Women CEOs are few, but wow, they make a difference to this world. Wish there were more of them.
Take Mary Wells Lawrence, the first woman to own and run a major national agency in the United States, and the first woman to be a CEO of a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company was Wells Rich Greene, which she sold in 1990 for $160-million.
She understood that by combining emotional and rational elements you get the best out of people, campaigns, clients and brands.
It’s 1975. New York City is declared bankrupt and its citizens are desperate. The city is wracked by strikes and it is the murder capital of the world. Wells Rich Greene is tasked to improve its image in order to bring in some dollars. It’s a really tough tourism brief. But Mary Wells Lawrence has an epiphany: people, no matter where they are from and whether they know the reality of New York, love the spirit of New York.
So, Mary calls up Milton Glaser, and briefs him in a taxi to design a logo/bumper-sticker for people to get behind. He scrawls an idea before they get out of the cab:
This later becomes:
And the rest of the story we all know.
Or take Tara Turkington, CEO of Flow Communications and one of South Africa’s winning women.
She’s a bit of an enigma. As is the company that began in a room shared by her baby, her dogs and her first Flow colleague, Richard Frank, who now heads Flow’s web development team.
“We have clients we enjoy and staff we regard as the best at what they do. We find excellent people and then source jobs for them. That sometimes means we have people without jobs or, conversely, jobs with no one to do them,” says Tara.
Case in point. Newly appointed Flow writer Thrishni Subramoney, who was Tara’s student at the Durban Institute of Technology in 2002, before spending 12 years in broadcast journalism at the SABC and East Coast Radio, says about working at Flow under Tara’s leadership: “It feels like a learning environment. The same things that I experienced from her as a teacher – being challenged to learn new things, to push the boundaries – are present. I kind of feel like a first-year.”
Much has been written about Flow Communications and its unique and progressive philosophy. “One of the things that makes Flow unusual is the mutual respect that permeates the staff. Regardless of the stage of their career or which demographic they fall into, each person is recognised as worthy and valuable. This includes women, who have historically been overlooked or disregarded in the business world,” reads to a blog on Flow’s website.
A City Press tweet reads as follows: "Winning Women: Tara Turkington started her company in her home seven years ago. Today, it bills millions every month."
Tara is not to be ignored.
Last week she was invited to attend and speak at the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) conference, at the Kopanong Hotel in Benoni. The conference offered an open floor for women to provide insight on the kind of support required in the tourism sector.
According to Beulah Mosupye, the chief director of Domestic Tourism Northern Region at the national Department of Tourism, 80 invited women attended – all of whom buy into the importance of "this kind of platform and will go on to become agents or ambassadors to recruit other women".
The speakers, who included Deputy Tourism Minister Tokozile Xasa and Deputy Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, set about unpacking the three pillars of the forum: respect for women in the sector; recognition for their efforts; and representation.
Tara’s session was on personal branding, particularly through social media. She started off by challenging the attendees with a quiz on social media and went on to provide 10 tips for successful online branding.
Mosupye says Tara was one of the final speakers and injected much-needed energy into the day's proceedings: "Tara's talk was of immense value. Most of the women present were young and all appreciated the gems that Tara shared on the use of various social media platforms. The quiz also gave the delegates ideas for platforms they hadn't necessarily considered and ought to explore."
Apparently Tara asked one of the two deputy ministers the following question: “If you’re not on Twitter, how are you planning to become president?” It’s your guess which one.
Her 10 tips are:
- Comment frequently
- Be current
- Have conversations
- Be your (complex) self
- Listen
- Promote others more than yourself
- Offer value
- Innovate
- Be responsible
- Be passionate
If one analyses this list, the emotional and rational aspects that Mary Wells Lawrence so believed in predominate. The same qualities are prevalent when reading some of the articles and blogs of Flow and that Tara has written.
Even the photographs she takes display “heart and head” qualities. This is profound and moving at the same time.
Kevin Collins, strategist at Flow, discusses Tara’s “heart and head” leadership as follows: “There’s a very warm logic that organically drives Tara’s ability to match emotion and objective around this place, South Africa. This belief in South Africa will do good for South Africa.”
Tiffany Turkington-Palmer, managing director of Flow (and sister of Tara, who is a ball of positive energy herself), praises “Tara’s ability to envision a future and to make connections out of everything”.
Interestingly, Tara’s Skype identity looks like this:
Note the slogan.
Women CEOs are few, but wow, they make a difference to this world. Look out for our next president. She’ll be on Twitter.
