Jen Hayes Lee Of The Bump On How We Can Increase Women’s Engagement in Leadership and Management

Providing access to professional development tools such as executive coaches, leadership programs, and intra-company mentorship will positively impact women’s engagement in leadership and management. I’m currently participating in a leadership development program, and it’s been great to trade stories with my peers about their career journeys, wins, and challenges.

Despite strides towards equality, women remain underrepresented in leadership and management roles across various sectors. In this series, we would like to discuss the barriers to female advancement in these areas and explore actionable strategies for change. We are talking with accomplished women leaders, executives, and pioneers who have navigated these challenges successfully, to hear their experiences, tactics, and advice to inspire and guide the next generation of women toward achieving their full potential in leadership and management roles. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Jen Hayes Lee.

Jen Hayes Lee is a passionate content champion and Marketing executive, dedicated to the creation of culturally relevant, inclusive storytelling, developed to inspire and empower families of color. As the Head of Marketing at The Bump, Jen stewards Editorial and Marketing initiatives to support parents and parents-to-be as they navigate life with baby.Jen studied Marketing & Communications at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and was later selected as a recipient of the Consortium Academic Fellowship, earning an MBA at NYU Stern School of Business.Prior to joining The Bump, Jen worked across the Media and Technology space, leading brand strategy and audience engagement efforts at Hearst, Complex Media Networks and Saks Fifth Avenue, launching multi platform campaigns for Coca-Cola, Macy’s, McDonald’s, EA Sports and more. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Son of a Saint, an organization committed to transforming the lives of fatherless boys through mentorship and the development of life skills.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I’m originally from New Orleans and attended college in Atlanta, GA. I guess you could say I’ve been building campaigns as the President of the Diversity Club, exploring media as the EIC of my high school yearbook, and host of a public access talk show called Teen Expressions and growing with teams since I played varsity soccer as a teenager. After a few successful college internships in consumer packaged goods and advertising, I looked down at the piles of magazines spilling over on my coffee table, and something clicked. I knew I had to move to NYC to pursue magazine publishing.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

There have been several interesting moments, but one that pops out happened early in my career. I remember going to an industry event where I attended a panel discussion at the Center for Communications in NYC. I may have arrived a bit late but once seated, I couldn’t help but stare at the panelist who was introduced as the founder of BuzzFeed. After the event ended, I noticed that he was looking at me too as if he knew me …and that’s when it clicked! The panelist, founder of BuzzFeed, and later co-founder of Huffington Post, Jonah Perretti, was my 12th grade computer teacher when he was fresh out of MIT! I was young and relatively new to the city at the time and it was one of those moments that affirmed that if you dreamt big and were willing to take a few risks, the possibilities were endless.

Can you share a pivotal moment in your career that significantly influenced your path to leadership?

After moving to NYC and working in media for seven years, I pursued an MBA at NYU Stern in the whole time program. It helped me learn the importance of developing strong teams with a diverse knowledge base. On its face, attending business school is a competitive process, and you continue to compete long after being admitted. But it’s not just about being the most intelligent person in the class. The most strategic people are looking around the room to determine who they should build with in the future.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I wish I could share a great story about a singular mentor, but the truth is that I don’t have one mentor who is the invisible hand of my career. I can say that I’ve had my eyes and ears open since day one, and I’ve gotten comfortable with being uncomfortable when necessary. I’ve been picking up wisdom in various forms from various places and putting it into action. I’ve also had incredible managers who have trusted me and had an authentic desire to see me succeed by allowing me to pursue opportunities to punch above my weight class and learn on the job.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Years ago, I read By Invitation Only, a book written by the founders of Gilt Groupe and how they fundamentally changed how people shopped. It highlighted the importance of resilience and adaptability, the power of networking, the significance of building great teams, and the value of betting on yourself to imagine something new that has never been done before.

Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?

The way you do anything is the way you do everything. I picked that up from my former manager at Seventeen Magazine in my 20s. How you respond to an email, present to a crowd, or even handle yourself in the elevator bank makes a difference. You never know who is watching or where your next opportunity comes from. I remember being pregnant on a hot summer day, taking a subway on 125th St. down to midtown. I struck up a conversation with the guy sitting next to me, who happened to be Don Lemon, and he asked me if I was looking for a job before he got off on his stop. You always have to present yourself the way you want to be remembered.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Next summer, I’m releasing my debut children’s book, The Golden Hoops, with HarperCollins. It’s about discovering the power from within. I wrote it while I was on maternity leave with my youngest son. Empowering young people to have confidence and believe in themselves can improve the world.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this report, only about 31.7% of top executive positions across industries are held by women. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from leadership and management?

