We asked for your nominations. You answered. Here are the top female tech marketers making an impact in the industry. Molly Raycraft reveals
When we decided to write this article, we were slightly apprehensive. Would we be able to find enough female martech experts to shine a light on? According to a report by PwC only 5% of women in technology are in leadership roles.
But rather than focusing on what there isn’t, we wanted to focus on what there is. And wow is there some talent.
The moment we sent out the call for nominations, our inboxes started to flood. Some were from those hoping to have their own work recognised, others had colleagues who felt they deserved a pat on the back. Some nominations came from distant admirers.
We’re thrilled to have received just under 100 nominations of women from a tech-based business or one that offers martech services. We focused on client-side companies, looking in every industry from telecoms to cloud services and security systems to VR.
Each of the 100 nominations went through a strict vetting process that benchmarked them on the following criteria. The nominees where then given a score of between 1-150 and ranked in descending order.
Benchmarking Criteria
- Impact in company
- Ethics (such as promoting tech marketing, encouraging diversity or providing mentorship)
- External positions
- Personal and company awards
- Speaking at events or conducting training
- Contributing to external articles (press/blogs)
- Books published
- Amount of nominations received.
The Top 5 Women in Martech
1. Dr Christine Bailey, CMO, Valitor
Scored: 148
One name that cropped up time and time again during the nominations process was Christine Bailey, the leading lady of martech. She’s currently CMO at payments solution company Valitor but it’s clear she’s made an impact both inside and outside of this role. Internally, she’s developed a new mission statement, value proposition and brand strategy for the company by pulling multiple industry experts into her research. Externally she’s spoken at a plethora of events including TED Talks and B2B Marketing’s InTech Conference. She’s used this influence as a platform to enable other women to climb up in the tech industry. Christine is also on the advisory board for the European Women Payments Network and The Society for New Communications Research of The Conference Board.
2. Edwina Dunn, CEO, Starcount
Scored: 147
Edwina Dunn has founded one tech company and built up another. Before Starcount, she created dunnhumby – the company that pioneered the Clubcard. There she impacted on everything from the product to the tech platform and the team appointments to the client-wins. But the business isn’t her only focus, Edwina has created a strong voice in promoting tech to both future generations and encouraging women already in the industry. She set up the three-year Your Life for Government campaign to increase take-up in STEM at schools. She’s also the founder of The Female Lead – a non-profit organisation that aims to give women a platform. She holds four honorary doctorates in business, as well as multiple external appointments at STEM and innovation organisations.
3. Gemma Davies, director of global ABM strategy, ServiceNow
Scored: 120
If you’re especially attuned to what goes on in account-based marketing then you may have already heard of Gemma Davies. The director of global ABM strategy at ServiceNow strives to tightly align sales and marketing and ultimately give marketing accountability for business growth. Gemma has devoted a lot of time internally and externally to giving others opportunities within the industry. She’s hosted STEM days for students at ServiceNow as well as speak about B2B marketing at universities and schools. As well as this Gemma has also set her sights further afield. Last year she visited Malawi to offer her experience to women looking to build and grow their own businesses, plus ran workshops for school children. Gemma has also spoken at a number of industry events in the past year and judged the International B2B Marketing Awards and the LinkedIn Marketing Awards.
4. Jada Balster, VP marketing, Workfront
Scored: 114
Jada Balster is VP of marketing at Workfront – a company that has built a strong reputation as being a great place to work for women. Jada has made a direct impact in this. She’s currently the European leader for the employee resource group for equality, Women of Workfront. As well as this, she’s taken part in multiple articles and podcasts by providing insight into the industry, spoken at events, and judged awards. Jada successfully juggles being part of both a global leadership team and an EMEA leadership team. This demands her to ensure the two are aligned in value and culture. Since she joined Workfront five years ago, revenue in EMEA has grown by over 400%, she puts this down to improvements, expansions and working with a talented team.
5. Bev Burgess, senior VP at ITSMA
Scored: 105
Bev Burgess has been credited or being one of the founders of account-based marketing as we know it today. In 2003 she developed and codified the strategy which has since helped thousands of companies win big and influenced a new way of working. As part of this, Bev has written a couple of books including:
Marketing Technology as a Service
and
A Practitioners Guide to ABM: Accelerating Growth in Strategic Accounts
, plus a new book pending. Alongside her role at ITSMA, Bev is a business mentor at The Prince’s Trust and also teaches on the organisation’s Explore Enterprise programme to help others succeed in their careers. She is also a Fellow at the Chartered Institute of Marketing and has served an international trustee.
