Celebrating Our Female Leadership at Integrate
Christy Dinges, Chief People Officer
August 26th marks Women’s Equality Day in the United States, which commemorates women’s right to vote with the passing of the 19th Amendment. It was first celebrated in 1971, designated by Congress in 1973, and is proclaimed each year by the United States President. It’s a day to celebrate, reflect, and build on the progress we’ve made towards gender equality, but also recognize how much more there is to do.
I joined Integrate three months ago as Chief People Officer, focused on empowering all Integrators for success as the company scales globally. One of the main reasons I chose to join the Integrate family is for its leadership and people-first culture. As a female leader at the company, I’m thrilled that our executive leadership team has very strong female leadership representation and many of our female leaders have grown their careers at Integrate over the years. From marketing and sales to the product technology group to the C-suite, we have a roster of amazing female leaders who are paragons of our cultural pillars: performance, innovation, happiness, trust, and radical candor.
To commemorate Women’s Equality Day at Integrate, I’m honored to introduce you to some of our female leaders across the company to hear their personal stories, celebrate their contributions, and garner their wisdom.
Read on below to hear their stories.
Elizabeth D’Arcy-Potts, VP, Sales
What do you love about working at Integrate?
The Integrate culture is like nothing I’ve experienced elsewhere. From the first weeks in onboarding – when you become aware that you are part of a very human company that puts its employees at the heart of everything it does – to the camaraderie within individual teams and across departments and geographies. The company’s cultural pillars form the foundation of everything we do internally, and externally for our clients, and I find it reassuring that those standards always remain consistent. We have an innovative, client-centric and experienced team that enjoy their work and have an input into the company’s direction and success.
What does good leadership mean to you?
I value the role of transparency in leadership. My interpretation of that is uniting and empowering your team with a transparent goal, setting clear expectations on outcomes and what success looks like, creating effective feedback loops to communicate frontline insights to the wider business and to escalate issues quickly. All teams have conflicting priorities on their time that can drain valuable focus and energy from more valuable activities, so I try to bring my team into the decision-making process wherever possible. I hope my team feels a greater sense of ownership with regards to day-to-day performance and our overall goals because of this.
How do you empower yourself and the women around you?
For me, female empowerment in a workplace setting means having an environment where everyone feels free to show up as themselves, and to provide input, ideas and objections with an equal weight regardless of gender. Creating an equitable work environment requires taking different communication styles into account, steering clear of stereotypes and unconscious bias, and ensuring that you have heard from each member of the team when making major decisions. In the past, my voice would often go unheard on lively intercontinental video calls, with predominantly male sales reps, so I always try to follow up with written communication asking for additional insights after video calls are done.
Frannie Danzinger, VP, Sales
What do you love about working at Integrate?
I love the entrepreneurial spirit that our culture embodies, but what I love most about working at Integrate is the genuine ability to positively impact the trajectory of B2B marketers’ path to revenue and support them through their journey.
What does good leadership mean to you?
Good leadership is coming into any situation with an open mind, listening and evaluating options and making decisions boldly and bravely, which does not always mean favorably. Hard things are hard, but in the end, it’s powering through the hard things that yield the greatest success.
How do you empower yourself and the women around you?
I empower myself by genuinely being the CEO of my job, every second of every day. My approach to life, and business, is authentic, creative, tenacious, and optimistic. There are always obstacles in the way – I never look at these obstacles as excuses, but rather challenges designed to apply creative solutions to get over, through or around. I empower women around me with my confidence, respect for others and clear communication style.I lead by example – thoughtful, but fearless, optimistic, but authentic, successful, yet humble.
Farrah Forbes, SVP, Sales
What do you love about working at Integrate?
I love that we are ever-changing and evolving as an organization and appreciate the dynamic challenges and opportunities my current role brings me. It’s fulfilling to lead a team, drive revenue growth, and contribute to the company’s success. Additionally, I find particularly rewarding the chance to shape strategies and build strong client relationships.
What does good leadership mean to you?
Good leadership is about inspiring and guiding a team towards a shared vision. It involves grit, but also effective communication, collaboration, and empowering the team to own/lead their world as well.
How do you empower yourself and the women around you?
Empowering myself and the team requires authenticity and open dialogue – this is so important to me. Women wear many hats, and they overlap more than ever in a post-COVID world. Fostering an inclusive and supportive environment is key, along with mentorship, growth opportunities and encouraging time to disconnect and fill our own cups outside of work.
Erika Hollis, Chief of Staff
What do you love about working at Integrate?
I have worked in a variety of industries and Integrate, by far, does the best job of both articulating and living its cultural pillars. By celebrating good people and teams doing great things, we highlight performance, encourage innovation to serve our customers, and the ethos of happiness. Perhaps even more importantly, our pillars such as radical candor and trust give us a common language and expectations of how we will collectively face challenges.
What does good leadership mean to you?
Great leaders paint a vision of what is possible, align the vision to the purpose of the organization, and inspire others to make the vision a reality. Realizing a vision takes teamwork, so exceptional leaders listen, value collaboration, address dissent and challenges, and empower team members.
How do you empower yourself and the women around you?
For many women, having a seat at the table doesn’t necessarily translate to having a voice. In many cases, women can be reluctant to speak up in larger meetings. I make it a point to engage a diverse set of participants in a meeting, by calling on quiet team members and encouraging others to voice dissenting opinions. When all voices are heard, the group can make and support a better decision.
