Women in tech: Joanne Savage, director marketing – EMEA, at Fitbit – Google

Early on in my career, I chose to work for international businesses and had to rapidly develop my leadership skills to be able to deliver in often male-dominated tech boardrooms.

In the beginning, I probably tried too hard to be ‘tough’ and was being a bit robotic, but as my career progressed, I realised that being myself and using my soft skills was much more impactful. And what matters the most are the relationships you build along the way, regardless of gender. Therefore, at Google, we share a responsibility to represent and support the rich diversity of talent in our region.

In the year 2022, Fitbit continued making health resources more accessible to people in the region and around the world. Post-Covid, mental and physical health were more important than ever, and we saw people understand the connection between the two.  

I believe there are a lot of ‘unknowns’ in 2023, and I am preparing myself and the business to be more nimble depending on how the economic environment evolves. We know that the overall health and wellness segment will continue to be relevant, and people might want to focus on the most essential aspects such as getting fitter or logging their daily sleep. 
 
We believe there is an opportunity for wearables in making the invisible, visible by providing even more information about one’s body, allowing us to take better control of our health and wellness, and continuing to push the boundaries on what we can provide. We as Fitbit, continue to remain committed to bringing to the region premium devices that combine our health and wellness expertise with Google’s computing capabilities.

Lastly, an advice to aspiring women leaders would be to embrace your true self and be open about your ambitions. Also, be very open to failures as you would to successes as we often learn more from mistakes than any victories.

Read: Women in tech: Gina Collignon, VP and head of Marketing at SAP