Top 11 Women In Marketing You Should Absolutely Follow And Learn From
Has it already been 113 years? Gosh.
The first International Women’s Day was celebrated in 1911 in just a few European countries. In 2024, it has gone global.
As THE online marketing magazine, we want to just take a step back from the hustle and bustle of our daily lives and just appreciate the great work of the top women in marketing.
But before we discuss the amazing work of the women in marketing leadership on our list, let’s first discuss the importance of discussing this topic more often.
Why do we need to be more aware of and talk more about women in marketing leadership?
Marketing has the stereotype of being a female-dominated field.
And having completed a few stints in marketing agencies and speaking to friends, I can see where this stereotype came from.
Despite this, the field of marketing in its entirety is pretty much still male-dominated when it comes to leadership.
Just take a look at the number of women in senior management roles. Just look at the number of women in stereotypically more ‘masculine’ industries like tech and finance.
Representation matters.
There’s strong evidence in psychology that shows how positive representation can help improve the self-esteem of people (particularly youths) from groups that have traditionally not been portrayed positively.
Having more positive and visible representations of women in marketing leadership can give young girls and women good role models to inspire them to strive for greater heights.
Shermin Lim, Events Marketing Manager at Ahrefs
Shermin Lim has achieved remarkable feats in event management and digital marketing, showcasing her innovative skills and leadership.
In her prior role at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), she transitioned from Events Operations to becoming their first-ever Digital Event Specialist, where she organized RICS’s inaugural global digital conference across four time zones.
This event earned her a quarterly award and saw her independently handle all technical support using a new platform, CVENT, a remarkable accomplishment given the cross-continental nature of the event. Additionally, Shermin led RICS's first hybrid event and their first-ever overseas conference in India, where she managed diverse cultural and logistical challenges single-handedly.
Ahrefs Evolve, the first-ever SEO conference in Singapore, drew 500 people from around the world.
At Ahrefs, Shermin continued to redefine excellence in event marketing by leading the company’s first SEO-focused conference in Singapore—Ahrefs Evolve. As part of a dynamic two-women team, she orchestrated an event attended by 500 digital marketing professionals from around the globe, including participants from countries like Serbia and Romania. The event attracted 18 of the top speakers in the SEO industry, making Ahrefs Evolve a landmark event for digital marketing in Asia.
Shermin’s proven ability to drive high-impact events on a global scale, coupled with her resourcefulness and commitment to delivering excellence, rightfully positions her among the top women in marketing today.
Aleyda Solís, International SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti
Aleyda needs no introduction in the SEO community. Probably one of the most well-renowned SEO consultants in the world, she has over a decade worth of experience doing SEO for companies in Europe, Latin America, and the US. Some of them include Zillow, Sage, Delivery Hero, VF Corporation, and Under Armour.
What I find really admirable about Aleyda is how much she gives back. She created a list of free SEO tools and resources on LearningSEO.IO that everyone can use to improve on their SEO knowledge regardless of the level of experience they’re at. She even has an SEO podcast called Crawling Mondays where she shares useful insights on what the best SEO practices are.
Aleyda even collaborated with Nigerian SEO Copywriter Chima Mmeje to put together some technical SEO training sessions to make technical SEO accessible to people from developing countries and diversify the technical SEO community.
Dr. Farah Diba Abrantes Braga, Assistant Professor of Marketing
Dr. Abrantes Braga (more affectionately known as Farah) is an academic who specializes in marketing and behavioural science.
Her research focuses on investigating factors that affect consumers' financial well-being. These include credit usage, payment modes, digital payment, and social media usage. She aims to use her findings to come up with practical solutions to:
Help consumers to make better financial decisions
Encourage corporations to adopt better marketing practices
Encourage policymakers to design policies that improve the welfare of vulnerable consumers
Farah has achieved great success in her academic career and has presented at international conferences such as the Association for Consumer Research Conference, and the American Marketing Association Summer Academic Conference.
Prior to her academic career, Farah was in senior marketing roles in the private sectors such as financial services. She was a former faculty member at the Insper Learning Institution in São Paulo, Brazil. Farah currently resides in Barcelona, Spain.
Eden Bidani, Conversion Copywriter & Founder at Greenlight Copy
Eden is a well-known conversion copywriter with a significant online presence and following. At the time of this article’s publication, she has close to 13,000 people following her on LinkedIn.
As a specialist in SaaS and tech conversion copywriting, she often shares useful copywriting tips in her LinkedIn to help her followers improve their acquisition rates.
Being an expert in the field, it’s no wonder that Eden has been invited to speak at conferences such as Conversion Hotel, as well as podcasts such as marketing podcasts.
