How to lead with confidence: build influence and find your voice | Hester Van Gool | Decathlon | Product Marketing Stories : Conseils, Carrière, Stratégie marketing, Growth, Go to Market, Tech B2B B2C

Description

Women leadership in tech is still a challenge, especially when navigating cross-functional roles like Product Marketing. In this episode, I welcome Hester Van Gool, Group PMM at Decathlon, to explore how women can find their voice, build confidence, and shape their career in tech.

Hester shares her path from law to tech, and why Product Marketing became the perfect place to combine strategy, influence, and stakeholder alignment.
She explains why PMM is one of the most gender-balanced roles in tech, but also why it can be a demanding position for women who need to speak up, negotiate their scope, and claim their expertise.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why diversity matters at every stage of tech organisations
• Why PMM attracts women and the pitfalls to avoid when navigating the role
• How to build confidence by mastering research and asking the right questions
• How to protect your scope, say no without blocking, and translate requests into PMM work
• How to grow early in your career by focusing, choosing the right environment, and finding supportive managers

This espisode has been produced in collaboration with Decathlon Digital!

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Transcription

Speaker #0
Hi everyone, we are today in Amsterdam offices. I am with Esther to talk about women leadership in tech companies and in the product marketing position. Hi Esther, how are you?
Speaker #1
I am very well, thank you for having me.
Speaker #0
I'm so excited to talk with you today because we are talking about a very important subject, which is women leadership in tech companies, how to position ourselves as a woman when we are product marketers. So to start, can you present yourself? Tell us what has brought you to Decathlon? Yeah,
Speaker #1
perfect. So I'm Hester. I'm from Amsterdam. I have two beautiful daughters. And I'm leading global product marketing for e-commerce and platform. And I work on topics like checkout, payments, pricing, fulfillment, all of that. And I've had a career actually always in tech. I did start off in legal as a lawyer, but always in tech in different commercial roles, sales, and a lot of marketing, product marketing. And I think what really drew me to Decathlon is going through the interview process. It was the people. So I really liked the ambition that Decathlon set out for itself. our growth ambition while also caring for our people, our planet. It's something really aligned to my values. But then meeting the people at Decathlon was really what got me super excited.
Speaker #0
Why is the topic about women leadership in tech so important to you?
Speaker #1
Yeah, so if I start broad, it has always been important for me. So I think there's females in tech, but I care more about I think general diversity, so any ethnic or social background or any orientation. I think if you look at the world and how we're shaping the world, tech plays a super important part in our world and our future. And it's not only like I work in fintech, worked in fintech or work in e-commerce now, but tech is also in our health, in education, in our safety. all topics where I think we want to have a nice future. So I think it's important in a broad level and then on a micro level. I'm also the mother of two daughters, right? So it even made me care more about having an inclusive and fair world for all of us.
Speaker #0
It seems like today in companies, the subject about the diversity is more and more a subject to tackle a real challenge. Can you tell us more about what is diversity and why is a topic that is more and more important in companies and moreover in tech companies? Yeah.
Speaker #1
So I think. Diversity probably means something else to different people, right? But I think this is also the issue because what you often see is that diversity, you might think it's only male or female, whereas I think it's much broader, right? So research shows that if you actually have a very broad group, you have diversity in your board or diversity in your test panels. Whatever you build actually gets better. For me, diversity is ethnic background, social background, very, very important, which I think in tech sometimes, you know, we're in a bubble. Social background, sexual orientation, gender, and there's so much more. Basically, as a company, we're designing for our consumers or for our audience, and we want them to be represented as well. So if we, as a company, if you set the rules for what success looks like, you need to create those rules with a diverse group representing your entire audience. So I think It's something natural that it's happening. I think some companies might have faced the challenge earlier and others are facing it later and I think Decathlon is on a really great journey and takes the topic very serious.
Speaker #0
I have a question because it's, I think, difficult to address topics like the diversity topic at strategic levels and really to have this topic, finally, like a company North Star to go through that. Do you have best practices or ideas on how we can tackle this topic of diversity at a strategic level in a company? Yeah,
Speaker #1
so I think there's multiple levels, right? And I think you need to work on this topic on all levels. So I think I personally am really a fan of having quotas, so of actually making sure that at the top you have a diverse representation, which we're currently doing in Decathlon, which is amazing to see. So I think at that level, it's super important to just be very strict on it. You just have a number or a percentage and you need to do the same for senior leadership. I think when I look at my career, even when I was in more junior or media roles, I also always worked on this topic. Because what a couple of great companies that I worked before had was affinity groups. So actually bringing it down to the people and making sure that we were aware of what was happening, what was the company trying to achieve in these topics. But also trainings, because I think often... So now we're very aware of unconscious bias. But I remember a couple of years back at my past company, we had trainings on it. And those trainings even amazed me about how unconscious my bias still was and probably is to this day. So I think at every level of the organization, it's a topic you need to take serious. You need to invest in it. You need to be open about it. And you need to educate. Because a lot of this happens unconsciously. People. are not out to not be diverse. So, yeah.
Speaker #0
Okay, so it's really having everyone being conscious about the topic, the challenges, so we can be aware on how we can change and adapt ourselves to this topic, right?
Speaker #1
Yeah, and then very important, actually do what you're saying, right? So if you have the quota or if you set yourself targets, Make sure that you actually report on those targets, investigate why or why not you're reaching those targets, so that you make it also a very open conversation for all parties involved. Because if you need to do it on an individual level, so you're a part of an affinity group, and you need to fight for your own rights, it's a super... You shouldn't need to ask that from somebody, as people should just be able to do their work. happily and in freedom and feeling safe. So you also need at more senior levels and at structures and in process, you also really need to have it embedded.
Speaker #0
Okay. So now that we have settled the context, we know what is diversity, how we can... tackle it and what are the main challenges on this topic i would like to to deep dive more about how as a female we can position ourselves as leaders in in tech companies and as product marketers because it's what we are at the end and and the first question that i have for you and that is today the product marketing function is the most gender balanced function in tech can you explain that
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting, right?
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
Yeah. So I also wondered, because still to this day, I'm often one of the only females in a group. If I look at my stakeholders and people that I work with, and I've done product marketing now for a long time. So I think there's a couple of things. If you look at the, I guess, maybe the history of people in product marketing. So I think one thing is that. If you look at the product organization, a lot of roles will actually start. So engineering, for example, it actually starts with education. And I think the one difference with product marketing is that we all have a very generalist background. So most of us have done either a business school or marketing or legal or something completely different. But it's a very generalist role, one of the more generalist roles in. probably a tech or product environment. So I think that makes a huge difference. I do think, so product marketing, if you do B2C product marketing or B2B, it makes a huge difference, but especially in B2C, where you lean more towards brand marketing and to actually, it's the only time that the word marketing in a role actually makes sense. It's on that side of the world, which naturally marketing. Yeah, it is more of a pink ghetto, I think we call that, where you already have, by nature, more females that have education or background in it that would apply for a role. You have more representation. So it makes it more attractive. So I think that's... that's something that causes it if you look back on sort of our education, where we come from. But also, I think the nature of the role, it's actually quite a difficult role, I think, for females too. It's more difficult for a female because it's a role that's fairly new. And it's a role that is about building synergy and alignment and building bridges between the consumer and between your commercial teams, marketing teams, your product teams. So I do think it's a role, you know. the stakeholder management is maybe something that comes more natural. So there it makes sense. But I think we did get ourselves into a tough position because it's also a role where we always need to negotiate about what we can actually work on. Because we sort of exist in between all those other roles and there's always a little bit of, you know, opportunity to figure out who works on what between a marketing and a product team or a commercial team.
Speaker #0
Yeah, and find the right place. Yeah. And how are we going to work with all these different kind of organizations and departments?
Speaker #1
Yeah, which is also, you, like, product marketing is a very broad role, right? So you also bring your own sets of talents and your own personality. So one product marketeer can be very, very different from the other, meaning that the role and interpretation and understanding of the role can also differ. Because your experience can... be so different between working with different PMMs for different companies.
Speaker #0
Yes, and it's usually what we see, like any PMM, even at Decathlon, we are nearly 20 PMMs and we all do different things. And that's really interesting to see, depending on our background, the studies that we've done and the past career, how we focus ourselves as PMMs. It's very interesting. Is there any pitfalls, let's say, about the product marketing function as when we are a woman that we should be careful or better manage to really be the best as a product marketeers?
Speaker #1
And so I think. I'm going to call it an opportunity because it really is an opportunity. But for me, but again, I've always worked more on the B2B side of product marketing. So for me, it's really 50-50 between work that you do that you could call discovery and then work that you could call delivery or marketing or that side. And I think the work that you do on discovery, having that knowledge and having those insights and having your skill sets to do it. in a correct manner so that it's valuable for the company. I think that is one of your greatest assets that you can have. And especially, so what I always hear and what I'm also working on. I'm generalizing now, but what I often hear from females is that, you know, it's difficult to speak up and especially if you're not 100% sure and if there's stronger voices in the room that at least sound very sure. It's very generalizing, but if I didn't take that for a truth, I think it's super nice that we in our role by nature, a part of our role is actually working with these insights. So I would always say it's... If females around me find it difficult to speak up, like know your things. So focus on something, know it well, and then start building your confidence that you actually, you did the research. You are sitting on that data and that's gold. So I would really focus on that.
Speaker #0
Okay. Super interesting because I think it's what you say, it's something that... whether we are in a product marketer or not, it's always something that is starting. And even more when we are starting our career, because we talk with so many stakeholders, more senior people, and it's sometimes difficult to just say what we want to say because we don't know if we have the role to do it, to say it. So it's very interesting.
Speaker #1
And I think what I can add, so where you, especially at the start of your career, so where you're going to... learn how to do research or have focus groups or do interviews. A skill, a product marketing skill is also asking the right questions. Right. And that skill you can take with you in any interaction with any stakeholders. So if you feel unconfident about merely saying that you know it, you can also just ask a very smart question and indirectly show that you might know more or you're actually an expert on the topic. It has always helped me a lot when sometimes it's easier to just ask a question instead of just going in.
Speaker #0
Asking the good question, right? Yeah. Yes, I would like to have more advices from you. When we are starting our career in tech and as PMMs, do you have advice or best practices to really... be good in our role and also take the right place and be able to really show what are our strengths. Yeah.
Speaker #1
So I think my first advice for everybody, and I had really had to learn, so my advice would also be... I have a lot of fun, right? Because I really like, I sometimes get back like, wow, you're super passionate when you talk about product marketing. And it's because I really love it. I love this sort of in-between role, this relationship building, cross matrix, distilling all the information. And if I look back at my career, I think I wanted to do it right. So I just worked. really hard and I tried to really know everything and I took it very very very serious and I realize now that I grew a little bit older and I advanced in my career and I realized that just having fun have it being yeah, just being, having fun shows off also your meetings and it makes it more relaxed. But of course, being able to have fun, it has some requirements, right? So I think it's super important to find a place where you feel safe and at home. So of course, it's depending on your profile, of course, you want a limit of, you know, of being challenged and inspired. And you get that often by not being You know, always super comfortable. You need to, you know, aim for something. But in that having a good manager is super important because you need somebody, you need ambassadors, allies, you need somebody to vouch for you when you're not there. You need somebody to maybe explain certain behavior if maybe you were insecure at a time or if you're afraid to maybe send out an email to a large group. There's somebody there that can help you. So I think having a safe space, having a company that fits you, where you just have fun, that you're really aligned with what they do. You're ready. you know, you think it's cool what they do or you're proud of what they do. I think it just makes it really authentic. Um, so I think management is super important. Um, I think another thing that we talked about, and I just did it, it's funny, but I think you can also be very proud of the work that you do. So if you know things, so if you've done your research, if you know your facts, like just be confident enough to actually, no matter what your position is, like maybe you need to ask some advice on how you actually bring it to the world. But. Not so many people have time to really dive into it and to really do a lot of research. So even senior senior people will often be happy with the quality with the work that you did. If it's high quality and you just focused on one thing and really dove into it, it's always valuable.
Speaker #0
So it's better to focus on one thing and do it really well than doing the multi-testing because as a product marketer, it's also difficult because we have so many different topics from strategic to operational things to do. And it's sometimes difficult to choose what to do and to define and to know what topic will have the most, the higher value and will impact the more the company, the actions. And at the end. the perception that other people have from us.
Speaker #1
