QA with Olga Paskina, Country Manager, North-East Europe for Discovery Networks - Viewpoint - careers advice blog Viewpoint careers advice blog

QA with Olga Paskina, Country Manager, North-East Europe for Discovery Networks - Viewpoint - careers advice blog In this interview, Olga Paskina, Country Manager, North-East Europe for Discovery Networks, shares her experience of gender diversity in the workplace, her progression into a leadership role and provides insight into our survey results. Olga has been working as Country Manager, North-East Europe for Discovery Networks since December 2014. Before this she worked at ProfMedia Management, one of the largest private media corporations in Russia, for seven years. Olga started at ProfMedia as VP Legal and Corporate Development, then Executive VP (COO) and finally President. Before this Olga worked for SUN InBev, a leading brewing company where she held positions of Legal Director and HR Director. Olga has a legal background, studying law at Volgograd State University and then economics at Volgograd State Technical University. She also has an Executive Management degree from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and is a graduate of the Executive Leadership Program at the University of California, Berkeley. Over the course of her career Olga has won and has been nominated for multiple industry awards including Kommersant ‘Top 100 Russian Leaders’ in 2011 and 2012 and finalist of the 2013 Ernst Young international competition ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’. 1. Tell us about your progression into your leadership role I have a legal background and so it took me a few years to move into a management role. The legal profession can be more closed, dealing with paperwork as opposed to people management. Throughout my whole career I was sure I wanted to work in a general management role and I consciously made this step when I moved to SUN InBev. I went from the head of a legal function to the head of a HR function. This was so that I could make a deep dive into people management. I feel this gave me the opportunity to develop empathy and emotional leadership skills which is essential for top management. SUN InBev provided a great base for future career development and from here I joined ProfMedia, one of the biggest media holdings in Russia. I wanted to take my next career step in this industry but it was more effort to move up in a new, more creative and less structured environment. I really appreciate my legal background. Lawyers are very logical and good at finding new approaches to challenging projects. It is not in our nature to leave tasks unresolved and I think this helped me in my career. I have a structured and consistent approach to my work, which benefits me when I need to make complicated decisions. When I was working in the legal sector I had some people management experience but this responsibility grew significantly as I progressed into higher roles. The key challenge I found in a HR function was that you are immediately confronted with problems that people take very personally and you have to try and find a solution for everyone. I’ve found that an HR and organisation development role has helped me understand people and predict their reactions, which is very useful in business. 2. Did you always aspire to reach a leadership role in your career? Yes. When I was a child I changed schools quite frequently and in each new school I wanted to be the best. It was a habit of mine to try and achieve the best grades and be a top performer. This mind-set became a part of me as a child and it’s now part of my leadership style. Throughout my career I’ve wanted to have more responsibly and to go for bigger roles. This has always been my character throughout my career path. 3. In Russia 46% of women feel they have the opportunity in their current role to sufficiently promote themselves and communicate their ambitions, compared to 48% of men. It is slightly lower for the advertising and media sector, 42% for women and 46% for men. Does this surprise you? What surprised me were the lower percentages in the advertising and media sector. This is typically a sector that offers more opportunities for women, compared to other more male oriented industries. Self-promotion is important and I agree that generally women are less ready to show their ambition. I found it difficult to promote myself and never did. This is perhaps what makes men more successful in regards to promotions as they do not hesitate. When I was COO at ProfMedia our shareholders decided to change country manager, I was pregnant at the time. I was asked if I wanted to take the position but I didn’t feel like I was ready to say yes. On the one side I was pregnant and didn’t know if I could dedicate 100% of myself to manage the company. So the shareholders hired someone external, which didn’t work out. The shareholders then came back to me and said they wanted me to take the position. By this point I was confident that I could do the job and could do it better, that’s how I became president, but it took some months to understand that I could be better and that I was ready. This was an interesting learning curve and it taught me to be less hesitant. 4. What is your experience of gender diversity in the media industry? I think media is quite a diversified sector. If we look at Russian businesses, women typically run advertising companies. However, in Russia, the closer industries are to state related assets, the more men you will find working in them. A male dominated sector and a sector’s closeness to the state is correlated, the oil and gas industry for example. 