The rest of our top 10 women in martech
6. Malin Liden, VP, SAP SE
Malin Liden leads the strategic initiatives for field marketing globally at SAP. As part of this she’s launched a social selling initiative that transformed the way SAP sells and ultimately accomplished more than one billion Euros in pipeline in one year. If you know Malin it’s most likely because you’ve seen her speak. She’s developed a voice within the industry and uses this platform to talk about leveraging technology to fight cancer with big data and protect rainforests with predictive analytics, as well as this she focuses on leadership, diversity and innovation. Malin hasn’t just kept her knowledge confined to the industry. She’s lectured university students on tech marketing and social media, and taken on students for internships at SAP.
7. Sarah Kennedy, CMO, Marketo
As a CMO of one of the big martech brands, Sarah Kennedy has been noticed by multiple people in the industry. Last year she was selected for multiple accolades including top 25 inspirational women in martech and top 20 CMOs on Twitter. In her role at Marketo which she started just over a year ago she’s already played a part in overseeing the company’s acquisition by Adobe, as well as being key in developing Marketo’s brand alongside a maturing audience. Externally Sarah pays back to the community she came from – she sits on the board for a non-profit mentoring practice that promotes entrepreneurship and STEM called Tech Fort Worth that operates in her hometown. She’s also spoken at many industry events around the world.
8. Sarah Lewis, director of field marketing, Ivanti
Sarah Lewis’ role spans the UK, Ireland, Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe, but this level of responsibility hasn’t stopped her from going beyond her primary responsibilities. Sarah launched Ivanti’s Women in Tech initiative. This involved creating a ‘tiger’ team who reviewed recruitment practices for unconscious bias and ensure equal opportunities for all. Sarah now mentors younger female colleagues in her company, and uses the initiative’s own Twitter @TheTechieGirls and blog to extend that mentorship further. She also worked on conducting a women in tech survey, and the findings were recognised heavily in the press. As well as this, Sarah has visited universities to raise awareness of the women in tech initiative and diversity within Ivanti and the wider industry.
9. Pauliina Jamsa, global senior online marketing manager, Siemens
Pauliina Jamsa is responsible for global enablement across 90 different countries by providing digital advice and workshops, leading agile projects and encouraging a fail-safe culture. Last year she challenged herself to share her failures on social media to show that everyone makes mistakes. Aside from female-only events, Pauliina believes it’s important to put female voices into male-dominated events. This is something, she’s strived to do and has had a positive impact on Siemens’ brand too. Pauliina volunteers as an executive coach and change leader at female leadership initiative GROW2GLOW as well as coaching female colleagues in their personal and professional development. She’s also part of Leading Women in Industry group.
10. Andrea Clatworthy, head of ABM, Fujitsu
As her job title suggests, Andrea Clatworthy is primarily responsible for overseeing account-based and deal-based marketing across Europe, Middle East, India and Africa. By taking a stronger position alongside sales, Andrea has helped establish marketing as a strategic partners. Andrea has strived to run ABM campaigns that have pushed the boundaries and have quite literally put her in the history books. She launched an event involving key customers which broke the Guinness World Record for largest tablet computer mosaic. Andrea has also used her ABM expertise to speak at events, as the topic galvanises more and more attention. She’s also ran multiple training courses on the strategy and featured in two books: A Practitioner’s Guide to ABM – accelerating growth in strategic accounts by Bev Burgess and Dave Munn – where she was named one of the ‘magnificent seven’; and Implementing Key Account Management: Designing Customer-Centric Processes for Mutual Growth by Mark Davies and Dr Javier Marcos
The rest of our top 20 women in martech
11. Catherine Dutton, VP marketing, Atos
Catherine Dutton focused on everything related to strategic marketing in her goal for the brand to be client-centric and innovative. She achieves this by working alongside her team to instigate and deliver campaigns that differentiate Atos from its competitors. Her most recent work includes a cyber security campaign: ‘The currency of cyber trust’. This required Catherine to undertake some serious research to truly understand client attitudes towards the topic. Catherine is also part of the Atos Aspire gender diversity programme and Women in Leadership global programme, but she predominantly uses her social media and speaks at events to promote tech marketing. She also is a strong believer of feedback and is on multiple customer advisory boards.
12. Paige O’Neill, CMO, Sitecore
It was July last year that Paige O’Neill joined Sitecore as CMO and she’s been busy. The company is currently in the midst of a complete marketing transformation which has meant Paige has been overseeing a rebrand, an expansion of demand generation and a new phase of digital transformation. Aside from this she’s also been part of the development of the company’s Women in Sitecore initiative which aims to build diversity and inclusion in the STEM community. Externally she’s also taken on mentoring six women wanting to grow careers within B2B tech and communications. This must have contributed to her being recognised as a Bluewolf Women Innovators Network honoree last year.