Yeah, and I think the difficulty is... You need to find a balance between delivering work that is valuable, but also protecting what product marketing is. So I think what often happens because we have marketing in our title and indeed because we're often one of or the only female with our stakeholders. I think throughout my entire career, being asked to send out a newsletter is probably what happened most or plan a social campaign. And. And I think you really need to balance that sometimes, you know, especially if there's not a big marketing department or if, you know, if it's something really just something small that you could do. I think you really need to balance like what is it that you can do simply just because you can do something and what is it that you do from within your role. product marketing role. So I think I would always say, like, try to really focus on one topic. It also makes it easier to maybe say no to all these different requests that you get, but it's super difficult. I'm still, you know, learning as well. And another thing I realized actually today, so for new joiners, I realized because I've been in the company now six months and I did a lot of research trying to, you know, upskill my knowledge on what we do internally, where we want to go, how all our products work. And I realized that actually all of that, I could have framed it as research as well because now I did it as onboarding. But looking back, I think your skillset as product marketing, I think you can apply it to so many different things. So you can also look at your onboarding like, right, so. you do your discovery, then you start actually, you know, producing. So I think that's something the whole time, whether it's your own personal brand story, look at your product marketing skill set and apply it because it's actually a super thorough and good skill set.
Speaker #0
And you were talking before about saying no. Do you have advices on how to say no to... to somebody who asks you to do an additional task or about just you don't have time to do it, do you say no or do you try to find other ways to just say that you can do it and maybe you will do it later or you will never do it? What are your advice on that, if you have some? Yes,
Speaker #1
it's personal preference because maybe there are other people that are very, very comfortable to say no and it can work for... people, right? For me, it doesn't work because it will still be in the back of my mind. I will feel guilty. Of course, you know, if this ridiculous thing, then I can say no. But often it's like, I kind of understand that we need to communicate something, but I want communications. But what I would say, yes, and we can incorporate as part of our go-to-market strategy. So let's not send out a one-time newsletter with updates, but let's actually figure out how do we want to go to market? What is our audience? What is our messaging? What is our value prop? And then one of those deliverables can be a newsletter so that I think by educating and by leading with. good, high quality work, I think you can start showing that there's other things that you bring to the table. Because I find often, and it differs per company, but so far, for like eight, 10 years in product marketing, and it always was difficult because people have different understandings of what you can do. And it's very tied to what we discussed, your personal preference, your background, your experience. So I think saying no is for me, this never the right way. Ask them what is behind it and how can you then, if you know the question behind the question, how can you then move into more of a product marketing? deliverable or action that would fit into the role more.
Speaker #0
So again, it's also asking the good questions, right? Yeah.
Speaker #1
But I must say, like, again, very B2B product marketing. So this, like, know your stuff and really diving, doing research, asking the right questions. I think it's, yeah, it's... something that is super important in my role. What are,
Speaker #0
for you, the best practices for senior stakeholder management? Because it also happens a lot as a PMM that we have many stakeholders, sometimes it's senior stakeholders. And how to make sure that we have a seat at the table, that our voice is heard? How do you deal with that? Yeah,
Speaker #1
so... So... It's a little bit of what we just said, but then I'm also going to change the answer a little bit. So I think one important is so ask the right questions. But that doesn't mean you need to proactively always ask the right questions, right? But really understand what are their goals? What are their struggles? So you need to understand their perspective. So where are they coming from? What do they care about? I think in one of my previous companies, we always said. in whatever work we did. So what's the so what for your audience, right? And that's, I think you, you really need to know that. And then the second piece of my question of my answer would be, and I really had to learn that over time. So by nature and also by role. we perform better the more that we know. But what I really had to get comfortable in and more comfortable in, and that came by growing your skill set, by becoming more mature, by becoming more confident, is sometimes you need to be able to roll and start and start doing work without somebody holding your hand. As in, people want, you know, senior leadership will not be able to provide you all the details. and hold your hand, but you should be able yourself to quick start because you have your PMM skillset. You should look at a question and if the question is unclear to you, you just dive into it. You try and get information about what is possibly meant and what could be behind it. You need to be a self-starter and really start being able to show already your value. So maybe you don't know all the details, but... starts adding value. And I think also what we now often do in hiring. We will always try and send out a case that is exactly around this. So how do you make a go-to-market plan without knowing the facts? Can you say, all right, this is where I would want to know this data. I don't have it. So we're going to run with a market trend. It's 80%. We're just going to say that it's this number, for example. I think that really shows an ability to do the work without somebody there really holding your hand.
Speaker #0
How old are you? Also, one of the main subjects when we are starting our career and that we want to go to the next level, it seems difficult to be able to advance and to say, okay, today I'm a PMM. How do I, what do I have to do to be senior? How do I get to be a lead, a VP, director, et cetera? How do we get to this, to the next step of our role? Yeah.
Speaker #1
Yeah, so I think the first question is you really need to have a conversation with yourself. Why is it that you want that? So is it for recognition? Is it for impact? Is it for responsibility? Like what is really behind it? Because again, it's important for yourself to know because otherwise you might want to strive for something and then it turns out that you did all the hard work and it's actually not giving you what you want. And also, if people are saying, oh, I don't want that role. I did that once in my career as well. And I was challenged. Like, why is it that you're saying that you don't want that role? Is it to protect yourself? Or, you know, is it not something that you like? I think it's also something you need to discover for yourself. So if you want it, why do you want it? If you're saying that you don't want it, discover for yourself, why not? And then I think if you decide that you do want it, or I think in general, We females, we need to learn how to negotiate. And I think negotiation is now this, or for often, I also hear that from my friends, it's this super difficult conversation and often negotiating and negotiation. It can be, I mean, it can be about any topic. It can also be about what kind of projects that you work on. Who do you partner with? What meetings are you invited to or not? Whatever, what do you do with your holiday? Like negotiating everywhere. And often sometimes, yes, it's about conversation. And those are very, very difficult conversations. But I think for you to have fun in your role is... negotiate. And by negotiation, I really mean, so what is it that the other person wants and what is it that you want? So what is it that your manager is expecting you to grow in? How can you show that growth? So get really clear on it and then try and work for it, but also still like, yeah, have fun while doing it, right? Because so there's a goal and ambition. I think it's really good to be ambitious. but also it's a journey and you really need to enjoy the journey to it, right? Because it's about learning. It's about getting more comfortable to maybe talk about your salary or your compensation. you need to get more comfortable to have a friendly and light conversation to ask the question, so why are my male peers in this role? Or why are they invited and not me? Like, what is it that I can maybe improve? So it's really understanding, knowing what is expected, being really clear on how you're going to measure it and start measuring it. So make sure you make clear agreements on it. And then I think another important thing is your personal brand story, right? So every couple of years, especially if you just landed a new role, you want to grow to your next role, think about why do I want it and what is my story to get to there? So again, use your product marketing skills.
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
What is your story to get to there? Because I think you might feel that you've earned it. But you also need to show the world.
Speaker #0
more important is that the world feels that you are ready for it and that you will succeed and that you actually accomplished everything that was required for you to get to that next level. Talk about the next level, talk about your compensation, just learn and educate yourself to have just light, open, almost fun conversations about it. And it sounds super easy. I was not like this before. Like, I probably was more on the pushy side because I really wanted to do it right. I really wanted to show that I was prepared. I, like, I wrote down everything. Like, I did this and I did that and then. And I realized that the moment that you actually. I mean, you know, you need to do good work. So once you know you do good work, I think it's also a moment where you can lean back a little bit more and have a little bit more air in the conversation about these topics. And yeah, make it, get used to it, to talk and to negotiate and to have this conversation with your manager, to ask for feedback, to dive into the feedback. Why are people saying this? Do you recognize it? ask your peers, ask your friends, ask your family.
Speaker #1
And do you have some advices or did you run, I don't know, some trainees for the negotiation? How do you practice? Like every day, but how do you do it during?
Speaker #0
So I did enterprise sales. That is like work in sales and you'll do negotiations. That's true. Yeah, so I think in the question itself, it shows that it's such a big foreign topic, right? But I think if you look at negotiation now with my kids, I'm negotiating with them the entire day about what they want on their bread, about how late they want to go to bed. It's negotiation. So somewhere, a big group, also probably a lot of males, right? So just in general, negotiation became this. scary thing because it's about hierarchy you know and you're you're dependent on what somebody you know hire or whatever whatever they have at least some power over you they need to decide for you and it became this very scary topic but i think it's actually very human so Yeah, I did read a book once, which was Ask for More. I don't know what the writer was, but this was also about asking the right questions. So I do think like in any negotiation, understand what they're coming from, understand, you know, what is it that they want or what is it that they want to see? And then you can, you then have your part to play. And yeah. just practice. Practice. Do it a year and every day. Do it with your phone company. Do it with your internet company. Do it when buying a car. Just try it. And if you do it with a less and somebody says no, then you can just say, you know what? I just tried. It's fine.
Speaker #1
And one controversial question for you. Are titles important? Because we are talking about this. about, yes, being more and more important in the company from senior to leader, et cetera. But is it very important to say that I am senior, I am a lead, I am a VP? What do you think about that?
Speaker #0
Yeah, so I think it differs per company because I also worked in a scale-up where it really didn't mean so much because you had a big team and big team or I had a big team anyway, so it meant a little bit less. But unfortunately, I think in larger companies and especially in the role of product marketing, that is a little bit, you know, you need to negotiate about where you actually sit and the work that you can actually work on. Yeah, I know I was often being told always by males in very high positions, I don't care about titles. I don't care about titles to a certain extent. So I think if you have a team. it doesn't really matter anymore, but especially if you're an individual contributor, I do think it matters because it's one thing less that you need to find your position in, right? Because you already earned it. So yes, I think in some situations it can help you. I think you should also be able to... you know, have your seat at the table without that title. So it's important, but it shouldn't be so important. But also going back to one of the earlier things that I said, right? So why is going to the next level important for you? And if one of those things, for example, is recognition or feeling more confident or not always having to explain. what you do or what your level is or for example if you're a little bit younger or you look younger you're always seen still as like an assistant or a junior then yes having a title is something that can really really help you. Yeah. And then a lot of people will say, oh, it's not important. Uh, but I, uh, I've been like, I think now I get to the point where for me, indeed, it's maybe a little bit less important because I have my team and all my worth. I have my responsibilities. I had fancy titles. I have less fancy titles. Like, but throughout my entire career, um, uh, when people said it's not important, I was like, uh, yeah, but see, it kind of is a little bit still in this role and especially as a female. So.
Speaker #1
Okay, thank you for this insight, Esther.
Speaker #0
And I think that's one tip. What I think is super important is that When you join a company or also just in general, if you don't know, understand your job letters, right? So understand by looking maybe at roles that are posted within your company. Understand like what is it, what is behind this new level? So what is it actually that you're aiming for and what is behind it? Because sometimes a new title, it doesn't mean anything. You know, maybe you're going from meteor to senior, but it doesn't change anything. But then suddenly when... you go from, I don't know, from lead to head of or to director, suddenly your compensation package changes, right? Or suddenly you can manage a team where before you couldn't manage because you're now on a leadership track and not an individual track. So understand what's behind it, right? Because that will also determine if you should care or not. Because sometimes maybe it's just an ego thing and then, you know. Yeah, maybe you can let it go a little bit more, but if it's actually your compensation or your, you know, your career or your, if you can manage a team, then it is important.
Speaker #1
Of course. Yeah. So it's knowing what is behind the titles.
Speaker #0
And I would then maybe say, so title is something that is given to a level, I think. The level is actually more important. The title is that often comes with it. Sometimes in other companies and maybe in scale ups, it was a little bit more like, oh, pick a title. That'll find it. I think knowing the level behind it. So what are your responsibilities, your task? What is being expected from you? How are you being measured? What does success look like? But also what do you get in return at that level? So what is it that you get? I think that is something. It's important to know what you're aiming for.
Speaker #1
We can end with the three last questions of the podcast that I asked to all my guests. What is the next subject or next topic that you would like to hear in the podcast? Yeah.
Speaker #0
Right. So I'm going to stay true to, I guess, my fintech background a little bit. But I think there's an awesome lady. She works at Checkout.com. Her name is Alyssa Gibson-Wood. She's the VP of product marketing there. I spoke to her a couple of years back at Money 2020, an event. I think she's doing an awesome job because it's a complex product, but they have really, really clear messaging. So I'd love to learn from her.
Speaker #1
And we talk about some resources, books. Do you have any additional book that you recommend to? to better work and to really leverage our strength as women in the tech company.
Speaker #0
Yeah, so I really had a long thing about this because I've listened and read a lot of business books, but I think in the end my tip would be... read for relaxation and for joy because I'm an avid reader and I think it's super important to also have reading as something to relax and not go to bed with a business book. But in the middle and on this topic, I read an amazing book last year, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. And I think they're making a movie out of it now, but it's... exactly about this. So females trying to have a career in a time where that was not very normal, you had to be a housewife. So yeah, it's, I think, a beautiful, beautiful story, but it's really fun and relaxation.
Speaker #1
And where can we reach you?
Speaker #0
Yeah, so LinkedIn only. I did a social detox a year and a half ago, and I stayed in it. It's really good for me. So LinkedIn, I have surf and Google, you can find me there.
Speaker #1
Great. I will put all the information in the description of the podcast.
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
Thank you a lot, but great talking to you.
Speaker #0
Yeah. Thank you very much. And also for letting me learn from you, write these questions that I think are really inspiring.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you. Bye. Bye-bye.