5. Our survey revealed that globally 12% of women feel that to be successful they would need to reach an MD/CEO position, compared to 18% of men. Does this surprise you? No, this doesn’t surprise me. I do believe that men feel they are successful when they have reached an MD/CEO position; this is more common than for women. 6. In your opinion is there a difference between how men and women plan to progress in their careers? Do you think that there are any differences within the media sector? I think that there is a difference between genders. I would say that men are more demanding and like to have a shorter horizon for their career plan. ‘I should be in this position at this age or I’m not successful’ is stereotypical of men, whereas women are prepared to take extra steps, additional experience or training before they admit they are ready for a new position. 7. Have you encountered any gender specific challenges or obstacles in your career? I have never felt like there was a glass ceiling. I have not encountered any gender specific obstacles in my career. 8. Globally, 44% of respondents said that their organisation did not have formal gender policies in place and 28% weren’t sure. Are you surprised by this? Do you think this is the same in Russia? Firstly I would say that Discovery Networks, as a global organisation, has a lot of policies supporting diversity. We share diversity principles amongst employees and have anti-discrimination policies at a global level. But if we think of a purely local approach, there is less focus on diversity in Russia compared to other European countries. You can find diversity in Moscow but less so in the rest of the country. 9. Globally, 45% of women do not think they have the same career opportunities as men. What do you think about this? There is this general belief that women have fewer career opportunities compared to men. I do not agree with this but appreciate that the feeling of career opportunities depends on sector. If we look at Russia for example, when there is a high state influence in the sector i.e. oil and gas, there are less chances for women to get to top management roles. 10. Globally, respondents (both male and female) believe that the following initiatives will have the biggest impact on gender diversity in the workplace: flexible working practices and education across the organisation to change workplace culture. What do you think about this? What initiatives exist in your company? From my experience at Discovery I would not agree that these particular initiatives will have the most impact on gender diversity in the workplace. At Discovery we have diversity ambassadors in each office around the world, which helps us to disseminate our values of diversity. We do offer flexible working as well i.e. flexible hours and the option to work from home. We also have family days where children can visit the office and see where their parents work. This is important for women, being able to share their work environment with their family. Global diversity ambassadors help further the company’s commitment to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace, champion local initiatives and become thought leaders around the topic of global diversity. In partnership with LifeWorks Inclusion, Ambassadors: Serve as the diversity contact in their office and become subject matter experts on diversity issues and best practices surrounding diversity Support diversity initiatives by consistently articulating the Discovery diversity inclusion mission and vision statements when given the opportunity to participate in open forum meetings Work in collaboration with HR to help market/promote LifeWorks and Inclusion programs/services to employees Any employee can be an Ambassador of Diversity. We also have other programs that support gender diversity, these are: Flexible working hours Working from home Summer hours (in the summer we encourage employees to work an extra hour each day and then to only work half a day on Friday) Paternity leave Working part-time Children/ family days A family forum Employee Assistance Programme 11. Globally, 64% of respondents, both male and female, think there is equal pay between genders. This is the same percentage compared to last year. Does this surprise you? This does not surprise me but I am in the majority who believes there is equal pay between genders. At Discovery we pay based on performance. We focus on performance and efficiency, not gender. 12. The gender pay gap is a hot topic at the moment. In the UK there are plans to bring forward rules to make firms with more than 250 workers reveal whether they pay men more than women. What impact do you think this will have on gender diversity in the workplace? From my perspective I don’t think this is a positive initiative as trying to find evidence of unfair payment could be damaging within companies. You cannot be sure of what other factors were taken into account when deciding on salaries; it might not have been about gender. 13. Do you have any advice for female professionals who are in, or are looking to work in, a management or leadership role? I think you have to be ready to go out of your comfort zone and when you have done it a couple of times you will feel more confident. The key for women is working on confidence â€" it took me years to understand this. I had been working for many years before I understood and accepted that I’ve achieved quite a lot and that I am a competent and valuable professional. If you enjoyed this QA then you might also be interested in our  recently released Global Gender Diversity Report 2016, which you can access via  Slideshare below: Hays Global Gender Diversity Report 2016 from Hays