The decisions women have to make around family planning and the trade-off with our careers are fundamental. It’s a win that parental leave policies are starting to improve, but women are still primarily seen as the primary caregivers in the home, even when working full-time jobs. We address this in The Bump Future of Parenting Report. Pay gaps between women and men don’t help either. Ultimately, a 2-parent house will typically place the bet on whoever has the highest earning potential. With pay inequities and the natural cycle of having kids, the path to leadership and management for women is not impossible but likely less linear.

This might be intuitive to you but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become leaders and managers?

Women are incredible. We’re strategic thinkers who consider the breadth and depth of a challenge and develop solutions that are most likely to minimize risk and yield the most favorable outcomes. My point is that women are equipped to do it all.

Can you please share “5 Things We Need To Increase Women’s Engagement in Leadership and Management?”

1 . Seeing is believing, and women need to see other women occupying top positions in leadership, from the executive team to the board of directors. I was the assistant to the Publisher of a popular weekly celebrity magazine in my first role out of college. She was a masterful sales leader who was also graceful, impeccably dressed, and ran the show fearlessly while maintaining a human element. Not to mention, Vicci was also a married mother of twins. Observing and learning from her in my first role only bolstered my career ambitions as a young woman.

2 . Creating safe workspaces where team members are encouraged to contribute uniquely is also critical. Whether you’re male or female, everyone consumes information and communicates differently. The most effective teams are diverse and find ways to embrace those differences to form super teams that consider all perspectives and methods of communication to build toward solutions. I’ve worked in environments fueled by intimidation where only a handful of voices mattered. I can only imagine brilliant ideas that have never reached the surface. That’s why I’m intentional about engaging my entire team to ensure they can feel heard.

3 . Offering flexible work benefits is the most tactical and easiest way to make strides towards increasing women’s engagement in leadership and management. The pandemic changed us, and society has evolved. We need organizations to reflect the demands of the executive’s whole life, including meeting personal and family demands outside of the workplace. If a company is unwilling to instill flexibility into the team culture and how it operates, it will eventually miss out on top talent. My team at The Knot Worldwide encourages employees to feel empowered to take time off when needed and use our PTO. It’s one of the many ways they’ve developed employee-centric benefits. As a result, I’m endeared to the company, and I’m working for a place that cares about my well-being. And I pour back into it tenfold.

4 . Providing access to professional development tools such as executive coaches, leadership programs, and intra-company mentorship will positively impact women’s engagement in leadership and management. I’m currently participating in a leadership development program, and it’s been great to trade stories with my peers about their career journeys, wins, and challenges.

5 . Being transparent about your company’s commitment to cultivating a diverse workforce and identifying the gaps is a good start. This will create a baseline from which to benchmark, remove the blinders, and assure your teams that it is indeed a priority for the entire organization to embrace female leadership. From there, you can take actionable steps to seek external support and transform that commitment into action.

In your opinion, what systemic changes are needed to facilitate more equitable access for women to leadership roles?

We need to close the gender pay gap, and we need to close all of the pay gaps.

What strategies have you found most effective in mentoring and supporting other women to pursue leadership positions?

Effective mentorship starts with listening and helping your mentee identify what they truly want from a role, the company, career, or life. Once you illuminate that, you can collaborate with them to build a road map.

How would you advise a woman leader about how to navigate the challenges of being a woman in a leadership role within a male-dominated industry?

If you find yourself in a position where you are the minority, you can turn it into a superpower. Why? Because to be effective in your role, you have to think like the majority, and you have the minority POV — two for one! I don’t want to discredit the challenges of being a trailblazer and “one of the only” people in the room who look like you. But if you learn to fill the gaps where others have blind spots, you can break through and deliver unexpectedly.

How do you balance the demand for authoritative leadership with the stereotypical expectations of female behavior in professional settings?

I’ve been a part of a team or leading teams for over 20 years. The most effective and only way I know how to show up is authentically. My leadership style is founded on trust, encouraging creativity, and aiming for high expectations. Authority is born out of respect. My goal is always to nurture my team to feel empowered and aligned to achieve the same North Star.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I’m on a mission to inspire confidence in young women of color. Self-belief is a fundamental ingredient for success and happiness. I want my work to reflect the possibility of what can be so that others will see themselves reflected in that pursuit and dare to leap.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

You can follow me on Linkedin and The Golden Hoop Project.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.