Chapters

Hester's role at Decathlon
0sec
Why diversity topic is important to her
1min
Tackling diversity at a strategic level in a company
4min
Challenges in Product Marketing as a female
8min
Advice to position ourselves as leaders
15min
Senior stakeholder management
23min
Negotiation skills and personal branding
27min
Importance of titles in career path
32min
3 last questions
37min

About Product Marketing Stories : Conseils, Carrière, Stratégie marketing, Growth, Go to Market, Tech B2B B2C

Le podcast de référence pour tous ceux qui veulent comprendre, maîtriser et faire évoluer la fonction de Product Marketing dans l’écosystème tech français.

Je suis Carlota, Product Marketing Lead depuis + 5 ans, et chaque semaine, je tends le micro à celles et ceux qui façonnent la discipline au quotidien : Product Marketing Managers (PMM), mais aussi les Product Managers (PM), CMO, CPO et CEO issus des tops entreprises Tech en France (Qonto, Alan, Decathlon, Malt, Pigment, Skaleway, Skello, Thiga…).

Ici, pas de blabla business. Ensemble, on explore sans filtre les coulisses du Product Marketing à travers :

👉 Des études de cas concrètes et applicables

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Tu trouveras les épisodes qui t'aideront à débloquer des problématiques que tu vis.

Que tu sois PMM, PM, marketer ou simplement curieux de comprendre comment construire des produits qui trouvent leur marché : ce podcast est fait pour toi.

À écouter pour progresser, s’inspirer, et faire évoluer la fonction Product Marketing en

👉 Start-up, Scale-up ou Corporate

👉 En retail, digital, SaaS

👉 B2B, B2C, B2B2C, B2E

🏆 Élu podcast préféré des Product Marketers en France x2.

🎙 Soutiens le podcast gratuitement : abonne-toi, laisse un avis 5 ⭐ sur Spotify ou Apple Podcast et partage-le autour de toi !

Marketing Square • Le Podcast du Marketing • Le café du market • Clef de Voûte • Lenny’s Podcast • Les podcasts du Ticket • Product Squad • SaaS Club • We're not Marketers • Positioning with April Dunford • L'Effet Marketing • Les Meneuses • Everyone Hates Marketers (EVHM) • TIPS • My Marketing podcast • Marketing Mania • Product Growth • Growth Mates • Silicon Carne • Le Board

Product Marketing • branding • business • communication • carrière • PMM • PM • Sales enablement • positionnement • messaging • go to market, • stratégie de lancement produit • copywriting • storytelling • inbound marketing • conseils marketing • marketing automation • marketing digital • growth marketing • persona • réseaux sociaux • stratégie • IA • freelance • audience • chatgpt • email marketing • saas tech • B2B • B2C • use-cases • positioning • best practice • product management • product design • decathlon • women leadership • pricing • founding PMM • competitive intelligence • concurrence • insights • buyer persona • user journey • funnel marketing • marketing mix • stratégie marketing • Tendances • Marketing Produit • design • digital transformation • influence • April Dunford • fintech • Qonto • Alan • Intelligence Artificielle • Strategy • Marketing produit • CRM • freelance • GTM • Healthtech • product-led growth • customer journey mapping • value proposition • product launch plan

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

About Product Marketing Stories : Conseils, Carrière, Stratégie marketing, Growth, Go to Market, Tech B2B B2C

Le podcast de référence pour tous ceux qui veulent comprendre, maîtriser et faire évoluer la fonction de Product Marketing dans l’écosystème tech français.

Ici, pas de blabla business. Ensemble, on explore sans filtre les coulisses du Product Marketing à travers :

👉 Des études de cas concrètes et applicables

👉 Des bonnes pratiques testées sur le terrain

👉 Des retours d’expérience honnêtes

Tu trouveras les épisodes qui t'aideront à débloquer des problématiques que tu vis.

Que tu sois PMM, PM, marketer ou simplement curieux de comprendre comment construire des produits qui trouvent leur marché : ce podcast est fait pour toi.

À écouter pour progresser, s’inspirer, et faire évoluer la fonction Product Marketing en

👉 Start-up, Scale-up ou Corporate

👉 En retail, digital, SaaS

👉 B2B, B2C, B2B2C, B2E

🏆 Élu podcast préféré des Product Marketers en France x2.

🎙 Soutiens le podcast gratuitement : abonne-toi, laisse un avis 5 ⭐ sur Spotify ou Apple Podcast et partage-le autour de toi !

Product Marketing • branding • business • communication • carrière • PMM • PM • Sales enablement • positionnement • messaging • go to market, • stratégie de lancement produit • copywriting • storytelling • inbound marketing • conseils marketing • marketing automation • marketing digital • growth marketing • persona • réseaux sociaux • stratégie • IA • freelance • audience • chatgpt • email marketing • saas tech • B2B • B2C • use-cases • positioning • best practice • product management • product design • decathlon • women leadership • pricing • founding PMM • competitive intelligence • concurrence • insights • buyer persona • user journey • funnel marketing • marketing mix • stratégie marketing • Tendances • Marketing Produit • design • digital transformation • influence • April Dunford • fintech • Qonto • Alan • Intelligence Artificielle • Strategy • Marketing produit • CRM • freelance • GTM • Healthtech • product-led growth • customer journey mapping • value proposition • product launch plan

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Description

In this episode, you’ll learn:

This espisode has been produced in collaboration with Decathlon Digital!

