OYP Episode 04: Sara Alloy
Sara, Associate Creative Director at Publicis Sapient, talks about how key bravery and boldness are to overcome the barriers and obstacles that minorities and other underrepresented groups often face.
Interview
Ashley Snow - Welcome to the Own Your Potential Podcast, where you'll hear stories from leaders across the globe about how they've taken control of their career growth and lessons on how you can too. I'm Ashley Snow, and this is Episode Four with Sara Alloy, bravery and boldness. Sara, can you tell us a little bit about your career background?
Sara Alloy - Sure. So I'm a UX designer, and I've been in the field about 12 years, I've always worked in agencies. I've been with Publicis Sapient, about four years. I'm a boomerang. So I was originally in the New York office for about two years. And I've recently come back to the Arlington office where I've been for the past two years or so as well.
Ashley Snow - Do you think there's a social stigma around self promotion? And if so, what do you think we can do to challenge that perception?
Sara Alloy - Yeah, I absolutely think that there's a stigma around self promotion. I think a lot of times people want to be recognized for things, but they're afraid to raise their hand and kind of put themselves forward for women and minorities more than anybody else, we have a really hard time of kind of standing forward and saying, hey this is the work that I've been doing. And I should be recognized for that. And it should have a positive impact on my career. So I do think it's a hard thing to kind of battle. But it's definitely a really important thing. We need to work on having a little bit more self confidence and a little less imposter syndrome, and standing behind the work that we do and promoting ourselves.
Ashley Snow - You're exactly right. Research has shown that women, minorities and other underrepresented groups are particularly prone to self doubt. What advice would you give to someone who is struggling to be their own best self advocate?
Sara Alloy - I think we're taught that honestly, I think you it gets modeled for us starting as early as in our homes and in our schools, and kind of where we are recognized and how we are recognized for our accomplishments. And we're taught to kind of take that step back. And again, either wait to be recognized or that, you know, stepping up and say, Hey, I should be recognized for this is going to be wrong or detrimental. And there's, I think, a lot of fear around the idea that maybe we could lose our jobs or somehow be otherwise penalized for stepping up and kind of trying to take ownership of our own accomplishments. When it comes to combating it, I think it's a really tough thing. To be honest, I think it takes a lot of bravery and a lot of boldness that either people just are not trained to have, you know, and again, specifically women or minorities are not trained to have that kind of Outlook. But I do think that something to remember is if you're in the job that you're in, you are valued. And I think a lot of times, if you feel like you should be recognized for something and you feel like you should be acknowledged, like you're not making it up in your head.
Ashley Snow - Can you give an example of a time that you've advocated for yourself, or played an active role in your professional growth and development, and what you've learned from that experience?
Sara Alloy - So the company that I worked for just previous to being a publicist, sapient, when I came into that company, I basically started the creative practice that they had in Charlotte, North Carolina. And so that involves me teaching an entire company, how to hire creative people, how to sell creative, work appropriately, that was actually going to, you know, net positive results, how to staff those people how to make those people billable, which tools to use. So I basically, was starting up creative practice or credit agency for this consultancy. And at the end of maybe a year and a half or so I had taken their revenue for their creative accounts from a couple $100,000 to over four and a half million dollars. And so there were these really tangible things we had grown to 16 people, I had, you know, had to advocate and make business cases all the way up to the COO and the CEO, as to why we should be growing in this way. And so doing literally everything that you would think that you should do for someone to say like, Hey, you maybe you should be a director in this organization. Like you're working really hard, you're doing all these things, you're making a lot of money, you're growing our staff, you're creating culture, all the things that you're supposed to do. And I met a lot of resistance, and they kind of said, We don't you know, you are an associate director and we don't really think you should be a director. And I was kind of taken aback by that. I was also the only woman in that particular environment and all the other creative directors were men. And so I was kind of like, Okay, well, what is it that I need to do to be a creative director or be a director of this organization when I'm clearly doing this, like extensive laundry list of very tangible things, and they came back and they kind of didn't honestly have a great response to me as to why I couldn't be a director. It was kind of, maybe you need, you know, a couple more skills here or some more training there. And I'm like, Okay, great. And I went out and I did those things. As a guard, I've got these certifications. I've done this training. I'm not a director, why is that? And so they kind of kept coming back. And it kind of occurred to me that it was a moving target. I was lucky because I had a really strong advocate for me. And he kind of sat down with me and he said, I'm as frustrated as you are, that this isn't happening for you because you clearly deserve it. You clearly earn it. He was able to help me put together a case that was undeniably in favor of me being promoted to a creative director and I was I was finally promoted to be their first female creative director. The reason I tell that story is because sometimes you're doing all the right things like on the outside again, if to anyone else looking in I had this very, very strong list of things that I had done. That should be irrefutable. And I was standing up for myself and being very vocal and saying, I deserve this. I've earned this, please give this to me and just getting met with no, no, no over and over again. And so the reason why it's important is because sometimes it doesn't matter how much you stand up for yourself. Or if you have like really strong case, you have to have those sponsors and those advocates to help push you through. And so I think, again, especially for for women in the minority population, I think it's important to identify those people who can help sponsor and advocate for you at the higher levels of the organization, because for whatever reason, there's you know, there's a lot of biases, and it's not always just about what you're putting down on paper as your qualifications for moving forward. Sometimes it takes somebody else to to help you can kind of say, hey, as, as a VP, as a director, as the CEO, whoever it may be, this person should be pushed to the next level. This person should be recognized and celebrated and we need to take care of that. It may not always come from you.