Chloe M. Danko

I would say my mom and my parents. I have learned so much from my mom alone. Obviously, I have to give so much credit to both my parents and my family, but I would really say my mom. I mean, my mom has taught me so much within this space, and I have learned so much from her in every aspect of my life, professionally and personally. Both my parents have always pushed me since I was young, and there were times where, obviously, I was annoyed and didn't want to listen to them, but I look back and I'm just so thankful that they always did push me to really work hard. Anytime I've ever had a question within the space, and anything, I would always ask her, and she would be able to help me and walk me through everything, right when I first started. Now I've even been to conferences and conventions with her, within the podcast space, and it's so funny, everybody that I talk to is like, oh my god, that's so fun that you get to work with your mom within the space, and get to go to these conferences and stuff with her, and travel with her, which, honestly, yeah, it is amazing, and it's very unique, and it's something I'm very thankful for. I would consider her to be one of my best friends, so it's really fun to be able to travel and work with your best friend sometimes.

The best career advice I’ve ever received is to stay committed to continuous improvement, seek feedback, and learn from both my peers and industry leaders.

My advice to young women entering this industry is to be proactive—attend conferences, network, gain hands-on experience—and remember that success comes from learning by doing and staying adaptable in a fast-changing field.

The media world is evolving day-to-day. Within the last year, a lot of networks and agencies have evolved into a thing called simulcast, which basically is an approach where it's not just podcasting and audio, but it's also the video components on YouTube as well. There's so much involvement and so much change within the media space and the podcast space day to day. Now, we're seeing more of a 360 approach, where we're bringing in social as well, so it's not just audio, but now you're seeing it on video, and you're seeing it on social as well. If you're a customer and a consumer, you're seeing this ad and this advertisement through every single media channel, and we've seen that be extremely successful. Everything's changing day-to-day, and you really don't know what the next thing's gonna be. But what's really helpful is having that little hidden niche where you know what's coming, and you can kind of tell what's gonna come. The main opportunity is really just building out into social components, and really making sure you have this approach that you see on all different types of channels. So it's not just audio, but it's everything now. People are able to learn so much from other people. At every single conference, every single convention, I have learned so much from every single panel. There's so many people discussing certain topics within the space, discussing opportunities, discussing changes, and you learn so much with these things that then you can take that information and kind of bring it into something of your own, and figure out what you want to do next. The opportunity includes building yourself, and starting off possibly as just an ad ops coordinator or media buyer, but then really, within the next few years, being promoted, and then being promoted again, and then even having a similar inspiration that I did, where you want to start your own company, or you want to start your own agency, or network. I see that very frequently in this space, where people are going from building themselves up within a company, and then have the opportunity to start something on their own, and I've seen that be extremely successful with many people.

I'm a very loyal person, so in my personal life, I really value loyalty. What I give to you, I expect back. Maybe not to the full capacity, but I expect you to respect me, and I will respect you back, and if I really go above and beyond for you, I may not expect that back, but I expect you to at least have appreciation for me. I value honesty in my personal and professional life. I value you to be honest with me if I'm not doing as well, I need to work harder on something, I'm missing something, or you need more from me in my personal, professional life. I need you to tell me that. I value constructive, critical feedback. Every day I'm trying to get better and better. That's kind of my motto, every day I am growing, and I'm growing into a new person, I'm getting better every day, so I really value feedback and honesty. I value support. I think that life throws you a lot of curveballs, a lot of obstacles that you may need to overcome, and I think that having that support and that help throughout everything helps a lot. I think that that's very important, whether it's friends and family, or even just your coworkers and your team supporting you through times. In the professional setting, there's a lot of deadlines, there's a lot of tasks that need to be done, there's a lot of extra support for clients, and with my day-to-day, there's a lot of proposals that we're building out, and it's very helpful to have support and to understand where there's areas that need improvement, and areas that you need more support, and more help, and understanding where we can really do better in areas and work together to be better every day. I would say those are definitely my top 3: support, loyalty, and honesty.