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Marketing Square • Le Podcast du Marketing • Le café du market • Clef de Voûte • Lenny’s Podcast • Les podcasts du Ticket • Product Squad

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Transcription

Speaker #0
Hi everyone, we are today in Amsterdam offices. I am with Esther to talk about women leadership in tech companies and in the product marketing position. Hi Esther, how are you?
Speaker #1
I am very well, thank you for having me.
Speaker #0
I'm so excited to talk with you today because we are talking about a very important subject, which is women leadership in tech companies, how to position ourselves as a woman when we are product marketers. So to start, can you present yourself? Tell us what has brought you to Decathlon? Yeah,
Speaker #1
perfect. So I'm Hester. I'm from Amsterdam. I have two beautiful daughters. And I'm leading global product marketing for e-commerce and platform. And I work on topics like checkout, payments, pricing, fulfillment, all of that. And I've had a career actually always in tech. I did start off in legal as a lawyer, but always in tech in different commercial roles, sales, and a lot of marketing, product marketing. And I think what really drew me to Decathlon is going through the interview process. It was the people. So I really liked the ambition that Decathlon set out for itself. our growth ambition while also caring for our people, our planet. It's something really aligned to my values. But then meeting the people at Decathlon was really what got me super excited.
Speaker #0
Why is the topic about women leadership in tech so important to you?
Speaker #1
Yeah, so if I start broad, it has always been important for me. So I think there's females in tech, but I care more about I think general diversity, so any ethnic or social background or any orientation. I think if you look at the world and how we're shaping the world, tech plays a super important part in our world and our future. And it's not only like I work in fintech, worked in fintech or work in e-commerce now, but tech is also in our health, in education, in our safety. all topics where I think we want to have a nice future. So I think it's important in a broad level and then on a micro level. I'm also the mother of two daughters, right? So it even made me care more about having an inclusive and fair world for all of us.
Speaker #0
It seems like today in companies, the subject about the diversity is more and more a subject to tackle a real challenge. Can you tell us more about what is diversity and why is a topic that is more and more important in companies and moreover in tech companies? Yeah.
Speaker #1
So I think. Diversity probably means something else to different people, right? But I think this is also the issue because what you often see is that diversity, you might think it's only male or female, whereas I think it's much broader, right? So research shows that if you actually have a very broad group, you have diversity in your board or diversity in your test panels. Whatever you build actually gets better. For me, diversity is ethnic background, social background, very, very important, which I think in tech sometimes, you know, we're in a bubble. Social background, sexual orientation, gender, and there's so much more. Basically, as a company, we're designing for our consumers or for our audience, and we want them to be represented as well. So if we, as a company, if you set the rules for what success looks like, you need to create those rules with a diverse group representing your entire audience. So I think It's something natural that it's happening. I think some companies might have faced the challenge earlier and others are facing it later and I think Decathlon is on a really great journey and takes the topic very serious.
Speaker #0
I have a question because it's, I think, difficult to address topics like the diversity topic at strategic levels and really to have this topic, finally, like a company North Star to go through that. Do you have best practices or ideas on how we can tackle this topic of diversity at a strategic level in a company? Yeah,
Speaker #1
so I think there's multiple levels, right? And I think you need to work on this topic on all levels. So I think I personally am really a fan of having quotas, so of actually making sure that at the top you have a diverse representation, which we're currently doing in Decathlon, which is amazing to see. So I think at that level, it's super important to just be very strict on it. You just have a number or a percentage and you need to do the same for senior leadership. I think when I look at my career, even when I was in more junior or media roles, I also always worked on this topic. Because what a couple of great companies that I worked before had was affinity groups. So actually bringing it down to the people and making sure that we were aware of what was happening, what was the company trying to achieve in these topics. But also trainings, because I think often... So now we're very aware of unconscious bias. But I remember a couple of years back at my past company, we had trainings on it. And those trainings even amazed me about how unconscious my bias still was and probably is to this day. So I think at every level of the organization, it's a topic you need to take serious. You need to invest in it. You need to be open about it. And you need to educate. Because a lot of this happens unconsciously. People. are not out to not be diverse. So, yeah.
Speaker #0
Okay, so it's really having everyone being conscious about the topic, the challenges, so we can be aware on how we can change and adapt ourselves to this topic, right?
Speaker #1
Yeah, and then very important, actually do what you're saying, right? So if you have the quota or if you set yourself targets, Make sure that you actually report on those targets, investigate why or why not you're reaching those targets, so that you make it also a very open conversation for all parties involved. Because if you need to do it on an individual level, so you're a part of an affinity group, and you need to fight for your own rights, it's a super... You shouldn't need to ask that from somebody, as people should just be able to do their work. happily and in freedom and feeling safe. So you also need at more senior levels and at structures and in process, you also really need to have it embedded.
Speaker #0
Okay. So now that we have settled the context, we know what is diversity, how we can... tackle it and what are the main challenges on this topic i would like to to deep dive more about how as a female we can position ourselves as leaders in in tech companies and as product marketers because it's what we are at the end and and the first question that i have for you and that is today the product marketing function is the most gender balanced function in tech can you explain that
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting, right?
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
Yeah. So I also wondered, because still to this day, I'm often one of the only females in a group. If I look at my stakeholders and people that I work with, and I've done product marketing now for a long time. So I think there's a couple of things. If you look at the, I guess, maybe the history of people in product marketing. So I think one thing is that. If you look at the product organization, a lot of roles will actually start. So engineering, for example, it actually starts with education. And I think the one difference with product marketing is that we all have a very generalist background. So most of us have done either a business school or marketing or legal or something completely different. But it's a very generalist role, one of the more generalist roles in. probably a tech or product environment. So I think that makes a huge difference. I do think, so product marketing, if you do B2C product marketing or B2B, it makes a huge difference, but especially in B2C, where you lean more towards brand marketing and to actually, it's the only time that the word marketing in a role actually makes sense. It's on that side of the world, which naturally marketing. Yeah, it is more of a pink ghetto, I think we call that, where you already have, by nature, more females that have education or background in it that would apply for a role. You have more representation. So it makes it more attractive. So I think that's... that's something that causes it if you look back on sort of our education, where we come from. But also, I think the nature of the role, it's actually quite a difficult role, I think, for females too. It's more difficult for a female because it's a role that's fairly new. And it's a role that is about building synergy and alignment and building bridges between the consumer and between your commercial teams, marketing teams, your product teams. So I do think it's a role, you know. the stakeholder management is maybe something that comes more natural. So there it makes sense. But I think we did get ourselves into a tough position because it's also a role where we always need to negotiate about what we can actually work on. Because we sort of exist in between all those other roles and there's always a little bit of, you know, opportunity to figure out who works on what between a marketing and a product team or a commercial team.
Speaker #0
Yeah, and find the right place. Yeah. And how are we going to work with all these different kind of organizations and departments?
Speaker #1
Yeah, which is also, you, like, product marketing is a very broad role, right? So you also bring your own sets of talents and your own personality. So one product marketeer can be very, very different from the other, meaning that the role and interpretation and understanding of the role can also differ. Because your experience can... be so different between working with different PMMs for different companies.
Speaker #0
Yes, and it's usually what we see, like any PMM, even at Decathlon, we are nearly 20 PMMs and we all do different things. And that's really interesting to see, depending on our background, the studies that we've done and the past career, how we focus ourselves as PMMs. It's very interesting. Is there any pitfalls, let's say, about the product marketing function as when we are a woman that we should be careful or better manage to really be the best as a product marketeers?
Speaker #1
And so I think. I'm going to call it an opportunity because it really is an opportunity. But for me, but again, I've always worked more on the B2B side of product marketing. So for me, it's really 50-50 between work that you do that you could call discovery and then work that you could call delivery or marketing or that side. And I think the work that you do on discovery, having that knowledge and having those insights and having your skill sets to do it. in a correct manner so that it's valuable for the company. I think that is one of your greatest assets that you can have. And especially, so what I always hear and what I'm also working on. I'm generalizing now, but what I often hear from females is that, you know, it's difficult to speak up and especially if you're not 100% sure and if there's stronger voices in the room that at least sound very sure. It's very generalizing, but if I didn't take that for a truth, I think it's super nice that we in our role by nature, a part of our role is actually working with these insights. So I would always say it's... If females around me find it difficult to speak up, like know your things. So focus on something, know it well, and then start building your confidence that you actually, you did the research. You are sitting on that data and that's gold. So I would really focus on that.
Speaker #0
Okay. Super interesting because I think it's what you say, it's something that... whether we are in a product marketer or not, it's always something that is starting. And even more when we are starting our career, because we talk with so many stakeholders, more senior people, and it's sometimes difficult to just say what we want to say because we don't know if we have the role to do it, to say it. So it's very interesting.
Speaker #1
And I think what I can add, so where you, especially at the start of your career, so where you're going to... learn how to do research or have focus groups or do interviews. A skill, a product marketing skill is also asking the right questions. Right. And that skill you can take with you in any interaction with any stakeholders. So if you feel unconfident about merely saying that you know it, you can also just ask a very smart question and indirectly show that you might know more or you're actually an expert on the topic. It has always helped me a lot when sometimes it's easier to just ask a question instead of just going in.
Speaker #0
Asking the good question, right? Yeah. Yes, I would like to have more advices from you. When we are starting our career in tech and as PMMs, do you have advice or best practices to really... be good in our role and also take the right place and be able to really show what are our strengths. Yeah.
Speaker #1
So I think my first advice for everybody, and I had really had to learn, so my advice would also be... I have a lot of fun, right? Because I really like, I sometimes get back like, wow, you're super passionate when you talk about product marketing. And it's because I really love it. I love this sort of in-between role, this relationship building, cross matrix, distilling all the information. And if I look back at my career, I think I wanted to do it right. So I just worked. really hard and I tried to really know everything and I took it very very very serious and I realize now that I grew a little bit older and I advanced in my career and I realized that just having fun have it being yeah, just being, having fun shows off also your meetings and it makes it more relaxed. But of course, being able to have fun, it has some requirements, right? So I think it's super important to find a place where you feel safe and at home. So of course, it's depending on your profile, of course, you want a limit of, you know, of being challenged and inspired. And you get that often by not being You know, always super comfortable. You need to, you know, aim for something. But in that having a good manager is super important because you need somebody, you need ambassadors, allies, you need somebody to vouch for you when you're not there. You need somebody to maybe explain certain behavior if maybe you were insecure at a time or if you're afraid to maybe send out an email to a large group. There's somebody there that can help you. So I think having a safe space, having a company that fits you, where you just have fun, that you're really aligned with what they do. You're ready. you know, you think it's cool what they do or you're proud of what they do. I think it just makes it really authentic. Um, so I think management is super important. Um, I think another thing that we talked about, and I just did it, it's funny, but I think you can also be very proud of the work that you do. So if you know things, so if you've done your research, if you know your facts, like just be confident enough to actually, no matter what your position is, like maybe you need to ask some advice on how you actually bring it to the world. But. Not so many people have time to really dive into it and to really do a lot of research. So even senior senior people will often be happy with the quality with the work that you did. If it's high quality and you just focused on one thing and really dove into it, it's always valuable.
Speaker #0
So it's better to focus on one thing and do it really well than doing the multi-testing because as a product marketer, it's also difficult because we have so many different topics from strategic to operational things to do. And it's sometimes difficult to choose what to do and to define and to know what topic will have the most, the higher value and will impact the more the company, the actions. And at the end. the perception that other people have from us.
Speaker #1
Yeah, and I think the difficulty is... You need to find a balance between delivering work that is valuable, but also protecting what product marketing is. So I think what often happens because we have marketing in our title and indeed because we're often one of or the only female with our stakeholders. I think throughout my entire career, being asked to send out a newsletter is probably what happened most or plan a social campaign. And. And I think you really need to balance that sometimes, you know, especially if there's not a big marketing department or if, you know, if it's something really just something small that you could do. I think you really need to balance like what is it that you can do simply just because you can do something and what is it that you do from within your role. product marketing role. So I think I would always say, like, try to really focus on one topic. It also makes it easier to maybe say no to all these different requests that you get, but it's super difficult. I'm still, you know, learning as well. And another thing I realized actually today, so for new joiners, I realized because I've been in the company now six months and I did a lot of research trying to, you know, upskill my knowledge on what we do internally, where we want to go, how all our products work. And I realized that actually all of that, I could have framed it as research as well because now I did it as onboarding. But looking back, I think your skillset as product marketing, I think you can apply it to so many different things. So you can also look at your onboarding like, right, so. you do your discovery, then you start actually, you know, producing. So I think that's something the whole time, whether it's your own personal brand story, look at your product marketing skill set and apply it because it's actually a super thorough and good skill set.
