Although this might sound paradoxical coming from someone working in tech, I fully believe in this: technology is increasingly present everywhere, and yet we must remember we still work with people, and for people. It is crucial to be grounded in this: let’s not be too technology-minded!
I work as a Head of Development at Alma Media. I have been here for almost a decade! I started in Sales, one of our business units, and I can say I developed a whole career in Sales Management, for eight or so years, after which I switched to Alma Media’s technology team; it has been three and a half years since.
I work with our strategic programs, between technology and business. Currently, I am responsible for our “Audience Program”, which means I develop our audiences – the primary objective of the program is to support Alma services in optimizing the audience funnel development, improving the customer experience and collecting and monetizing user data. My team and I do this by combining marketing, product and technology development: we create expert tools and technologies that help the business units to maximize the value of digital audiences.
Changing from Sales to Business was naturally a bit scary but also a very welcomed and interesting change. It happened as I was working on one of our new services on the business side; I was responsible for developing it since its beginning. During that process, I was increasingly interested in product development and management, and eventually, I was asked by our executive team members to take the jump to this tech side. I said yes! It was quite a decision because I have no technology background! Initially, the job and the field felt messy, of course, but it helped immensely to have developing teams, and other teams supporting my learning curve. Throughout these years, I have had strong leadership and product owners guiding me and reminding me that I don’t have to understand every detail of the technology.
First steps before diving deep into tech
Talking about my academic background can be funny: I have a Master’s in Education from the University of Jyväskylä, which means I do not have a background in business or tech! I graduated in 2005, and although I continued onto the business side, I started working, so I did not finish those studies.
I started working at Helsinki School of Economics, now Aalto EE. I was doing consulting for companies, after which I decided to jump into the media house; Nelonen -which nowadays is a part of Sanoma- was my first one, and after that, I transferred to Alma Media. My whole career has happened mostly in Finnish media, at these two houses, and this has been widely interesting because when I started years ago, newspapers were very important, and we relied a lot on them; gradually the digital transformation started, reshaping the business as a whole, so I have been lucky to be a part of that journey.
Sanna Laurell, Head of Development, Alma Media
Freedom to find your path at Alma Media
I love working at Alma Media first and foremost because here I have found openness and freedom to grow as much as I want to. If you are willing to take new opportunities on your desk, you can count on having them. We have quite a low hierarchy at Alma, so whenever I have been interested in trying different coworking groups, it has always been a possibility – and how much I have grown thanks to that! My career is one example of this: if you want to change directions or take a leap of faith, they will support you all the way. That is why I am still here: I have had the chance to develop two careers.
My current position as a Head of Development is quite perfect for me: I have a business background, but in my heart, I very much feel like a project developer, since I love to start things from scratch. This position is an on-spot combination of both: I am part of the most interesting development projects currently ongoing in this house, and I get to witness new technologies and find new solutions; that’s the most fulfilling part of my job. On the other side of the coin, the biggest challenge of my job is to intersect the three business units we have when creating solutions, to find space for each of them and combine them in a balanced way.
If I think about the future, I am a hundred per cent sure I do not want to come back to Sales. This is not to say I don’t like Sales: I have enjoyed my years there quite much, and in fact, what I do now is a type of internal sales, selling our new technologies and new ways of working to our business units; so I have transferred that skill. But the business side is very intriguing, I admit. Recently, I have learned a lot about these technological developments, and I have realised how interested I am in product development.
Feeling at ease in the role as a woman and encouraging others to take the leap
If I look at both sides, Sales and Tech, there are obvious comparisons to make in regards to the presence of female professionals: of course, there is a gender imbalance, and that raises thoughts. There are still more male professionals on the tech side, whereas on the marketing side, the majority are women. Personally, it hasn’t been a thorny road: I have eased into my roles, I’ve had both female and male colleagues, and it has not been challenging to navigate. Yet I am aware this is maybe not the rule, and l can only imagine that in more tech-oriented companies the imbalance is greater.
I believe my experience can be inspiring to those women who are looking into the tech field and not yet quite sure about entering it. I feel like saying, ‘If I can do it, you can do it’. Because frankly, back when I took the jump onto technology and development, my initial thought was that I was unprepared for those tasks – but it is not that difficult to get there. And the fact is, most positions -for instance, regarding marketing- are getting increasingly tech-oriented. So even if you want to work with “only” marketing, you still need to catch up with time and new developments.
A favorite
I have two favorites to share; first, a book: Daring Greatly, by Brene Brown, and then, a lesson I have learned myself: courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen. Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy and creativity.
