International Women’s Day is a celebration of women everywhere held each year on the 8th of March. This year Seeker Digital is celebrating International Women’s Day by sharing our love for a few (of the many) leading ladies in digital across the globe – including our inspirational female team. We’d love to feature more but there’s only so many we could fit into this blog…
Purna Virji: Microsoft – Philadelphia, USA
Being a PPC pro, a polyglot, and a polymath (having previously worked as an award-winning journalist), Purna Virji has an exceptional record of success.
Heralded as the world’s most influential PPC expert in 2016, she joined Microsoft as a Senior Manager in 2017 and went on to be named among the most influential young figures in 2018’s ad industry.
Not content with her own success, Virji is also involved with Janes of Digital, a Microsoft-led platform for supporting women in tech, having moderated meetups on topics such as inclusive storytelling.
Credit: Twitter
Alexandra Tachalova: Alextachalova.com – St Petersburg, Russia
Based in Saint Petersburg and excelling across the globe, Digital Olympus founder Alexandra Tachalova is quite literally leading the way in digital.
Alexandra founded Digital Olympus in 2016. It’s a conference that’s helped over 15,000 people improve their digital skills, covering marketing, SEO, PPC, and more. Digital Olympus’ speakers have featured at Pubcon, SMX (search marketing expo) and Europe’s biggest SEO conference – BrightonSEO.
Along with leading the way as a literal digital leader, Alexandra’s work as seen her employed as SEMrush’s Marketing Director of EMEA Region, and Veeam Software’s Reporting and Analytic Specialist.
Credit: Facebook
Bethany Joy: Bethanyjoy.org – Oxford, UK
With a CV spanning everything from charity comms to agency work, Bethany Joy has more than a few strings to her bow. She currently works solo as a brand voice expert and copywriter, and if you get a chance to see her speaking, we highly recommend it.
What stands out most about Bethany is how she absolutely owns her niche. By her own admission, she doesn’t have the big ideas. But she does know how to deliver those big ideas, giving brands a conduit for their vision that gets them noticed.
Bethany is erudite, talented, and knows her industry inside and out, and 100% deserves her place on this list.
Credit: BethanyJoy
Olga Andrienko: SEMrush – Boston, USA
SEMrush is one of the most popular and consistently-praised SaaS companies in the SEO industry, and a fair amount of that can be attributed to how it’s marketed — with Olga Andrienko leading the way as the Head of Global Marketing.
Having been with SEMrush for over five years, she achieved superb year-on-year growth through targeting new markets as the Head of Social Media, and the magnificent results she produced in 2016 show why she ascended to her current position in 2017.
With her relentless international pursuit of growth, Andrienko is undeniably a promotional powerhouse for this leading SaaS company.
Credit: Facebook
Cathy Pearl: Google – Belmont, USA
Currently Head of Conversation Design Outreach at Google, Cathy Pearl has been bossing UX (specifically voice user interfaces) for nearly twenty years. She’s gained a wealth of knowledge in that time and is widely heralded as a leader in this area.
Cathy specialises in making voice user interfaces the best they can possibly be for user experience. Amongst other things, this means teaching computers to communicate and converse in a more human way, rather than robotically.
She’s worked on everything from a virtual nurse avatar that helps keep people healthy, to NASA helicopter pilot simulators, to a conversational mobile app that offered fashion advice. Pretty impressive.
Credit: Twitter
Geraldine DeRuiter: The Everywhereist – Seattle, USA
Freelance digital writers are a dime a dozen, but few see their skills recognized by two of the globe’s premier publications – TIME Magazine and Forbes Magazine. Clearly, Geraldine DeRuiter is no ordinary writer.
Since graduating from the University of Washington in 2002, Geraldine DeRuiter has written online copy for the toys and games industry, teaching professionals, and travel fans. A gifted copywriter and editor, Geraldine’s excellent travel blog, The Everywhereist, has been ranked one of TIME Magazine’s Top 25 blogs and one of Forbes Magazine’s Top 10 Lifestyle blogs.
An ambassador for women’s rights, Geraldine’s #metoo post, I Made the Pizza Cinnamon Rolls from Mario Batali’s Sexual Misconduct Apology Letter, made her a viral sensation in 2018 – not only is Geraldine leading the way in digital, but she’s also heading the war against gender abuse.
Credit: Facebook
Hannah Butcher: Koozai – Newbury, UK
If you’ve ever seen one of Hannah Butcher’s talks, you know she knows her stuff.
Hannah’s CV is a diverse rainbow of digital, spanning everything from SEO and student journalism to influencer marketing and medical content. She’s held a number of senior roles in a variety of agencies and companies and currently works as the Content Marketing Manager for the digital agency Koozai.
If you ever get the chance to see Hannah talk, go for it. You’ll come away smarter and more passionate about digital than before — guaranteed.
Credit: Twitter
A Talented Female Team At Seeker Digital – Bristol, UK
Seeker Digital features some of the most talented Bristol-based women working in digital, excelling in content, outreach, PR, SEO, and more.
Bethan Forbes is one of our most gifted Digital Copywriters, combining biting wit with precise storytelling to create exquisite content.
Daisy Sawyer is the newest female addition to the team, but as far as Outreach Executives go she’s simply the best.
Then there’s Laura Slingo, our Digital Campaign Manager. We look to Laura for direction, organisation, and inspiration – without her, nothing would get done.
Last but not least is our Creative Director, Kayleigh Töyrä. What does Kayleigh do? Frankly, there’s not a task she doesn’t do – and do expertly, at that.
Some of our other favourite ladies killing it in digital
It’s impossible to write a blog post that features all the ladies killing it in digital (the internet’s just not big enough to support it). While Seeker Digital is obviously a huge fan of each of the eight women we’ve featured, there are just a few more we want to shout about and these blogs, round-ups, news pieces do the job for us!
- Discover The Top Women In Uk Digital As We Conclude The Drum’s 50 Under 30
- 25 Influential Women In Digital Marketing Who Rocked And Inspired In 2018
- Top Women In Welsh Technology To Be Announced At Digital Festival
- The World’s Top 50 Women In Tech
- 26 Remarkable Women Of Digital Marketing You Must Follow On Social Media
International Women’s Day is a time to celebrate the achievements of ladies living everywhere, and these eight women leading the way in digital are all worthy of our attention. But don’t make 8th March the only date you recognise women – each and every day is an opportunity to talk about women doing great things, so shout let and proud every chance you get.