Speaker #0
And you were talking before about saying no. Do you have advices on how to say no to... to somebody who asks you to do an additional task or about just you don't have time to do it, do you say no or do you try to find other ways to just say that you can do it and maybe you will do it later or you will never do it? What are your advice on that, if you have some? Yes,
Speaker #1
it's personal preference because maybe there are other people that are very, very comfortable to say no and it can work for... people, right? For me, it doesn't work because it will still be in the back of my mind. I will feel guilty. Of course, you know, if this ridiculous thing, then I can say no. But often it's like, I kind of understand that we need to communicate something, but I want communications. But what I would say, yes, and we can incorporate as part of our go-to-market strategy. So let's not send out a one-time newsletter with updates, but let's actually figure out how do we want to go to market? What is our audience? What is our messaging? What is our value prop? And then one of those deliverables can be a newsletter so that I think by educating and by leading with. good, high quality work, I think you can start showing that there's other things that you bring to the table. Because I find often, and it differs per company, but so far, for like eight, 10 years in product marketing, and it always was difficult because people have different understandings of what you can do. And it's very tied to what we discussed, your personal preference, your background, your experience. So I think saying no is for me, this never the right way. Ask them what is behind it and how can you then, if you know the question behind the question, how can you then move into more of a product marketing? deliverable or action that would fit into the role more.
Speaker #0
So again, it's also asking the good questions, right? Yeah.
Speaker #1
But I must say, like, again, very B2B product marketing. So this, like, know your stuff and really diving, doing research, asking the right questions. I think it's, yeah, it's... something that is super important in my role. What are,
Speaker #0
for you, the best practices for senior stakeholder management? Because it also happens a lot as a PMM that we have many stakeholders, sometimes it's senior stakeholders. And how to make sure that we have a seat at the table, that our voice is heard? How do you deal with that? Yeah,
Speaker #1
so... So... It's a little bit of what we just said, but then I'm also going to change the answer a little bit. So I think one important is so ask the right questions. But that doesn't mean you need to proactively always ask the right questions, right? But really understand what are their goals? What are their struggles? So you need to understand their perspective. So where are they coming from? What do they care about? I think in one of my previous companies, we always said. in whatever work we did. So what's the so what for your audience, right? And that's, I think you, you really need to know that. And then the second piece of my question of my answer would be, and I really had to learn that over time. So by nature and also by role. we perform better the more that we know. But what I really had to get comfortable in and more comfortable in, and that came by growing your skill set, by becoming more mature, by becoming more confident, is sometimes you need to be able to roll and start and start doing work without somebody holding your hand. As in, people want, you know, senior leadership will not be able to provide you all the details. and hold your hand, but you should be able yourself to quick start because you have your PMM skillset. You should look at a question and if the question is unclear to you, you just dive into it. You try and get information about what is possibly meant and what could be behind it. You need to be a self-starter and really start being able to show already your value. So maybe you don't know all the details, but... starts adding value. And I think also what we now often do in hiring. We will always try and send out a case that is exactly around this. So how do you make a go-to-market plan without knowing the facts? Can you say, all right, this is where I would want to know this data. I don't have it. So we're going to run with a market trend. It's 80%. We're just going to say that it's this number, for example. I think that really shows an ability to do the work without somebody there really holding your hand.
Speaker #0
How old are you? Also, one of the main subjects when we are starting our career and that we want to go to the next level, it seems difficult to be able to advance and to say, okay, today I'm a PMM. How do I, what do I have to do to be senior? How do I get to be a lead, a VP, director, et cetera? How do we get to this, to the next step of our role? Yeah.
Speaker #1
Yeah, so I think the first question is you really need to have a conversation with yourself. Why is it that you want that? So is it for recognition? Is it for impact? Is it for responsibility? Like what is really behind it? Because again, it's important for yourself to know because otherwise you might want to strive for something and then it turns out that you did all the hard work and it's actually not giving you what you want. And also, if people are saying, oh, I don't want that role. I did that once in my career as well. And I was challenged. Like, why is it that you're saying that you don't want that role? Is it to protect yourself? Or, you know, is it not something that you like? I think it's also something you need to discover for yourself. So if you want it, why do you want it? If you're saying that you don't want it, discover for yourself, why not? And then I think if you decide that you do want it, or I think in general, We females, we need to learn how to negotiate. And I think negotiation is now this, or for often, I also hear that from my friends, it's this super difficult conversation and often negotiating and negotiation. It can be, I mean, it can be about any topic. It can also be about what kind of projects that you work on. Who do you partner with? What meetings are you invited to or not? Whatever, what do you do with your holiday? Like negotiating everywhere. And often sometimes, yes, it's about conversation. And those are very, very difficult conversations. But I think for you to have fun in your role is... negotiate. And by negotiation, I really mean, so what is it that the other person wants and what is it that you want? So what is it that your manager is expecting you to grow in? How can you show that growth? So get really clear on it and then try and work for it, but also still like, yeah, have fun while doing it, right? Because so there's a goal and ambition. I think it's really good to be ambitious. but also it's a journey and you really need to enjoy the journey to it, right? Because it's about learning. It's about getting more comfortable to maybe talk about your salary or your compensation. you need to get more comfortable to have a friendly and light conversation to ask the question, so why are my male peers in this role? Or why are they invited and not me? Like, what is it that I can maybe improve? So it's really understanding, knowing what is expected, being really clear on how you're going to measure it and start measuring it. So make sure you make clear agreements on it. And then I think another important thing is your personal brand story, right? So every couple of years, especially if you just landed a new role, you want to grow to your next role, think about why do I want it and what is my story to get to there? So again, use your product marketing skills.
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
What is your story to get to there? Because I think you might feel that you've earned it. But you also need to show the world.
Speaker #0
more important is that the world feels that you are ready for it and that you will succeed and that you actually accomplished everything that was required for you to get to that next level. Talk about the next level, talk about your compensation, just learn and educate yourself to have just light, open, almost fun conversations about it. And it sounds super easy. I was not like this before. Like, I probably was more on the pushy side because I really wanted to do it right. I really wanted to show that I was prepared. I, like, I wrote down everything. Like, I did this and I did that and then. And I realized that the moment that you actually. I mean, you know, you need to do good work. So once you know you do good work, I think it's also a moment where you can lean back a little bit more and have a little bit more air in the conversation about these topics. And yeah, make it, get used to it, to talk and to negotiate and to have this conversation with your manager, to ask for feedback, to dive into the feedback. Why are people saying this? Do you recognize it? ask your peers, ask your friends, ask your family.
Speaker #1
And do you have some advices or did you run, I don't know, some trainees for the negotiation? How do you practice? Like every day, but how do you do it during?
Speaker #0
So I did enterprise sales. That is like work in sales and you'll do negotiations. That's true. Yeah, so I think in the question itself, it shows that it's such a big foreign topic, right? But I think if you look at negotiation now with my kids, I'm negotiating with them the entire day about what they want on their bread, about how late they want to go to bed. It's negotiation. So somewhere, a big group, also probably a lot of males, right? So just in general, negotiation became this. scary thing because it's about hierarchy you know and you're you're dependent on what somebody you know hire or whatever whatever they have at least some power over you they need to decide for you and it became this very scary topic but i think it's actually very human so Yeah, I did read a book once, which was Ask for More. I don't know what the writer was, but this was also about asking the right questions. So I do think like in any negotiation, understand what they're coming from, understand, you know, what is it that they want or what is it that they want to see? And then you can, you then have your part to play. And yeah. just practice. Practice. Do it a year and every day. Do it with your phone company. Do it with your internet company. Do it when buying a car. Just try it. And if you do it with a less and somebody says no, then you can just say, you know what? I just tried. It's fine.
Speaker #1
And one controversial question for you. Are titles important? Because we are talking about this. about, yes, being more and more important in the company from senior to leader, et cetera. But is it very important to say that I am senior, I am a lead, I am a VP? What do you think about that?
Speaker #0
Yeah, so I think it differs per company because I also worked in a scale-up where it really didn't mean so much because you had a big team and big team or I had a big team anyway, so it meant a little bit less. But unfortunately, I think in larger companies and especially in the role of product marketing, that is a little bit, you know, you need to negotiate about where you actually sit and the work that you can actually work on. Yeah, I know I was often being told always by males in very high positions, I don't care about titles. I don't care about titles to a certain extent. So I think if you have a team. it doesn't really matter anymore, but especially if you're an individual contributor, I do think it matters because it's one thing less that you need to find your position in, right? Because you already earned it. So yes, I think in some situations it can help you. I think you should also be able to... you know, have your seat at the table without that title. So it's important, but it shouldn't be so important. But also going back to one of the earlier things that I said, right? So why is going to the next level important for you? And if one of those things, for example, is recognition or feeling more confident or not always having to explain. what you do or what your level is or for example if you're a little bit younger or you look younger you're always seen still as like an assistant or a junior then yes having a title is something that can really really help you. Yeah. And then a lot of people will say, oh, it's not important. Uh, but I, uh, I've been like, I think now I get to the point where for me, indeed, it's maybe a little bit less important because I have my team and all my worth. I have my responsibilities. I had fancy titles. I have less fancy titles. Like, but throughout my entire career, um, uh, when people said it's not important, I was like, uh, yeah, but see, it kind of is a little bit still in this role and especially as a female. So.
Speaker #1
Okay, thank you for this insight, Esther.
Speaker #0
And I think that's one tip. What I think is super important is that When you join a company or also just in general, if you don't know, understand your job letters, right? So understand by looking maybe at roles that are posted within your company. Understand like what is it, what is behind this new level? So what is it actually that you're aiming for and what is behind it? Because sometimes a new title, it doesn't mean anything. You know, maybe you're going from meteor to senior, but it doesn't change anything. But then suddenly when... you go from, I don't know, from lead to head of or to director, suddenly your compensation package changes, right? Or suddenly you can manage a team where before you couldn't manage because you're now on a leadership track and not an individual track. So understand what's behind it, right? Because that will also determine if you should care or not. Because sometimes maybe it's just an ego thing and then, you know. Yeah, maybe you can let it go a little bit more, but if it's actually your compensation or your, you know, your career or your, if you can manage a team, then it is important.
Speaker #1
Of course. Yeah. So it's knowing what is behind the titles.
Speaker #0
And I would then maybe say, so title is something that is given to a level, I think. The level is actually more important. The title is that often comes with it. Sometimes in other companies and maybe in scale ups, it was a little bit more like, oh, pick a title. That'll find it. I think knowing the level behind it. So what are your responsibilities, your task? What is being expected from you? How are you being measured? What does success look like? But also what do you get in return at that level? So what is it that you get? I think that is something. It's important to know what you're aiming for.
Speaker #1
We can end with the three last questions of the podcast that I asked to all my guests. What is the next subject or next topic that you would like to hear in the podcast? Yeah.
Speaker #0
Right. So I'm going to stay true to, I guess, my fintech background a little bit. But I think there's an awesome lady. She works at Checkout.com. Her name is Alyssa Gibson-Wood. She's the VP of product marketing there. I spoke to her a couple of years back at Money 2020, an event. I think she's doing an awesome job because it's a complex product, but they have really, really clear messaging. So I'd love to learn from her.
Speaker #1
And we talk about some resources, books. Do you have any additional book that you recommend to? to better work and to really leverage our strength as women in the tech company.
Speaker #0
Yeah, so I really had a long thing about this because I've listened and read a lot of business books, but I think in the end my tip would be... read for relaxation and for joy because I'm an avid reader and I think it's super important to also have reading as something to relax and not go to bed with a business book. But in the middle and on this topic, I read an amazing book last year, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. And I think they're making a movie out of it now, but it's... exactly about this. So females trying to have a career in a time where that was not very normal, you had to be a housewife. So yeah, it's, I think, a beautiful, beautiful story, but it's really fun and relaxation.
Speaker #1
And where can we reach you?
Speaker #0
Yeah, so LinkedIn only. I did a social detox a year and a half ago, and I stayed in it. It's really good for me. So LinkedIn, I have surf and Google, you can find me there.
Speaker #1
Great. I will put all the information in the description of the podcast.
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
Thank you a lot, but great talking to you.
Speaker #0
Yeah. Thank you very much. And also for letting me learn from you, write these questions that I think are really inspiring.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you. Bye. Bye-bye.