Some of my favorite Integrators are our female product managers, like Jodie Twitchell and Kristen Khalatbari, who are able to speak fluently with the engineers, customers and non-technical teams, often translating between the technical and a use case in the process. I often marvel at the beautiful analogies Jodie uses to explain a complex idea.
Kaitlin Mikalis, VP, Sales
What do you love about working at Integrate?
The people are the number one reason I love working at Integrate. I am constantly inspired by the caring and creative individuals I get to interact with daily who dig into new challenges and live our cultural pillars. In this economic climate you must be able quickly pivot or get creative with your product offering, service, or solution. Collaborating with members of our professional services, product, customer success, marketing and people teams allow me to find the best solutions for our customers while serving the sales team’s needs.
One of my favorite ways to start my workday is by day reading our “Integreats” channel on Slack to learn about ways in which Integrators have helped one another or a customer. It puts me in a positive mindset for the day and reminds me that there are so many dynamic people working at Integrate.
What does good leadership mean to you?
Good leadership means taking the time to understand what a person cares about and how they are motivated. We live in a complex world, and it is important to understand what is going on in a person’s life both personally and professionally to best support them. For instance, encouraging them to take on a new project, take a new course, try a new hobby, or to take time for their mental health. Good leadership also means being able to give productive feedback and receive feedback. The best leaders I have had in my career knew when to challenge me and helped me to reflect on what I had learned through a complex deal cycle.
How do you empower yourself and the women around you?
I empower myself by aligning with women who inspire me through their words, their actions, and their work. I am fortunate to have amazing female sales leaders that I am working alongside at Integrate. We empower one another by aligning on common goals and then dividing up tasks depending on our strengths and pushing one another out of our comfort zone. We have a lot of work ahead of us as we finish 2023 and build for 2024 and I am so excited to be building something great with them.
Outside of work, my female friendships are everything.I know I can go to them for advice about parenting, relationships and navigating the crazy world we live in. My girlfriends and I just did an amazing hike on Mt. Tamalpais a few weeks ago and we were so engaged in listening to one another and tackling all of the world’s problems, we had to remember to look up and see the amazing views of the Pacific Ocean, San Francisco and the Redwoods.
Michele Shuey, VP, People Development
What do you love about working at Integrate?
Simply said, the People! I get to work with the most amazing People Team. My passion lies in creating exceptional “moments that matter” for employees. Integrate’s leadership team understands that focusing on the employee experience is crucial for shaping a positive organizational culture. When employees feel valued, supported, and engaged, they become more motivated and productive. Nurturing the employee experience fosters loyalty, encourages collaboration, and promotes a sense of belonging, ultimately leading to a stronger and more vibrant company culture that attracts and retains top talent.
What does good leadership mean to you?
Great leadership is an art, not a science. I try to remember the mantra “Be a leader you’d like to follow.” Qualities like caring personally, being inspiring, authentic, empowering, empathetic, strategic, articulate, and being a coach jump to the top of the list for me.A great leader fosters a culture of trust, cultivates innovation, and leads by example. They adapt to challenges, mentor others, and prioritize both personal and collective growth. Ultimately, great leadership is about positively influencing and impacting the lives of those they lead, fostering an environment where people can thrive and achieve their fullest potential.
How do you empower yourself and the women around you?
I once left a job because the travel had become too much, and I didn’t think I could be a great parent AND a great professional. What I realize now is that I didn’t have the confidence to set appropriate boundaries. Now, one of my core coaching tenants for the womenI get to spend time with is that setting boundaries and promoting work-life integration are essential for maintaining individual well-being and fostering a healthy workplace. Clear boundaries ensure that women have the space and time to recharge, preventing burnout and sustaining long-term productivity. Embracing work-life integration acknowledges the multidimensional nature of women, allowing them to effectively manage their personal and professional responsibilities, leading to greater job satisfaction and a healthier work-life perspective.
Marcia Trask, VP, Global Campaign Strategy
What do you love about working at Integrate?
I love several things about working for Integrate. First, I love our remote-first policy. I’ve spent over 30 years in B2B marketing and over 20 of them were spent fighting Bay Area traffic for my daily commute. Working from home allows me to be so much more productive and even have a hint of work/life balance! Second, I love the people at Integrate. It’s such a pleasure to work with so many smart, motivated, talented people across the entire company. The collaboration and ideation are just incredible. Finally, I genuinely appreciate Integrate’s culture and our mission to help other B2B marketers work more efficiently and effectively. It’s a tough job and we are working hard to make it a better one for our customers…who are as fantastic as our employees!
What does good leadership mean to you?
Fundamentally, good leadership is about trust and respect. I’ve had the honor of working for two exceptional leaders during my tenure at Integrate. They hired me to do a job and trusted me to do it. They respect my skills and expertise. They listen. They have been open-minded about adopting best practice recommendations I have made. They have been transparent with the information I need to do my job effectively. And, they have both been incredibly supportive and a delight to work with. This is the type of leadership that I respect, and it is how I lead my teams.
How do you empower yourself and the women around you?
After many years in the business world, I’ve learned to be comfortable in my skin and bring my authentic self to work. I’m unafraid to speak up, share ideas, and warn against approaches that I have seen fail in the past. I know how to frame requests in terms of contribution to business value. I’ve learned to trust my gut and how to avoid/minimize/exit toxic situations. I understand that “no” means “no for now” not forever, and to keep pushing for the right things to do. I know how to lean into change. I’ve learned how to focus on the work and let it speak for itself. And I encourage the women around me to do the same.
