Jenn Roberts Ma

I see my success as still a work in progress, so I continue to seek mentors and peers, both in my industry and other industries, to learn from and gain inspiration from. But I think overall, my progress thus far, and any future success I have, would be attributed to having a strong network of mentors, both in my industry and other industries, and having people in my personal life who have believed in me and championed me, even when I've doubted myself.

Early on in my career, I remember being at a company meeting where we were brainstorming ideas. I raised my hand and shared some ideas, and after the meeting, my manager took me aside and said, 'You know, Jen, those were all really great ideas, but you were apologizing for your ideas and almost giving people an out to not follow up with additional questions.' She told me that I should never say sorry in a professional context. She explained that the word sorry, the root of sorry is sorrow, and nothing at work should elicit sorrow. You especially should never apologize or create an out for your ideas. That was something that has always stuck with me, and it's something I continue to remind myself. It was just a strong influence in terms of how I present myself in a professional setting.

I would give probably the same advice to any woman entering any field, which is that the idea that you can do it all is a faulty one. No one can do it all. You have to pick what your priorities are in the different seasons of your life. You can't always be 100%, all-star in every area. I think there's a lot of pressure on women across industries to excel at everything all at once, and just to know that there's kind of a time and a place for everything, and part of the journey is figuring out what to focus on when. So, I think that would be my advice.

It's probably not surprising that I would say AI in terms of it being both a major opportunity and challenge. In communications, we're all, you know, nobody really knows what the next direction is going to be. My personal stance on AI is that I think it can open many opportunities if you use it right in the hands of good communicators who know what they're doing and truly use it as a tool and not a crutch. It can be very valuable, but at the same time, in the hands of someone who doesn't really know what they're doing and doesn't understand communications and content, it can actually be a detriment and make your work worse. So, I would say that AI presents a lot of opportunities in terms of learning how to better scale content, how to more efficiently do research, better understand the needs of your audience, how to get ideas or models for other work in the industry that maybe you can reference as a model. So I think it presents a lot of exciting opportunities. And at the same time, it's a challenge because communicators are increasingly, I would expect, need to be able to demonstrate authenticity and be able to use AI in a way that doesn't dilute what they're saying, but just helps them maybe get to it a little bit faster.

I would say it sounds so basic, but empathy and empathy. Really trying to always remind yourself that there's another perspective, and trying to put yourself in another person's shoes before you do or say something, and always keeping in mind where they're coming from. I think that's important both in a professional sense and a personal sense, because I think empathy helps you be, certainly in the communications industry, helps you understand what your client wants to get across in their communications. But also, helping from a business development perspective in terms of what they're coming to you for, what they will most benefit from your expertise. So empathy can help you in a business environment, and it can help you certainly in improving your communications. And then on a personal sense, empathy is so essential for building strong friendships, strong relationships in your life, and your personal life and your career are so interconnected. When you have a healthy and vibrant personal network that is supportive and where you can support them and they can support you, you do better in your professional work as well.