#WomensMonth: Deidre Lodwig, MTN United MD – One day we can stop fighting for our space

While Deidre Lodwig, managing director MTN United, an agency outfit that services MTN across 17 markets in Africa looks at how women can eventually stop having to fight for their space. Image supplied.

“I appreciate the opportunity to reflect on the women who have gone before us, fought for us, and paved the way to get us here.

“May we continue to do the same for our daughters, and the generations to come, in hopes that one day, we can stop fighting for our space,” she says.

What inspired you to pursue a career in your field?

I got into marketing by accident. I like to say that I didn’t choose it, it chose me. I had no idea what I wanted to become when I finished matric, so my dad encouraged me to study something in communications.

I ended up getting a BA in Corporate Communications, and my marketing and sociology majors were my favourite subjects.

I stayed because I developed a passion for understanding people, for what drives their behaviours and choices, and then for finding creative solutions that help brands resonate and sell.

Now, I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.

As a woman, what are some of the biggest challenges you have faced in your career, and how did you overcome them?

Having a seat at the table. Women are taught to let their work speak for them and so we end up in endless cycles of putting in all our efforts into demonstrating results, which only makes us good at doing the work, and doesn’t give us the platform to lead.

However, it’s difficult to promote or assert ourselves like men do, mostly because of bias and intrinsics.

What helped me was the understanding that there is a need for women to be sponsored. Find someone influential to speak for you, and to give you the platform to be heard.

It’s been my way of bucking the system I guess. Finding someone who will open the door, give me a seat, and then let me present my case.

I’ve been fortunate to have men and women do this for me, in various phases of my career, and I’ve made it my mission to pay it forward.

As a woman, how do you approach leadership? What do you believe are the key qualities of an effective leader and how is being a woman an advantage and a disadvantage?

For me, the most important leadership quality is empathy. Understanding that the people you lead are driven differently and require different levels of support.

There is no one-size-fits-all. I live by the quote that people will only follow you as far as you’re willing to go yourself. To lead is to clear the way. That’s it.

I don’t believe in putting people in positions that they are unable to fulfil at their best. It’s demotivating for them, and frustrating for everyone else.

My leadership strategy is to ensure that I have good people, who understand their roles and responsibilities, are able, with some direction, to get the job done, and who know when to escalate when they need support.

My job is to ensure that there is clarity, vision, and a clear mission.

I think my women’s intuition and natural lean towards nurturing have helped me. My team have voiced their appreciation for the support, acknowledgement and sense of trust I place in them.

The disadvantage is always getting passed the biases that exist around women regarding temperament, mood, and ability to hold people accountable, but I’ve learned that with consistency and authenticity, those can be overcome as well.

What initiatives or projects are you most proud of, and why do you believe they were successful?

In the last year, I was challenged to bring efficiency, consistency and integration to the MTN United team, across 17 African markets.

The job was to ensure a high-quality results-driven creative output, for an established brand, targeted at varying consumers on an economically challenged continent.

While the teams all did what was required of them, there was a lot of duplication, inconsistency in execution, and a misalignment of what MTN needed to achieve.

So, very simply, we started a pan-African brand council, attended by all strategists and creatives from different agencies across the continent (about 153 people), who presented their work to each other with the sole aim of sharing, discussing and assessing briefs, strategies and creative executions.

No egos, no sensitivities or fear, no market or creative better than the other.

In doing so, we created a community of creative experts from different agencies that collaborated, co-created and drove the ethos of one team, uniting behind one mission – to produce the work we’re most proud of.

In an industry that is as competitive as ours, where people are precious about their ideas, and where their work is a reflection on them, achieving this pulling together and putting themselves out there, was no mean feat.

We achieved it through a consistent narrative, inclusion and representation by all markets, and simply providing the platform and getting out of the way.

What advice would you give to other women aspiring to succeed in your industry?

1. Recognise your allies and lean on them for opportunity. You cannot walk this road alone. You need good people to push you, to be honest with you, and to open doors for you.
   
2. Back yourself up. When you’re presenting your work, ensure that you have evidence. Demonstrate results. Understand the data and insights that are driving your proposals. Do your homework. So that you can’t be questioned, and so that you build trust.
   
3. Don’t be quiet. If you have an idea, a question, a statement, present it with your chest. Everyone will expect you to be quiet and to go along with popular opinion. Don’t.