Honoring the Women at Integrate: #IntegrateHer

The month of March marks both National Women's History Month in the U.S. to celebrate the contributions of women over the course of history, and International Women’s Day on March 8, to celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women globally. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, women’s increasing participation in the workforce in the second half of the 20th century has been one of the key driving forces for economic growth, with women contributing $2 trillion to the U.S. economy since 1970.

However, the current pandemic is derailing much of that progress, sending women’s workforce participation backward to an all-time low since 1988. According to the National Women’s Law Center, more than 2.3 million women have left the U.S. labor market since the beginning of the pandemic, as compared to the nearly 1.8 million men who have left the labor force during this same time period.

At Integrate, we believe in supporting our employees across various aspects of their lives, especially during these challenging times. We recognize that today, working women are disproportionately shouldering the demands of childcare, remote school, and the mental load of other household responsibilities. We are proud that our workforce is 44% female and women fill a wide variety of roles across our organization, from c-suite executives to entry-level team members, from marketing and sales to product and engineering, and from California to the U.K.

This month, we launched #IntegrateHer to share ideas, provide support, and uplift women in the workplace. As part of #IntegrateHer, we are sharing stories of our female employees on our blog during the month of March to hear their personal stories, celebrate their contributions, and garner their wisdom. Read on below and we hope you enjoy our #IntegrateHer stories. We will be sharing additional stories weekly, so follow us on social (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) or check back on our blog for more.

Tabitha Adams, Sr. Manager, Revenue Marketing

1. Tell us about your career path and what led you to Integrate.

I started my career as a data admin at a tech start-up in "Silicon Beach," California. When they finally brought a CMO on board, I was interested in applying my English degree and took over all of our outbound comms and use of Marketo for the next three years. That love of marketing and martech grew into my career as I moved to a larger company and started my career path as a demand gen lead/manager. I took a break right before finding Integrate and started at a consulting firm as their first martech-focused consultant and I probably would've stayed there if I hadn't seen that Integrate was hiring on their marketing team. I had fought to use Integrate at 2 different companies and the idea of being a marketing team member for a company that sold martech sounded like a dream. Not to mention it's the first time I've been on a marketing team where I wasn't the only woman or one of a few women.

2. What has been your biggest challenge over the past year (personally, professionally, or both)?

Finding my voice personally and professionally has been a big challenge for me in the past year. During my time as a consultant, I learned how important it was to not just speak up to be heard, but speak up when there were opportunities I was truly interested in and would be motivated to complete. It took me some time to understand I don't have to be "the best" marketer to step up and take on projects I was interested in completing and with all the time to reflect during the start of quarantine, I realized I needed to find my own voice and pursue hobbies I loved on a personal level as well. I found that both professionally and personally I was relying too much on others to tell me what I was good at and help lead me down the right path. 2021 will be the year I take back that control!

4. Do you have any unique talents?

Harmonizing! I’ve been involved in choir or singing since I was a kid and have a knack for harmonizing with my favorite songs or with my favorite fellow singers. I feel this has also pulled into my career as a marketer – learning how to harmonize my efforts with co-workers, other marketing functions, and our sales teams.

5. What do you do for fun outside of work?

I like to read and blog about books these days. I have a goal to read 50+ books this year and keep blogging about them (and their wine pairings) on my book blog pairingwordsandwine.com. When it's finally available again, I'd love to attend more concerts. My husband and I made a point of attending at least 100 shows a year every year since we got married.

6. What is one thing you’d tell your younger self?

It's more important to be courageous than to be perfect. 

7. Which one of our cultural pillars do you most align with?

I’m only a few months in, but I think I most align to “Trust.” My success as a marketer and my objectives tie to my ability to collaborate with others like product marketing, sales enablement, and our account executives. I believe successful collaboration and innovation are only possible with trust and the relationships we build with our co-workers.

Delia Nilsson, People Coordinator

1. Tell us about your career path and what led you to Integrate.

I started my career in hospitality and quickly realized that helping customers and peers was my calling. Finding Integrate was fate. I worked for a start-up within the same building as our Phoenix office and as the start-up I was at was shutting down, an opportunity at Integrate became available as I was returning from maternity leave with my second son. Since beginning my journey with Integrate almost 2 years ago, I have transitioned from Administrative Assistant to our People Coordinator.

2. What has been your biggest challenge over the past year (personally, professionally, or both)?

The biggest challenge I have faced over the last year has been acclimating to being an employee and mom, all while under the same roof. Having to go from a Zoom meeting with a co-worker to changing a diaper has taken a lot of patience and prioritization skills I didn't think I would ever need to learn.

3. Do you have any unique talents?

Yes! I am able to do calligraphy and have done numerous free-lance jobs to create wedding invitations, logos, and business cards.

4. What do you do for fun outside of work?

I love to travel, specifically anywhere with great scuba diving. I can't wait until both of my sons are old enough to become certified so they can join my husband and me.

5. What is one thing you’d tell your younger self?

Any time you want to go to Taco Bell, don't! Take that money and save it for Bitcoin. Trust me.

6. Which one of our cultural pillars do you most align with?

Happiness. During times like this, bringing happiness to people is the most important thing we can do.

Angel Jones, Product Marketing Manager

1. Tell us about your career path and what led you to Integrate.

I entered the digital marketing space about 15 years ago where I worked with customers to build campaigns and execute marketing strategies including email marketing, social media marketing, and website development. That led me into learning more about the various MarTech tools marketers use to do their work, understanding how the tools work, and why they're used. After several years working directly with customers, I transitioned into product marketing to help tell the story on how marketers can use technology to be more efficient and get results. In joining Integrate, I was excited to be part of team of product marketers and leverage our respective areas of expertise to show how Integrate's solution helps B2B marketers reach their target buyers.