13. Corinne Sklar, CMO, Bluewolf IBM
Corinne Sklar has been a key player in helping women accelerate their careers in B2B marketing. The CMO co-founded the Women Innovators Network which supports professional women in climbing the career ladder. Alongside her main role at Bluewolf, she produces and delivers content for this globally. Corinne has also spoken at a number of events about technology and how to build the best possible team. As well as this her expertise have been welcomed in the publishing field. She’s contributed to a number of articles and has participated in some industry books including
Customer Obssessed: A Whole Company Approach to Delivering Exceptional Customer Experiences
by Eric Berridge and
Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification
by Rajat Paharia.
14. Jen Campbell, marketing UK&I, Genesys
Jen Campbell is responsible for generating Genesys’ pipeline and revenue within the UK and Ireland’s enterprise segment. She’s primarily done this by gaining household names as clients and entering them into CX industry awards. Those that win have in turn increase Genesys’ own recognition as a brand. Genesys have also won in its own name. The brand won gold and bronze at The B2B Marketing Awards for Jen’s opportunity-based marketing programme in 2018. Outside of work, Jen is the co-ordinator for Black History Month South. As part of that she’s introduced ‘Each One, Teach One’ workshops for teenagers to understand the opportunities in world of work by presenting them with a variety of speakers including Jen herself.
15. Sumi Shukla, senior director EMEA marketing, Riverbed
When Sumi Shukla was hired by Riverbed her purpose was to lead channel marketing to grow the brand. Now she’s been at the company two years and not only established herself as a strong leader but developed a high performing team. She’s put energy into developing her team’s existing skills as well as injecting new talent into the mix. As part of this Riverbed conduct training workshops, and Sumi has used her expertise to host one for global teams. As well as this she’s taken opportunities to speak about their success to heighten the EMEA marketing team’s recognition. She’s also now part of a team looking to establish a women in tech programme.
16. Judith Niederschelp, MD, Aberdeen Group
As she heads up Aberdeen’s European operations, Judith Niederschelp is responsible for a 70-person team based across London, Paris and Madrid. Since Aberdeen broke away from US agency Harte Hanks Judith has prioritised growing awareness of the ‘new’ Aberdeen group. This has meant developing and highlighting USPs and target markets as well as ensuring those in Europe are visible, connected and engaged with US counterparts in order to stay relevant and aligned. Aside from work, Judith is also a member of the management and MBA advisory board at the University of Sussex where she offers her expertise on what content to provide on courses and how to promote the University as well as guest teach lectures.
17. Aoife McIlraith, senior global director of marketing and search services, Lionbridge
Aoife McIlraith has an impressive background as a programmer and developer. This has served her well in her role at Lionbridge where she defines best practice on international SEO, content strategy and global digital marketing strategies. For one customer, Aoife and her team optimised over 200 potential voice search results and increased organic search in the UK by 500% over a year. Aoife has also dispersed her professional knowledge into the wider community; she works as a mentor for B2B tech start-ups. As well as this Aoife has spoken at a number of international conferences such as DMEXCO, and contributed to industry publications.
18. Jane Morrin, director of digital marketing, Corvil
In her role as director of digital marketing, Jane Corvil has sculpted a passion for data-driven martech. Her aim is to develop the tech stack and ensure it’s used effectively across the team. Recently this has also meant she’s spent a lot of time making sure her efforts are GDPR-compliant. Outside of Corvil, Jane has also stayed in contact with her university – Dublin City – where she promotes a career in B2B marketing to multimedia students (a subject she also used to study). Her responsibilities at the university also extend to volunteering as a dragon in the business schools’ Dragon’s Den style initiative. Jane also talks about martech at conference events including B2B marketing’s Intech.
19. Shallu Behar Sheehan, CMO, StarLeaf
Shallu Behar Sheehan has only just joined StarLeaf, but has worked in tech for a number of years at companies such as F5 Networks and Cisco. Shallu sees the value of thinking like a data scientist and it’s this attribute that she brings to all her roles. When she started at StarLeaf, she swiftly launched a brand awareness campaign within eight weeks to disrupt the messaging market. Her approach is what gained her a nomination for marketer of the year at last year’s B2B Marketing Awards. Aside from having an impact in the industry, Shallu visits sixth form students at schools to present the multitude of job roles that lie within marketing.
