Celebrating International Women’s Month
To mark International Women’s Month, we checked in with the women of DV from across our 13 centers around the world to hear their stories and ask what IWD means to them.
Anastasia Demetriou, Associate Engineer, BCGDV London
“I worked as an Executive Assistant in our London center before I did a 9-week coding intensive course. After that I moved to Australia and started my internship in Engineering in our Sydney center, while also working as a design freelancer and travelling around. After going through the regular interview process, I re-joined London as an Engineer. What I enjoy about my work is that DV engineering operates in cross-cohort teams, so you’re always in a nice, varied environment. It’s a great place to work, learn and grow!
IWD is something that should be celebrated, but it’s also a reminder of the oppression that women have gone through and continuously have to still go through”.
Erika Arnold, Senior Growth Architect, BCGDV Berlin
“After working in public policy and research, and helping to build up an early stage startup in education technology, I joined DV as a Growth Architect. I am responsible for the go-to-market strategies for our ventures. I wanted to join DV because of its professional and challenging environment, yet I quickly realised that it’s the people with their unique skills and backgrounds that make this place most special. The combination of these two things makes DV the ideal place for me, a place to grow and stay curious.
Talking about diversity and women in the workplace, there are many areas where the female voice is underrepresented. As part of my day-to-day job I noticed how valuable it is for our ventures to bring in a female perspective and build products taking women’s needs into account — there are still so many opportunities to explore, e.g. in finance and healthcare.
I would not only like to live in a world where changes are being made for women, but where women also change things for themselves: Have the courage to go your own way, own what you like, do it with passion and do it well.”
Lizzi Clubb, Senior Experience Designer, BCGDV London
“For me, diversity is about understanding an individual and what they can bring to the team. It’s about having different sets of beliefs, ideas and backgrounds and feeling comfortable sharing them. DV gives the opportunity to take on responsibility and stepping up while also being supported. In other companies there is such a layered structure that makes it hard to get in the room when you are at a lower level. For me, DV is about collaboration and having smart minds together in one room.
IWD isn’t just one day for me, it’s every day. Every day I want to make sure there is somebody female that I can look up to. Something that I’ve learnt is that you can’t be what you can’t see. Seeing women successful in their careers makes me feel excited to know what I can achieve.”
Yuko Otawa, Lead Strategic Designer, BCGDV Tokyo
“Prior to BCGDV I worked as a marketer. I’ve always been fascinated with creating something new, whether it be campaigns, brands or businesses. I joined DV to work more closely with large enterprises who can have a true impact on our society.
Diversity is not only about having different sets of ideas or people from different backgrounds, it is about listening to each person, giving them a voice. In our Tokyo center, we value psychological safety and we want to ensure that everyone feels safe to express and be themselves. Thanks to this culture, I am working with talented colleagues who bring up different opinions to challenge the status quo. By making sure under-represented voices are being heard we can re-imagine our future and find new opportunities for innovation.”
Samantha Ede, People Experience Specialist, BCGDV Sydney
“My current role at BCGDV Sydney is People Experience Specialist, however my journey did not begin here. I began life at DV in January 2016 as a Recruitment Coordinator, since then I’ve been fortunate enough to have the support and belief from managers and mentors to transition to where I am today.
No day is the same here, which makes it such an exciting place to work! The people make DV special, I’m fortunate enough to interact with such a diverse group and build strong relationships with all of them. We have employees from all over the world working together, including myself, this encourages varied conversations, cross-cultural thinking, and creative collaboration.
International Women’s Day exists to inspire people, celebrate amazing achievements, and create a more equal world.”
Violet Tsai, Senior Strategic Designer, BCGDV Shanghai
“I was lucky enough to have joined the Shanghai office in the beginning phase and grow with the team. At DV we share the same values and I fundamentally believe meaningful solutions should always deliver value for the end-user. What I enjoy most about my work at DV is that we bring together talents with diverse backgrounds and skills to collaborate as a team, designing innovative strategies and building new digital solutions to solve business challenges. IWD raises awareness about many issues impacting women in the workplace and it also reminds us we should not only promote gender equality on this specific day, but every day.”
Lea Bickert, Senior Venture Support Specialist, BCGDV Berlin
“Before joining DV, I came to Berlin for my foreign language correspondence clerk studies. After graduating, many schoolmates went to BCG as Administrative Assistants. That’s when I started looking into the company and found out about DV. I joined the beginning phase of DV Berlin as an Administrative Assistant.
We quickly found out that our venture teams were in need of more streamlined support and that’s when we started working out the role of the Venture Team Assistant. I was lucky to be given this great opportunity, growing my career quickly and that’s also something I want to share with my team: It’s possible to make the next step, to not only grow your career but also build skills in different business areas to come to the next level.”
Yuri Maruyama, Lead Product Manager, BCGDV Tokyo
“I started off my career as a strategy consultant at BCG Tokyo, wanting to build a strong business basis to pursue my dream of becoming an entrepreneur. I joined a Korean startup as a lead business developer, before co-founding my own startup — a SaaS product for event organizers. Through that experience I learned the ups and downs of building a business and what it takes to build a truly innovative and impactful product. I joined DV for the people. You meet leading experts from various digital fields that you rarely get a chance to work with otherwise.
Especially in busy times, we tend to push back diversity initiatives to focus on different things. Understanding people with different values, backgrounds, and expertise takes decent effort and time. I am thankful DV is continuously promoting diversity and encouraging every venture to try out exercises to better understand and appreciate the diversity of team members.”
Judy Liu, Senior Experience Designer, BCGDV Shanghai
“Before joining DV I worked at different companies — international education groups, consulting firms and start-ups. I joined DV because it’s a new world with cutting edge and forward-looking possibilities. I now work with talented people with diverse backgrounds, who all have something in common: the search for adventures and creativity.
Diversity to me means inclusivity and empathy. There are countless possibilities in our lifes. As women, we should be ready to jump out of the stereotypical social norms and bring impact to the world in the way we are willing to.”
