Women in Tech: Barbara Emerson on leadership, potential, and growth

For our latest Women in Tech interview, Salt Founder and APAC CEO Jacqui Barratt spoke to Barbara Emerson, APAC Regional Business Operations Director at New Balance, to discuss people-first leadership and encouraging women to take pathways into operations roles.

Salt Recruitment’s Women in Tech interview series speaks with thought leaders from around the world to get their opinions and advice on how they have grown their careers in tech and overcome challenges and adversity during their careers.

Barbara, can you tell us about your career journey?

I was born in Ireland and initially wanted to be a teacher, but I didn’t get enough points in my final exams to get into Teachers’ College, so I went to work in retail. I’m of the last generation of people who didn’t grow up with computers, so as computers were on the rise, I started a year-long MS Office and Windows course. The tech industry in Ireland was booming at the time, and ten months into the course, I was offered a job as an agent supporting Dell Dimension technical support. I skipped my final exams and started working for Dell at their call centre. I was promoted into the call centre provider’s sales support function, writing tenders, etc. and spent three years learning the business from the bottom up. I had an amazing boss, Kelly, a wonderful Texan woman who taught me the foundations of business, set me on a path of adding to my skill set, encouraged me to take a Diploma in Business Management, and got me travelling. After some time, my desire to travel led me to head off around the world with my partner.

After four months travelling in Southeast Asia, we came to New Zealand – originally just for eight months – and never left! My first job in New Zealand was in specialist transport services in an administrative role for a container company. I worked my way up into the transport, then the depot divisions. I learnt so much about people and process management in the logistics industry – and I realised that operations was my jam. I obtained my New Zealand residency and applied for a role at New Balance, which I got!

When I started in the New Zealand operations role at New Balance, I did a lot of self-directed learning because the role had been vacant for some time. When I took over the role, there was no regional operations function, and operations wasn’t seen as a primary function. In time, I grew my responsibilities to include Australia. Since then, I have had the opportunity to take on a regional role – requiring me to examine and identify how we need to operate in each market to support growth and New Balance’s overall mission. Most recently, I have helped to introduce more automation and robotics into our world. Technology shapes how we live, work and connect – it is truly fundamental to our lives.

While at New Balance, I also chose to do further study. I studied for a Bachelor of Arts with a Humanities major, which gave me the perfect insight into people, how they think and operate, and how this flows into an organisation. To really challenge myself, I also decided to run a marathon at the same time, which, in hindsight, probably wasn’t the best idea!

What is the most exciting part of your work as New Balance’s APAC Regional Business Operations Director?

Our people, especially my team. I have a team of over 40 people from different cultures and backgrounds across eight different countries, as well as 30 in our customer service team in Malaysia. I have an open-door policy, and I love time ‘on the ground’, learning and getting to know the entire team.

In the last eight months, we have shifted our organisational structure – including our operations organisational structure – and I have been able to promote six people (big smile!) Building relationships with team members, seeing them flower and grow, then providing opportunities and creating career paths for them that hadn’t previously existed is so exciting.

What has been your proudest or career-defining moment?

Fifteen years ago, I hired a young woman into the New Zealand business. She’s since been promoted into other areas of the organisation, and she is truly one of our best talents. She has a great skill set and mindset, and so much potential. My role in her career journey has been to be her ally, and I have found this role hugely rewarding.

What should we be doing to encourage girls and women to consider a career in operations or tech?

Some still see operations, especially warehousing or logistics, as ‘old school’ and not necessarily the right environment to attract women. Organisations need to be open to having women in their operations team, and we need men to play their part. For example, we don’t often see women – or enough women – leading logistics functions; we’re all too often in the background, not visible but focused on making things work! So, we need to make sure the pathways into leadership are visible.

My mindset is that you can do anything; you can break down and overcome barriers.

I have always believed I could do anything and learn anything; this has always been my approach. We need allies – both men and women – to encourage, promote, and show the pathways.

In your opinion, what is the biggest obstacle to women’s career progression?

There are still so many obstacles! In today’s climate, the DEI or equality conversation has damaged women in business; we can’t call out gender disparity without being labelled, and the current rhetoric on DEI has worsened the situation and undermined the value of the cause.

That’s at a global level, but there are also daily obstacles that women face: the notion that women are emotional and men are passionate even when displaying the same behaviour, or the fact that women will automatically walk down the street with their keys between their fingers or go for a run with only one earbud in because they’re concerned about their safety. I think it’s less about the big obstacles and more about the small, everyday ones.

How have the best allies throughout your career supported you?

I’ve had three allies in my career, who I am always grateful for. Kelly, who I mentioned earlier, was a fantastic ally early in my career. More recently, Dean Howard, here at New Balance. I’m a very direct speaker, and Dean has always encouraged this and made me feel comfortable saying, “I think you’re wrong”. Another ally, Ricky Knight, also at New Balance, is more of a silent ally. He’s always known what I could achieve and my career path. He’s been a background champion, and now I see the “you can do it” role that he has played.

Do you have an active mentor? How valuable has mentorship been to you?

I had my first-ever business coaching session last year with a Wellington-based coach. I saw their role as a sounding board; my role can be quite isolating, and I was in the middle of redesigning our entire workforce, working on our three-year operations strategy, and planning towards 2030.

I found the coaching super-valuable and something I needed at that point in time. While I think coaching or mentorship can be both formal and informal, this was a reasonably formal process; I had a selection of coaches’ profiles to review, and there was one coach I really connected with.

What can we do to promote and nurture women’s careers?

We start by identifying potential. Once I have identified individuals who have the ‘spark’ or ‘x-factor’ we need, I will do everything I can to nurture their potential. We recently promoted a team member from South Africa to a role in the Middle East. She’s moving from a smaller market to a really big market, and she has the potential to be an absolute star! If I see a spark – even if it is a little spark – I will do everything I can to nurture it and help the individual move forward.

Sometimes, people working in operations can be more introverted and may need allies to give them a voice. I can see if a team member’s skill set is being under-utilised, and I am always looking for smarts – people-smart, situation-smart, process-smart, individuals with common sense or who can visualise how things work. I appreciate that people have different skill sets and strengths which they can bring to a role, and I think it’s important that we don’t assume that people on maternity leave or in different phases of their careers don’t want an opportunity – we need to give them a chance to make that choice for themselves.

Who is your modern-day hero?

I don’t know that I have one; I’m not into celebrity life but I like to think of myself as someone who supports other women regardless.

I don’t have the hero-sensing gene. I think we’re all the same – no one is better than anyone else – I just want to be myself and see what I can do and how far I can go.

Do you have any media recommendations for staying updated?

The global supply chain is so volatile right now that I spend a lot of time on ShippingWatch and LINERLYTICA, among others. I am a huge reader and love physical books – the house is full of them! But generally, I read for pleasure and to disconnect. I fall into a book and read before anything.

What is your biggest stress reliever?

I’m pretty bad at it, but I love to run – it forces my brain to switch off and makes me simply focus on putting one foot in front of the other. To fully disconnect, though, I go out on the water. To be on a boat and in nature is a stress reliever.

What is one piece of advice you wish somebody had given you at the beginning of your career?

To back myself and stay curious, to walk and talk with confidence, but never be afraid to acknowledge what I don’t know because education never stops.

What job did you dream of when you were a kid? What was your ‘Plan A’ career path?

To be a teacher, I have a huge love of English, history, and humanities – the human race is capable of amazing things!  

What is a fun fact about you?

I was NZ MPI (Ministry for Primary Industries)- certified to open containers for MAF (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry) and used to be IICL certified to inspect damaged shipping containers!