20. Sakina Najmi, VP marketing, Sandvik
Sakina has just moved to Sandvik from Criteo – where she took the position of the first marketer in the company. She spent five years at the tech company building the global marketing function from the ground up. She grounded the customer at the centre of the company’s efforts and was able to influence the product roadmap and go-to-market strategy accordingly. We anticipate her to bring the same success and dedication to her new role at Sandvik. Outside of work, Sakina runs a mentorship programme call ‘Belong. Learn. Develop’ with the aim of giving back to the tech community. She also uses her platform to speak about tech at conferences.
Honorable mentions
These women scored highly on our Women in Martech Ranking but more so in specific areas. They deserve a shout-out for the reasons that follow:
30 and under: Lauren Bigland, global marketing and communications director, LoopMe
Lauren joined LoopMe early on in its creation. She was the first senior hire. Now four years on she’s played a big role in developing the brand positioning and has hired an international team. This earned her a place in The Drum’s 50 women under 30 last year. Lauren has used her success to help others at LoopMe – she’s currently a part of the mentoring programme, and has worked alongside HR to create various diversity initiatives. Lauren also takes charge of the AI training programme for agency clients and also presents her AI insight at conferences and seminars.
ABM/Leading at a global level: Gemma Telford, VP partner marketing worldwide, Sage
Gemma Telford, VP partner marketing at Sage, works on a global level. In the time she’s been at the company she’s introduced global campaigns around the Sage Business Cloud to enable them to co-market with Sage. As well as this she’s launching a through-partner ABM programme where Sage work with 24 partners to create ABM campaigns for their clients – a more unusual approach and a great deal of work. Outside of work Gemma also mentors business studies students at Regent’s University. She’s also a voice of Sage, speaking about content marketing and ABM at the annual Enterprise Management Partner Summit.
GDPR guru/Fast growth: Laura Hughes, head of marketing, PayDashboard
Laura Hughes made the daring move to become PayDashboard’s first full-time employee, let alone first marketer. Since she started, the company has gone from a relatively unknown start-up to being awarded best business at the Reward Strategy HR and Payroll Awards in 2018. On a limited budget and without agency help Laura also capitalised on GDPR significantly by creating a series of content. This made PayDashboard organically number one on Google for the search term ‘GDPR and payslips’. Laura also attends board meetings a guest to drive the commercial strategy of the company. As well as this – like in many small companies – she mucks in on user support calls and training new clients when colleagues are absent.
Diversity champion: Natalie Edwards, head of marketing, CACI
Natalie Edwards aims to enable sales and marketing activities to accelerate business growth. She’s built and delivered a number of strategies across multiple CACI businesses by focusing on buyer personas, experiences and the digital purchase journey. This has resulted in better brand recognition and reputation. Natalie also uses her position to connect with other CACI leaders and aims to propel the conversation on the diversity agenda in tech. She’s partaken in discussions to boost her knowledge as well as share it at events such as ‘Inclusion enables Innovation’ Accenture 2018 series at Essence Festival US. Natalie has also judged the International B2B Marketing Awards entries which helps her keep her finger on the pulse.
Nimble networker: Leanne Chescoe, senior manager EMEA field marketing, Demandbase
Leanne is the only marketer in Europe at Demandbase which means she’s worked hard to build a local partner network to propel the brand. This isn’t the only activity Leanne has led. She founded the B2B Women’s Network alongside a former colleague last year. The aim is to support women not just in tech but the B2B industry as a whole. Leanne has also built a platform to speak at events and webinars about the market of account-based marketing. She’s also used her ABM insight to train customers and partners to ensure their knowledge stays on the edge of the curve.
Influencing the influencers: Maureen Blandford, VP marketing, Community Brands
If you follow B2B influencers then you would have heard of Maureen Blandford. She’s grown a hefty network of marketers, who engage in healthy debate and offer tips on best practice and reviews. Aside from sharing knowledge, this influence has also helped Maureen amplify the credibility and message of the company she’s working for, which she says is a major channel for her. Maureen has published numerous thought-leadership pieces online, as well as having written a book, Branding Doesn’t Work in B2B. She’s often cited in reports by analysts – particularly tech marketers, and has spoken at marketing events – including the upcoming tech conference Get Stacked.
Teen role model: Amelia Ebdon, marketing manager, Network Telecom
Amelia Ebdon is responsible for a multitude of marketing activities which fall under her aim of driving Network Telecom’s marketing strategy. Previously she’s worked agency-side which has given her a breadth of skills to manage multiple areas. Aside from internally, Amelia is involved in building a platform to promote women in STEM, recently she’s been promoting tech to teenage girls to dismantle any conceptions that tech isn’t for them. On top of this Amelia also writes about tech in publications such Midlands Business Insider and Shropshire Business.
