity in Australia, ACCC investigation, digital out-of-home, and even channel-specific stuff like gaming and audio,” Barrett explained.

“In the latest survey results, people wanted to know more about personal and professional development topics. For example, how to negotiate a salary raise? How to progress in their career in programmatic? How to deal with stress? That one was a bit of a heartbreaker.”

In the space of a year, the Network has grown from just Barrett, Guillas, and Homer to more than 250 members.

“It’s women from all around the industry, there’s a good mixture of folks from the agency side, tech side, publisher side, and everything in between. The gist of the community is women supporting women and what you put into it is what you get out of it,” Barrett said.

The group’s virtual sessions include members from all over Australia and New Zealand, as well as quarterly in-person events held in Melbourne and Sydney. The Network is holding dedicated International Women’s Day events in both cities next week. According to Barrett, one of the most popular topics for the group to speak about is, ironically, public speaking.

“It’s important that the discussions are virtual so everybody can participate and it also widens the pool of people able to speak. We typically invite two people, not necessarily from the group, to speak and we’ll often pair one more junior woman with a more senior woman,” she explained.

“We kind of look at our sessions like public speaking on training wheels. Last year, our surveys found that many people were not comfortable speaking publicly, this year, we have a lot more people saying ‘yes.'”

Another important topic that the group is discussing is financial independence.

“That’s another thing that is outside the scope of programmatic but it’s something that impacts us all in the industry. We have several women speakers ready to talk about their experience with financial independence as a lot of it relates to maternity leave,” said Barrett.

“During that leave, you’re not contributing to your Superannuation which impacts your life and compounds over time. Sometimes, 10 to 15 years on from having children, women find that they have half as much as their husbands in Super. Speaking to a more junior audience on having a family, the system is set up in a way that kind of works against women and against families.”

The Network’s core focus, of course, is helping women advance in their programmatic careers.

“When you want to get to the next stage of your career, it helps to be good at things such as public speaking or leadership,” said Barrett.

“A lot of women, especially younger women, have that foundation there they just don’t have the confidence. Having a group with a mixture of veterans in the industry that can observe, give advice, and really help those more junior women or those that feel less confident is so important.

“My goal is to see more TWIPN  members represented at industry events. It’s something that I’m very observant of and, if I speak at a conference, it needs to be gender-balance or as close to it as possible. It can’t just be 80 per cent men. It’s just not reflective of the industry.”