Chapters

Hester's role at Decathlon
0sec
Why diversity topic is important to her
1min
Tackling diversity at a strategic level in a company
4min
Challenges in Product Marketing as a female
8min
Advice to position ourselves as leaders
15min
Senior stakeholder management
23min
Negotiation skills and personal branding
27min
Importance of titles in career path
32min
3 last questions
37min

About Product Marketing Stories : Conseils, Carrière, Stratégie marketing, Growth, Go to Market, Tech B2B B2C

Le podcast de référence pour tous ceux qui veulent comprendre, maîtriser et faire évoluer la fonction de Product Marketing dans l’écosystème tech français.

Ici, pas de blabla business. Ensemble, on explore sans filtre les coulisses du Product Marketing à travers :

👉 Des études de cas concrètes et applicables

👉 Des bonnes pratiques testées sur le terrain

👉 Des retours d’expérience honnêtes

Tu trouveras les épisodes qui t'aideront à débloquer des problématiques que tu vis.

Que tu sois PMM, PM, marketer ou simplement curieux de comprendre comment construire des produits qui trouvent leur marché : ce podcast est fait pour toi.

À écouter pour progresser, s’inspirer, et faire évoluer la fonction Product Marketing en

👉 Start-up, Scale-up ou Corporate

👉 En retail, digital, SaaS

👉 B2B, B2C, B2B2C, B2E

🏆 Élu podcast préféré des Product Marketers en France x2.

🎙 Soutiens le podcast gratuitement : abonne-toi, laisse un avis 5 ⭐ sur Spotify ou Apple Podcast et partage-le autour de toi !

Product Marketing • branding • business • communication • carrière • PMM • PM • Sales enablement • positionnement • messaging • go to market, • stratégie de lancement produit • copywriting • storytelling • inbound marketing • conseils marketing • marketing automation • marketing digital • growth marketing • persona • réseaux sociaux • stratégie • IA • freelance • audience • chatgpt • email marketing • saas tech • B2B • B2C • use-cases • positioning • best practice • product management • product design • decathlon • women leadership • pricing • founding PMM • competitive intelligence • concurrence • insights • buyer persona • user journey • funnel marketing • marketing mix • stratégie marketing • Tendances • Marketing Produit • design • digital transformation • influence • April Dunford • fintech • Qonto • Alan • Intelligence Artificielle • Strategy • Marketing produit • CRM • freelance • GTM • Healthtech • product-led growth • customer journey mapping • value proposition • product launch plan

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

About Product Marketing Stories : Conseils, Carrière, Stratégie marketing, Growth, Go to Market, Tech B2B B2C

Le podcast de référence pour tous ceux qui veulent comprendre, maîtriser et faire évoluer la fonction de Product Marketing dans l’écosystème tech français.

Ici, pas de blabla business. Ensemble, on explore sans filtre les coulisses du Product Marketing à travers :

👉 Des études de cas concrètes et applicables

👉 Des bonnes pratiques testées sur le terrain

👉 Des retours d’expérience honnêtes

Tu trouveras les épisodes qui t'aideront à débloquer des problématiques que tu vis.

Que tu sois PMM, PM, marketer ou simplement curieux de comprendre comment construire des produits qui trouvent leur marché : ce podcast est fait pour toi.

À écouter pour progresser, s’inspirer, et faire évoluer la fonction Product Marketing en

👉 Start-up, Scale-up ou Corporate

👉 En retail, digital, SaaS

👉 B2B, B2C, B2B2C, B2E

🏆 Élu podcast préféré des Product Marketers en France x2.

🎙 Soutiens le podcast gratuitement : abonne-toi, laisse un avis 5 ⭐ sur Spotify ou Apple Podcast et partage-le autour de toi !

Product Marketing • branding • business • communication • carrière • PMM • PM • Sales enablement • positionnement • messaging • go to market, • stratégie de lancement produit • copywriting • storytelling • inbound marketing • conseils marketing • marketing automation • marketing digital • growth marketing • persona • réseaux sociaux • stratégie • IA • freelance • audience • chatgpt • email marketing • saas tech • B2B • B2C • use-cases • positioning • best practice • product management • product design • decathlon • women leadership • pricing • founding PMM • competitive intelligence • concurrence • insights • buyer persona • user journey • funnel marketing • marketing mix • stratégie marketing • Tendances • Marketing Produit • design • digital transformation • influence • April Dunford • fintech • Qonto • Alan • Intelligence Artificielle • Strategy • Marketing produit • CRM • freelance • GTM • Healthtech • product-led growth • customer journey mapping • value proposition • product launch plan