Helping teams find their voice: Catherine Coale, head of marketing, Company 85
With an aim to attract and retain customers, Catherine Coale has driven a transformation to an experience-based approach within IT services business, Company85. The head of marketing has concentrated on building a community of trust to fulfil this strategy. She has established two networks – one for IT leaders and another for CISOs. Catherine’s impact goes beyond just marketing, she has run a nine-month programme to help teams find a consistent voice. She’s also launched a programme to help her team be their best selves, as well as a three-month social selling training programme. As a part-time working mother Catherine champions flexible working and focuses on ways her team can enjoy smart working in a happy environment.
Agent of transformation: Laura Slade, director of communications EMEA, AppDynamics
As director of communications EMEA at AppDynamics, Laura Slade has been a driving force behind creating a voice for the brand on a global stage. She works within the EMEA marketing leadership team to deliver integrated communications and demand generation programmes. She conceived and developed the acclaimed campaign ‘Agents of Transformation’ to define why AppDynamics exists. Prior to working client-side, Laura gained a healthy amount of experience working as a board director in agency roles at Whiteoaks International and Octopus Group. This helped to define her approach in establishing comms as a strategic element in an integrated marketing strategy. Ultimately Laura’s work has achieved a 100%-plus increase in EMEA media coverage in her first 12 months in the business.
Social success: Daniela Rubule, marketing manager, Atea Global Services
Daniela Rubule runs a team that handles both the external and internal marketing for Atea Global services – a subsidiary of Nordic IT infrastructure giant Atea Group. Since stepping into the role, she’s used her position to tighten the consistency of output from her marketing team. She’s also taken responsibility to oversee outsourcing within Atea. Daniela has had a direct impact of solidifying the company’s online presence over the past year. She launched a new company website and has driven a successful social strategy that has witnessed an 83% increase in social following. As well as this, Daniela has participated in a local programme in Riga, Latvia which gives students access to shadowing professionals in the workplace.
Fast acting results: Ali Griffiths, director of strategy, Innovate Finance
Ali Griffiths has a great deal of marketing experience at an array of big B2B and B2C brands. Her most recent interim role at KCOM saw her take on the role of enterprise marketing director. Here she led the team to deliver a new brand positioning in just six weeks. It was a project that relied on building deep cross-collaborative relationships, and ensuring the vision was shared with the whole organisation. This in turn ramped up the recognition that marketing received from the wider organisation. Ali has also been proactive at taking speaking opportunities, educating people on the role technology and the digital marketing opportunity. As well as this she’s also used her expertise a judge at the International B2B Marketing Awards.
ABM innovator: Claudia Crangasu, senior product marketing manager, Worldpay
Claudia Crangasu builds and implements the ecommerce regional marketing strategy for EMEA and the UK. She also launched Worldpay’s payment solutions on a global level. Originally Claudia started in B2C marketing, and although she now works in B2B she uses this past experience to keep herself and the team grounded to the customers perspective at all times. Impressively, Claudia invests 20% of her budget on testing new marketing initiatives to keep the payment company moving forward. Last year she launched ABM which converted four of the largest prospects in the first six months. Claudia is also responsible for presenting the UK and EMEA marketing team’s vision and strategy at internal events.
Community creator: Sophie Cartwright, online marketing executive, Guestline
Sophie Cartwright plays a pivotal role in building Guestline’s online reputation through social media and lead generation campaigns. This has significantly grown the brand’s digital presence and has gained a 40% share within the hotel technology sector across multiple countries. Social media has also become one of the top four sources of traffic to the website which has proven Sophie’s contribution to the company’s revenue. Sophie has also shared her expertise with the wider company by conducting an internal training workshop about how to use social media to drive engagement, sales and lead gen. She’s also created a community for Guestline clients by arranging Connected Coffee Mornings across the UK.
Virtual influencer: Amber Osborne, CMO, Doghead Simulations
Working in a developing market such as virtual reality can throw up certain challenges, but this is what Amber Osborne, CMO at Doghead Simulations has turned her attention to. She’s devoted her energy to educating and training the market on the potential of VR as well as expand Doghead Simulations’ global reach. Amber could also be described as an influencer with a global reach of her own accord – the marketer currently has more than 40,600 followers on Twitter. This has helped propelled Amber into the spotlight; she was ranked second in Forbes Top 50 Most Social CMO. She’s also spoken at various events including The Atlantic Festival and written for publications including Rockstar CMO.
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