‘Don’t lead like a woman’: Industry leaders reveal the worst advice they’ve been given

At the 2019 Mumbrella NeXt conference, up and comers in the industry were able to anonymously ask industry leaders questions about what life is really like at the top. Here, Brittney Rigby recaps some of their key insights, including the worst advice they have been given, and how they manage to ‘switch off’.

When a panel of industry leaders was asked for the worst advice they’ve ever received, Coles CMO Lisa Ronson’s answer came first: “Don’t lead like a woman”. But for Katie Rigg-Smith, CEO of Group M’s Mindshare, the worst advice-giver has sometimes been herself.

WPP’s John Steedman tapped her on the shoulder in 2013, when she was chief strategy officer, and offered her the CEO position. That weekend, her boyfriend proposed, and she spiralled into doubt.

“I’m 34, I want to have a baby, there are no other female CEOs at many media agencies to emulate. I can’t possibly do this and have a baby,” she thought.

“I texted Steady and said, ‘We just got engaged. I’m going to want to have children. Give it to someone else’. No-one knows about this yet,” she told a room of up-and-coming industry talent at Mumbrella’s NeXt conference.

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