DMN’s Marketing Hall of Femme honors female marketers who have taken risks, pushed limits, and achieved standout success in their marketing careers. These fiercely talented women are all the most senior marketing professionals at brands, non-profits, marketing tech and services vendors, or agencies.
We sat down with 2018 Hall of Femme honoree Jennifer Nuckles, CMO, Doctor on Demand, who shared advice on the challenges of being a woman in the workplace, and how young female professionals can navigate their own successful marketing careers.
DMN: What’s the best piece of career advice that you’ve ever received?
Nuckles: Don’t limit yourself to your past experiences and rely on what you did yesterday. Ask the right questions and go forward.
DMN: What’s the best way to advocate for yourself in the workplace (whether it’s for a promotion, a salary raise, or more responsibilities)?
Nuckles: Determine where you want to go and the steps necessary to reach your goals. Socialize your goals professionally, making them clear and measurable. Align yourself with the work to reach your goals, and begin demonstrating results — results always tell the truth. And once you’ve achieved the results, ask for what you want. You won’t get what you don’t ask for, so be sure to ask – pointing back to the results.
DMN: As a woman, what advantages and disadvantages have you experienced in climbing up through your career?
Nuckles: My largest advantage was coming from a family who valued education for women. My grandmother was one of the first female graduates from UC Berkeley. I’ve always been in the gender minority – in business school, professionally, and in the C-suite. Identifying early professional mentors and champions is a huge advantage, especially as women navigate professional and personal challenges simultaneously.
The largest disadvantage I’ve experienced is being the senior most female – and the only female in the C-suite – in multiple male-dominated tech companies. The challenges women face are real, even occasionally unintentionally, within organizations which pride themselves on not having existing biases. These challenges manifest themselves in the way females are perceived by their style of communication, with voices sometimes being unheard or discounted.
DMN: What advice do you have for younger women in the workplace who want to lean in and take a bigger seat at the table?
Nuckles: Do what you love and be true to yourself. Set a long-term plan goal based on your dream, with a more tangible two-year plan with steps that will help you reach your goal. You shouldn’t be thinking of the next six months, but more the long-term and you don’t have to have it all figured out today. Careers are to be navigated, and there’s no one clear way to get to your end goal.