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Embed

Hester's role at Decathlon

0sec

Why diversity topic is important to her

1min

Tackling diversity at a strategic level in a company

4min

Challenges in Product Marketing as a female

8min

Advice to position ourselves as leaders

15min

Senior stakeholder management

23min

Negotiation skills and personal branding

27min

Importance of titles in career path

32min

3 last questions

37min

Transcription

Speaker #0
Hi everyone, we are today in Amsterdam offices. I am with Esther to talk about women leadership in tech companies and in the product marketing position. Hi Esther, how are you?
Speaker #1
I am very well, thank you for having me.
Speaker #0
I'm so excited to talk with you today because we are talking about a very important subject, which is women leadership in tech companies, how to position ourselves as a woman when we are product marketers. So to start, can you present yourself? Tell us what has brought you to Decathlon? Yeah,
Speaker #1
perfect. So I'm Hester. I'm from Amsterdam. I have two beautiful daughters. And I'm leading global product marketing for e-commerce and platform. And I work on topics like checkout, payments, pricing, fulfillment, all of that. And I've had a career actually always in tech. I did start off in legal as a lawyer, but always in tech in different commercial roles, sales, and a lot of marketing, product marketing. And I think what really drew me to Decathlon is going through the interview process. It was the people. So I really liked the ambition that Decathlon set out for itself. our growth ambition while also caring for our people, our planet. It's something really aligned to my values. But then meeting the people at Decathlon was really what got me super excited.
Speaker #0
Why is the topic about women leadership in tech so important to you?
Speaker #1
Yeah, so if I start broad, it has always been important for me. So I think there's females in tech, but I care more about I think general diversity, so any ethnic or social background or any orientation. I think if you look at the world and how we're shaping the world, tech plays a super important part in our world and our future. And it's not only like I work in fintech, worked in fintech or work in e-commerce now, but tech is also in our health, in education, in our safety. all topics where I think we want to have a nice future. So I think it's important in a broad level and then on a micro level. I'm also the mother of two daughters, right? So it even made me care more about having an inclusive and fair world for all of us.
Speaker #0
It seems like today in companies, the subject about the diversity is more and more a subject to tackle a real challenge. Can you tell us more about what is diversity and why is a topic that is more and more important in companies and moreover in tech companies? Yeah.
Speaker #1
So I think. Diversity probably means something else to different people, right? But I think this is also the issue because what you often see is that diversity, you might think it's only male or female, whereas I think it's much broader, right? So research shows that if you actually have a very broad group, you have diversity in your board or diversity in your test panels. Whatever you build actually gets better. For me, diversity is ethnic background, social background, very, very important, which I think in tech sometimes, you know, we're in a bubble. Social background, sexual orientation, gender, and there's so much more. Basically, as a company, we're designing for our consumers or for our audience, and we want them to be represented as well. So if we, as a company, if you set the rules for what success looks like, you need to create those rules with a diverse group representing your entire audience. So I think It's something natural that it's happening. I think some companies might have faced the challenge earlier and others are facing it later and I think Decathlon is on a really great journey and takes the topic very serious.
Speaker #0
I have a question because it's, I think, difficult to address topics like the diversity topic at strategic levels and really to have this topic, finally, like a company North Star to go through that. Do you have best practices or ideas on how we can tackle this topic of diversity at a strategic level in a company? Yeah,
Speaker #1
so I think there's multiple levels, right? And I think you need to work on this topic on all levels. So I think I personally am really a fan of having quotas, so of actually making sure that at the top you have a diverse representation, which we're currently doing in Decathlon, which is amazing to see. So I think at that level, it's super important to just be very strict on it. You just have a number or a percentage and you need to do the same for senior leadership. I think when I look at my career, even when I was in more junior or media roles, I also always worked on this topic. Because what a couple of great companies that I worked before had was affinity groups. So actually bringing it down to the people and making sure that we were aware of what was happening, what was the company trying to achieve in these topics. But also trainings, because I think often... So now we're very aware of unconscious bias. But I remember a couple of years back at my past company, we had trainings on it. And those trainings even amazed me about how unconscious my bias still was and probably is to this day. So I think at every level of the organization, it's a topic you need to take serious. You need to invest in it. You need to be open about it. And you need to educate. Because a lot of this happens unconsciously. People. are not out to not be diverse. So, yeah.
Speaker #0
Okay, so it's really having everyone being conscious about the topic, the challenges, so we can be aware on how we can change and adapt ourselves to this topic, right?
Speaker #1
Yeah, and then very important, actually do what you're saying, right? So if you have the quota or if you set yourself targets, Make sure that you actually report on those targets, investigate why or why not you're reaching those targets, so that you make it also a very open conversation for all parties involved. Because if you need to do it on an individual level, so you're a part of an affinity group, and you need to fight for your own rights, it's a super... You shouldn't need to ask that from somebody, as people should just be able to do their work. happily and in freedom and feeling safe. So you also need at more senior levels and at structures and in process, you also really need to have it embedded.
Speaker #0
Okay. So now that we have settled the context, we know what is diversity, how we can... tackle it and what are the main challenges on this topic i would like to to deep dive more about how as a female we can position ourselves as leaders in in tech companies and as product marketers because it's what we are at the end and and the first question that i have for you and that is today the product marketing function is the most gender balanced function in tech can you explain that
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting, right?
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
Yeah. So I also wondered, because still to this day, I'm often one of the only females in a group. If I look at my stakeholders and people that I work with, and I've done product marketing now for a long time. So I think there's a couple of things. If you look at the, I guess, maybe the history of people in product marketing. So I think one thing is that. If you look at the product organization, a lot of roles will actually start. So engineering, for example, it actually starts with education. And I think the one difference with product marketing is that we all have a very generalist background. So most of us have done either a business school or marketing or legal or something completely different. But it's a very generalist role, one of the more generalist roles in. probably a tech or product environment. So I think that makes a huge difference. I do think, so product marketing, if you do B2C product marketing or B2B, it makes a huge difference, but especially in B2C, where you lean more towards brand marketing and to actually, it's the only time that the word marketing in a role actually makes sense. It's on that side of the world, which naturally marketing. Yeah, it is more of a pink ghetto, I think we call that, where you already have, by nature, more females that have education or background in it that would apply for a role. You have more representation. So it makes it more attractive. So I think that's... that's something that causes it if you look back on sort of our education, where we come from. But also, I think the nature of the role, it's actually quite a difficult role, I think, for females too. It's more difficult for a female because it's a role that's fairly new. And it's a role that is about building synergy and alignment and building bridges between the consumer and between your commercial teams, marketing teams, your product teams. So I do think it's a role, you know. the stakeholder management is maybe something that comes more natural. So there it makes sense. But I think we did get ourselves into a tough position because it's also a role where we always need to negotiate about what we can actually work on. Because we sort of exist in between all those other roles and there's always a little bit of, you know, opportunity to figure out who works on what between a marketing and a product team or a commercial team.
Speaker #0
Yeah, and find the right place. Yeah. And how are we going to work with all these different kind of organizations and departments?
Speaker #1
Yeah, which is also, you, like, product marketing is a very broad role, right? So you also bring your own sets of talents and your own personality. So one product marketeer can be very, very different from the other, meaning that the role and interpretation and understanding of the role can also differ. Because your experience can... be so different between working with different PMMs for different companies.
Speaker #0
Yes, and it's usually what we see, like any PMM, even at Decathlon, we are nearly 20 PMMs and we all do different things. And that's really interesting to see, depending on our background, the studies that we've done and the past career, how we focus ourselves as PMMs. It's very interesting. Is there any pitfalls, let's say, about the product marketing function as when we are a woman that we should be careful or better manage to really be the best as a product marketeers?
Speaker #1
And so I think. I'm going to call it an opportunity because it really is an opportunity. But for me, but again, I've always worked more on the B2B side of product marketing. So for me, it's really 50-50 between work that you do that you could call discovery and then work that you could call delivery or marketing or that side. And I think the work that you do on discovery, having that knowledge and having those insights and having your skill sets to do it. in a correct manner so that it's valuable for the company. I think that is one of your greatest assets that you can have. And especially, so what I always hear and what I'm also working on. I'm generalizing now, but what I often hear from females is that, you know, it's difficult to speak up and especially if you're not 100% sure and if there's stronger voices in the room that at least sound very sure. It's very generalizing, but if I didn't take that for a truth, I think it's super nice that we in our role by nature, a part of our role is actually working with these insights. So I would always say it's... If females around me find it difficult to speak up, like know your things. So focus on something, know it well, and then start building your confidence that you actually, you did the research. You are sitting on that data and that's gold. So I would really focus on that.
Speaker #0
Okay. Super interesting because I think it's what you say, it's something that... whether we are in a product marketer or not, it's always something that is starting. And even more when we are starting our career, because we talk with so many stakeholders, more senior people, and it's sometimes difficult to just say what we want to say because we don't know if we have the role to do it, to say it. So it's very interesting.
Speaker #1
And I think what I can add, so where you, especially at the start of your career, so where you're going to... learn how to do research or have focus groups or do interviews. A skill, a product marketing skill is also asking the right questions. Right. And that skill you can take with you in any interaction with any stakeholders. So if you feel unconfident about merely saying that you know it, you can also just ask a very smart question and indirectly show that you might know more or you're actually an expert on the topic. It has always helped me a lot when sometimes it's easier to just ask a question instead of just going in.
Speaker #0
Asking the good question, right? Yeah. Yes, I would like to have more advices from you. When we are starting our career in tech and as PMMs, do you have advice or best practices to really... be good in our role and also take the right place and be able to really show what are our strengths. Yeah.
Speaker #1
So I think my first advice for everybody, and I had really had to learn, so my advice would also be... I have a lot of fun, right? Because I really like, I sometimes get back like, wow, you're super passionate when you talk about product marketing. And it's because I really love it. I love this sort of in-between role, this relationship building, cross matrix, distilling all the information. And if I look back at my career, I think I wanted to do it right. So I just worked. really hard and I tried to really know everything and I took it very very very serious and I realize now that I grew a little bit older and I advanced in my career and I realized that just having fun have it being yeah, just being, having fun shows off also your meetings and it makes it more relaxed. But of course, being able to have fun, it has some requirements, right? So I think it's super important to find a place where you feel safe and at home. So of course, it's depending on your profile, of course, you want a limit of, you know, of being challenged and inspired. And you get that often by not being You know, always super comfortable. You need to, you know, aim for something. But in that having a good manager is super important because you need somebody, you need ambassadors, allies, you need somebody to vouch for you when you're not there. You need somebody to maybe explain certain behavior if maybe you were insecure at a time or if you're afraid to maybe send out an email to a large group. There's somebody there that can help you. So I think having a safe space, having a company that fits you, where you just have fun, that you're really aligned with what they do. You're ready. you know, you think it's cool what they do or you're proud of what they do. I think it just makes it really authentic. Um, so I think management is super important. Um, I think another thing that we talked about, and I just did it, it's funny, but I think you can also be very proud of the work that you do. So if you know things, so if you've done your research, if you know your facts, like just be confident enough to actually, no matter what your position is, like maybe you need to ask some advice on how you actually bring it to the world. But. Not so many people have time to really dive into it and to really do a lot of research. So even senior senior people will often be happy with the quality with the work that you did. If it's high quality and you just focused on one thing and really dove into it, it's always valuable.
Speaker #0
So it's better to focus on one thing and do it really well than doing the multi-testing because as a product marketer, it's also difficult because we have so many different topics from strategic to operational things to do. And it's sometimes difficult to choose what to do and to define and to know what topic will have the most, the higher value and will impact the more the company, the actions. And at the end. the perception that other people have from us.
Speaker #1
Yeah, and I think the difficulty is... You need to find a balance between delivering work that is valuable, but also protecting what product marketing is. So I think what often happens because we have marketing in our title and indeed because we're often one of or the only female with our stakeholders. I think throughout my entire career, being asked to send out a newsletter is probably what happened most or plan a social campaign. And. And I think you really need to balance that sometimes, you know, especially if there's not a big marketing department or if, you know, if it's something really just something small that you could do. I think you really need to balance like what is it that you can do simply just because you can do something and what is it that you do from within your role. product marketing role. So I think I would always say, like, try to really focus on one topic. It also makes it easier to maybe say no to all these different requests that you get, but it's super difficult. I'm still, you know, learning as well. And another thing I realized actually today, so for new joiners, I realized because I've been in the company now six months and I did a lot of research trying to, you know, upskill my knowledge on what we do internally, where we want to go, how all our products work. And I realized that actually all of that, I could have framed it as research as well because now I did it as onboarding. But looking back, I think your skillset as product marketing, I think you can apply it to so many different things. So you can also look at your onboarding like, right, so. you do your discovery, then you start actually, you know, producing. So I think that's something the whole time, whether it's your own personal brand story, look at your product marketing skill set and apply it because it's actually a super thorough and good skill set.