2. What has been your biggest challenge over the past year (personally, professionally, or both)?

Having been a remote employee in the past, going back to working from home wasn't a difficult transition. I'm looking forward to seeing my current Integrate teammates in person one day soon! One challenge is in making time to keep connected with friends and colleagues. With everyone experiencing "Zoom fatigue," scheduling yet another virtual social hour after spending hours on camera for work has lost its novelty. Instead, I do my best to check in via text or email to give my friends the choice of when they want to respond. I also miss the energy of experiencing music in a live venue with a group of people. While I've become used to attending streaming concerts, I'm looking forward to seeing my favorite musicians in person again.

3. Do you have any unique talents?

I lean into my intuition. It most often shows up as asking the questions others may be thinking, but not asking out loud, or to approach a situation in a different way or perspective.

4. What do you do for fun outside of work?

Besides the aforementioned concertgoing, I love listening to music, traveling, baking, cooking, and listening to podcasts or audiobooks.

5. What is one thing you’d tell your younger self?

The career you'll enjoy the most doesn't yet exist — keep an open mind.

6. Which one of our cultural pillars do you most align with?

This is one of the reasons I was excited to join Integrate as the cultural pillars resonated with me a great deal. For me, it's the Innovation pillar. Being and staying curious is critical. I am always interested in understanding "the why" to help shape a narrative, inform process improvements, or to gain better appreciation of how delivering my best work can make an impact.

Frannie Danziger, VP, Sales Accounts

1. Tell us about your career path and what led you to Integrate.

The majority of my career has been spent agency-side, building, growing and running Media Teams. In 2012, I was whisked away from my role as SVP Media at gyro to start a new adventure for a role created for me as Head of Marketing Development for start-up Bizo. This role was a hybrid Marketing/Sales role and I loved it. I stayed with Bizo through its acquisition by LinkedIn in 2014, then spent just shy of three years at two other startups (eXelate, acquired by Nielson and 6sense). While at these three startups, my clear passion for MarTech and Sales became evident, but it took encouragement from a few people to actually pivot my career trajectory and take on a full-fledged, quota-carrying, sales role. Those people included Scott Vaughan, Jeremy Bloom, Nathan Lamos (who hired me at Integrate) and Mark Dye (Bizo co-founder, now Bombora CSO). Now in year five at Integrate, I can unequivocally say that my true professional passion is Sales, with a hint of Marketing.

2. What has been your biggest challenge over the past year (personally, professionally, or both)?

My biggest professional challenge over the past year has been change in direct leadership, more specifically, not having a leader to support me and to "have my back." This changed for the positive in April when Troy Robertson joined Integrate. I am so happy (and relieved) to now have both an excellent leader and an even better partner. Personally, this volatility took a toll on me. For those of you that know me, I am an eternally optimistic, loyal, persistent and hard-working human. The roller coaster created self-doubt and that was very challenging and I kept repeating to myself "you are better than this." I'm grateful for really good people around me to support and guide me, subjectively and objectively, and just be there to listen.

3. Do you have any unique talents?

Some people might think it's unique that I actually have 25 hours in a 24 hour day. I just think that is normal. ;)

4. What do you do for fun outside of work?

I'm a professional fitness instructor, currently serving many fitness enthusiasts 5x/week with live Zoom Classes. I am a boxing trainer and master Spin Instructor, and love teaching many formats including Step Aerobics, Kickboxing, Sculpt and more. I have customers, prospects and local community members taking classes live, regularly and for free. This has been my way of giving back during COVID and ensuring as many people as I can touch have a dose of sanity and sweat, for mental, physical and emotional well-being. I've also posted over 250 classes OnDemand for free during COVID. Website: www.FeelinAlive.com. I love to cook and am told by those I feed that I'm pretty good at it. However, I recently turned Vegan (to try to avoid medication for genetically high cholesterol), and found I needed to use more recipes than ever. This resulted in me enrolling in an Advanced Culinary School Program. I'm about halfway through and expect to graduate with honors in April. I also cannot get enough of my family! My husband of almost 26 years, Kip and three beautiful and entertaining young adult children, Samantha (23), Jalen (21) and Laurel (20). My dad reminds me that "payback's a bitch."

5. What is one thing you’d tell your younger self?

Don't ever second guess yourself. You know yourself better than anyone. You might sometimes feel like an apple in a bowl of oranges, but it doesn't mean that apple is rotten, it's just different and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that! You do you, and if someone else doesn't like it, too bad (so long as there's respect).

6. Which one of our cultural pillars do you most align with?

#RadicalCandor

Riya Dennis, Senior Software Engineer

1. Tell us about your career path and what led you to Integrate.

I found Integrate on Glassdoor while searching for a company that focuses on good work environment and culture.

2. What has been your biggest challenge over the past year (personally, professionally, or both)?

The pandemic life - working from home, cut off from the rest of the world, pressure to manage work and home responsibilities – has been the biggest challenge.

3. Do you have any unique talents?

I am an Engineer always trying to improve the quality of my craft and I am good listener.

4. What do you do for fun outside of work?

I love long walks, cooking and spending time with my family and dog. I also like reading and watching science fiction.

5. What is one thing you’d tell your younger self?

Take things easy, do not put yourself in undue pressure, and be kind to yourself.

6. Which one of our cultural pillars do you most align with?

Happiness and Trust