Rena Tan, Founder at Inspirena
With over 25 years of marketing and communications experience, Rena (Tan) Ling is perhaps one of the best in her field.
Her experiences include a proven track record in product and business development, licensing and merchandising, TV and radio production, advertising, events management, branding strategy, digital marketing, content development, as well as managing public relations and communications projects on a regional scale.
Rena’s best asset, however, is in building and leading teams and developing them into high potentials - successful future-ready marketers with strong commercial acumen and innovative flair.
Back in 2016, she even led Ranstad’s marketing team to win the Best Back Office Team in the 2016 Recruitment International Asia Awards, and the Best Use of Social Media award at the Global Recruiter Awards in 2016.
Most recently, the team even won the Best Recruitment Agency Marketing Team (Singapore) award at the 2020 Global Banking and Finance Awards. Rena was the former Regional Head of Marketing and Communications at Randstad Singapore.
Nkiru Olumide-Ojo, Africa Regions Executive Head, Marketing Corporate Communication & CSI
Nkiru Olumide-Ojo has 20 years of experience in marketing. Her work experience spans various sectors including Financial Services, Aviation, Telecommunication, as well as Oil and Gas.
Olumide-Ojo currently works as Executive Head, Regional Marketing and Communications at Standard Bank Group South Africa. As part of her role, Nkiru also has also sat on the boards of Stanbic IBTC Trustees Limited and CMC Connect Burtson Masteller.
She is currently leading a diverse team across Africa to help multinational and national brands in Nigeria and other African Markets achieve their business objectives.
She also runs a social impact agency and has completed projects with international impact organizations. These included the United Nations world food program, Global Fund across various African countries.
Alexandra Cote, Growth Marketing Manager
Alexandra is a Growth Marketing Manager at Wynter, a B2B buyer intelligence tool.
She is huge advocate of advocate SaaS growth marketer and product-led growth.
With a passion for product and content marketing, conversion rate optimization, artificial intelligence, and keyword research, she launched her very own content marketing newsletter, The Content Odyssey.
On LinkedIn, she frequently shares great content marketing tips. If that’s something you’re keen on learning more about, give her a follow!
Alex Hikasa, Principal and Content Marketer
Alex is a Principal at Fresh and Only Marketing, an independent content marketing and consulting business.
She specializes in buyer persona development, copywriting, content development, content marketing strategy, research and planning, and SEO.
Prior to setting up her own company, Alex had accumulated years of valuable experience in content marketing for large tech firms. She was Head of Global Content Marketing for LinkedIn, Content Marketing Manager at Salesforce, and Senior Copywriter at Paypal.
Geraldine Wong, Head of Marketing and E-commerce, Sephora
Geraldine has over 20 years of experience as a marketer. Notably, she has established herself as an expert marketer in industries that are male-dominated.
Some of these include the types of tech industries such as consumer tech.
Some of her previous roles include Country Head of Marketing at Uber, Central Marketing Organization Lead at Microsoft, Country Marketing Manager at Nokia, and Head of Marketing and Communications at Sony Electronics.
She specializes in developing branding and positioning strategies in both the B2C and B2B tech spaces.
Aika N. Sawai, Marketing and Communications Director, Loewe
Aika is the Director of Marketing and Communications at Loewe, an international luxury brand.
There, she oversees a variety of marketing functions such as brand strategy, content production, digital transformation, and media planning.
As a Japanese native who grew up being exposed to American, Italian, Japanese, and Thai cultures, she enjoys being exposed to people of different backgrounds. This can be seen in her work, such as Loewe’s ‘Exploring Identities’ campaign launched in 2020. Prior to her role at Loewe, Aika was the Managing Director of AKQA Japan, a design and innovation company.
Amor Maclang, Co-founder, GeiserMaclang
Amor Maclang is a reputation and brand architect.
At just 24 years old, she co-founded GeiserMaclang, which went on to become one the top public relations firms in the Philippines.
She is a specialist in communications, marketing, and public relations in several tech fields. Some of these include digital transformation, blockchain, crypto currency and other emerging technologies
Amor also plays an active role in social causes. She leads businesses that make a positive impact on the country and champions farmers’ rights by helping to raise awareness for their issues.
Let’s celebrate all women in marketing!
We have made huge strides in female representation in marketing leadership and that, in and of itself, is worth celebrating.
However, we aren't quite there yet.
Many negative stereotypes of women marketing leaders still exist. While I don’t think it’s possible to eliminate these stereotypes 100%, there is always more to be done when it comes to combating such prejudices.
Representation should never be the final goal; instead, it should be a means to the end that is equity.
Happy International Women’s Day!