Speaker #0
And you were talking before about saying no. Do you have advices on how to say no to... to somebody who asks you to do an additional task or about just you don't have time to do it, do you say no or do you try to find other ways to just say that you can do it and maybe you will do it later or you will never do it? What are your advice on that, if you have some? Yes,
Speaker #1
it's personal preference because maybe there are other people that are very, very comfortable to say no and it can work for... people, right? For me, it doesn't work because it will still be in the back of my mind. I will feel guilty. Of course, you know, if this ridiculous thing, then I can say no. But often it's like, I kind of understand that we need to communicate something, but I want communications. But what I would say, yes, and we can incorporate as part of our go-to-market strategy. So let's not send out a one-time newsletter with updates, but let's actually figure out how do we want to go to market? What is our audience? What is our messaging? What is our value prop? And then one of those deliverables can be a newsletter so that I think by educating and by leading with. good, high quality work, I think you can start showing that there's other things that you bring to the table. Because I find often, and it differs per company, but so far, for like eight, 10 years in product marketing, and it always was difficult because people have different understandings of what you can do. And it's very tied to what we discussed, your personal preference, your background, your experience. So I think saying no is for me, this never the right way. Ask them what is behind it and how can you then, if you know the question behind the question, how can you then move into more of a product marketing? deliverable or action that would fit into the role more.
Speaker #0
So again, it's also asking the good questions, right? Yeah.
Speaker #1
But I must say, like, again, very B2B product marketing. So this, like, know your stuff and really diving, doing research, asking the right questions. I think it's, yeah, it's... something that is super important in my role. What are,
Speaker #0
for you, the best practices for senior stakeholder management? Because it also happens a lot as a PMM that we have many stakeholders, sometimes it's senior stakeholders. And how to make sure that we have a seat at the table, that our voice is heard? How do you deal with that? Yeah,
Speaker #1
so... So... It's a little bit of what we just said, but then I'm also going to change the answer a little bit. So I think one important is so ask the right questions. But that doesn't mean you need to proactively always ask the right questions, right? But really understand what are their goals? What are their struggles? So you need to understand their perspective. So where are they coming from? What do they care about? I think in one of my previous companies, we always said. in whatever work we did. So what's the so what for your audience, right? And that's, I think you, you really need to know that. And then the second piece of my question of my answer would be, and I really had to learn that over time. So by nature and also by role. we perform better the more that we know. But what I really had to get comfortable in and more comfortable in, and that came by growing your skill set, by becoming more mature, by becoming more confident, is sometimes you need to be able to roll and start and start doing work without somebody holding your hand. As in, people want, you know, senior leadership will not be able to provide you all the details. and hold your hand, but you should be able yourself to quick start because you have your PMM skillset. You should look at a question and if the question is unclear to you, you just dive into it. You try and get information about what is possibly meant and what could be behind it. You need to be a self-starter and really start being able to show already your value. So maybe you don't know all the details, but... starts adding value. And I think also what we now often do in hiring. We will always try and send out a case that is exactly around this. So how do you make a go-to-market plan without knowing the facts? Can you say, all right, this is where I would want to know this data. I don't have it. So we're going to run with a market trend. It's 80%. We're just going to say that it's this number, for example. I think that really shows an ability to do the work without somebody there really holding your hand.
Speaker #0
How old are you? Also, one of the main subjects when we are starting our career and that we want to go to the next level, it seems difficult to be able to advance and to say, okay, today I'm a PMM. How do I, what do I have to do to be senior? How do I get to be a lead, a VP, director, et cetera? How do we get to this, to the next step of our role? Yeah.
Speaker #1
Yeah, so I think the first question is you really need to have a conversation with yourself. Why is it that you want that? So is it for recognition? Is it for impact? Is it for responsibility? Like what is really behind it? Because again, it's important for yourself to know because otherwise you might want to strive for something and then it turns out that you did all the hard work and it's actually not giving you what you want. And also, if people are saying, oh, I don't want that role. I did that once in my career as well. And I was challenged. Like, why is it that you're saying that you don't want that role? Is it to protect yourself? Or, you know, is it not something that you like? I think it's also something you need to discover for yourself. So if you want it, why do you want it? If you're saying that you don't want it, discover for yourself, why not? And then I think if you decide that you do want it, or I think in general, We females, we need to learn how to negotiate. And I think negotiation is now this, or for often, I also hear that from my friends, it's this super difficult conversation and often negotiating and negotiation. It can be, I mean, it can be about any topic. It can also be about what kind of projects that you work on. Who do you partner with? What meetings are you invited to or not? Whatever, what do you do with your holiday? Like negotiating everywhere. And often sometimes, yes, it's about conversation. And those are very, very difficult conversations. But I think for you to have fun in your role is... negotiate. And by negotiation, I really mean, so what is it that the other person wants and what is it that you want? So what is it that your manager is expecting you to grow in? How can you show that growth? So get really clear on it and then try and work for it, but also still like, yeah, have fun while doing it, right? Because so there's a goal and ambition. I think it's really good to be ambitious. but also it's a journey and you really need to enjoy the journey to it, right? Because it's about learning. It's about getting more comfortable to maybe talk about your salary or your compensation. you need to get more comfortable to have a friendly and light conversation to ask the question, so why are my male peers in this role? Or why are they invited and not me? Like, what is it that I can maybe improve? So it's really understanding, knowing what is expected, being really clear on how you're going to measure it and start measuring it. So make sure you make clear agreements on it. And then I think another important thing is your personal brand story, right? So every couple of years, especially if you just landed a new role, you want to grow to your next role, think about why do I want it and what is my story to get to there? So again, use your product marketing skills.
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
What is your story to get to there? Because I think you might feel that you've earned it. But you also need to show the world.
Speaker #0
more important is that the world feels that you are ready for it and that you will succeed and that you actually accomplished everything that was required for you to get to that next level. Talk about the next level, talk about your compensation, just learn and educate yourself to have just light, open, almost fun conversations about it. And it sounds super easy. I was not like this before. Like, I probably was more on the pushy side because I really wanted to do it right. I really wanted to show that I was prepared. I, like, I wrote down everything. Like, I did this and I did that and then. And I realized that the moment that you actually. I mean, you know, you need to do good work. So once you know you do good work, I think it's also a moment where you can lean back a little bit more and have a little bit more air in the conversation about these topics. And yeah, make it, get used to it, to talk and to negotiate and to have this conversation with your manager, to ask for feedback, to dive into the feedback. Why are people saying this? Do you recognize it? ask your peers, ask your friends, ask your family.
Speaker #1
And do you have some advices or did you run, I don't know, some trainees for the negotiation? How do you practice? Like every day, but how do you do it during?
Speaker #0
So I did enterprise sales. That is like work in sales and you'll do negotiations. That's true. Yeah, so I think in the question itself, it shows that it's such a big foreign topic, right? But I think if you look at negotiation now with my kids, I'm negotiating with them the entire day about what they want on their bread, about how late they want to go to bed. It's negotiation. So somewhere, a big group, also probably a lot of males, right? So just in general, negotiation became this. scary thing because it's about hierarchy you know and you're you're dependent on what somebody you know hire or whatever whatever they have at least some power over you they need to decide for you and it became this very scary topic but i think it's actually very human so Yeah, I did read a book once, which was Ask for More. I don't know what the writer was, but this was also about asking the right questions. So I do think like in any negotiation, understand what they're coming from, understand, you know, what is it that they want or what is it that they want to see? And then you can, you then have your part to play. And yeah. just practice. Practice. Do it a year and every day. Do it with your phone company. Do it with your internet company. Do it when buying a car. Just try it. And if you do it with a less and somebody says no, then you can just say, you know what? I just tried. It's fine.
Speaker #1
And one controversial question for you. Are titles important? Because we are talking about this. about, yes, being more and more important in the company from senior to leader, et cetera. But is it very important to say that I am senior, I am a lead, I am a VP? What do you think about that?
Speaker #0
Yeah, so I think it differs per company because I also worked in a scale-up where it really didn't mean so much because you had a big team and big team or I had a big team anyway, so it meant a little bit less. But unfortunately, I think in larger companies and especially in the role of product marketing, that is a little bit, you know, you need to negotiate about where you actually sit and the work that you can actually work on. Yeah, I know I was often being told always by males in very high positions, I don't care about titles. I don't care about titles to a certain extent. So I think if you have a team. it doesn't really matter anymore, but especially if you're an individual contributor, I do think it matters because it's one thing less that you need to find your position in, right? Because you already earned it. So yes, I think in some situations it can help you. I think you should also be able to... you know, have your seat at the table without that title. So it's important, but it shouldn't be so important. But also going back to one of the earlier things that I said, right? So why is going to the next level important for you? And if one of those things, for example, is recognition or feeling more confident or not always having to explain. what you do or what your level is or for example if you're a little bit younger or you look younger you're always seen still as like an assistant or a junior then yes having a title is something that can really really help you. Yeah. And then a lot of people will say, oh, it's not important. Uh, but I, uh, I've been like, I think now I get to the point where for me, indeed, it's maybe a little bit less important because I have my team and all my worth. I have my responsibilities. I had fancy titles. I have less fancy titles. Like, but throughout my entire career, um, uh, when people said it's not important, I was like, uh, yeah, but see, it kind of is a little bit still in this role and especially as a female. So.
Speaker #1
Okay, thank you for this insight, Esther.
Speaker #0
And I think that's one tip. What I think is super important is that When you join a company or also just in general, if you don't know, understand your job letters, right? So understand by looking maybe at roles that are posted within your company. Understand like what is it, what is behind this new level? So what is it actually that you're aiming for and what is behind it? Because sometimes a new title, it doesn't mean anything. You know, maybe you're going from meteor to senior, but it doesn't change anything. But then suddenly when... you go from, I don't know, from lead to head of or to director, suddenly your compensation package changes, right? Or suddenly you can manage a team where before you couldn't manage because you're now on a leadership track and not an individual track. So understand what's behind it, right? Because that will also determine if you should care or not. Because sometimes maybe it's just an ego thing and then, you know. Yeah, maybe you can let it go a little bit more, but if it's actually your compensation or your, you know, your career or your, if you can manage a team, then it is important.
Speaker #1
Of course. Yeah. So it's knowing what is behind the titles.
Speaker #0
And I would then maybe say, so title is something that is given to a level, I think. The level is actually more important. The title is that often comes with it. Sometimes in other companies and maybe in scale ups, it was a little bit more like, oh, pick a title. That'll find it. I think knowing the level behind it. So what are your responsibilities, your task? What is being expected from you? How are you being measured? What does success look like? But also what do you get in return at that level? So what is it that you get? I think that is something. It's important to know what you're aiming for.
Speaker #1
We can end with the three last questions of the podcast that I asked to all my guests. What is the next subject or next topic that you would like to hear in the podcast? Yeah.
Speaker #0
Right. So I'm going to stay true to, I guess, my fintech background a little bit. But I think there's an awesome lady. She works at Checkout.com. Her name is Alyssa Gibson-Wood. She's the VP of product marketing there. I spoke to her a couple of years back at Money 2020, an event. I think she's doing an awesome job because it's a complex product, but they have really, really clear messaging. So I'd love to learn from her.
Speaker #1
And we talk about some resources, books. Do you have any additional book that you recommend to? to better work and to really leverage our strength as women in the tech company.
Speaker #0
Yeah, so I really had a long thing about this because I've listened and read a lot of business books, but I think in the end my tip would be... read for relaxation and for joy because I'm an avid reader and I think it's super important to also have reading as something to relax and not go to bed with a business book. But in the middle and on this topic, I read an amazing book last year, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. And I think they're making a movie out of it now, but it's... exactly about this. So females trying to have a career in a time where that was not very normal, you had to be a housewife. So yeah, it's, I think, a beautiful, beautiful story, but it's really fun and relaxation.
Speaker #1
And where can we reach you?
Speaker #0
Yeah, so LinkedIn only. I did a social detox a year and a half ago, and I stayed in it. It's really good for me. So LinkedIn, I have surf and Google, you can find me there.
Speaker #1
Great. I will put all the information in the description of the podcast.
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
Thank you a lot, but great talking to you.
Speaker #0
Yeah. Thank you very much. And also for letting me learn from you, write these questions that I think are really inspiring.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you. Bye. Bye-bye.

Chapters

Hester's role at Decathlon

0sec

Why diversity topic is important to her

1min

Tackling diversity at a strategic level in a company

4min

Challenges in Product Marketing as a female

8min

Advice to position ourselves as leaders

15min

Senior stakeholder management

23min

Negotiation skills and personal branding

27min

Importance of titles in career path

32min

3 last questions

37min