Casavo Voices. What does it take to be a female leader?

Young, female and leader.
According to a study by European Women on Boards, being a woman in charge of a European company is not that simple.
Out of a sample of 668 companies, only 19% of women play a leadership role and only 9% of women have a chair of the Board.
With a score of 0.62, the Gender Diversity Index ranks Italy sixth among the 19 European countries, 0.03 points above the European average, but 0.10 points below the best-scoring country.

We have much farther to go.

Being part of the Casavo Team means breathing innovation in an equal environment, enjoying the freedom to express your ideas and having a real impact, not only on the business. We believe in the uniqueness of talent and in a personal ability to achieve professional goals, regardless of gender.

However, we know the challenge of being a female leader and we asked Marta Raimondi, our Chief Human Resources Officer, to share with us which challenges she had to overcome during her career and personal growth, what she learnt along the way and which advice she would give to other women and girls.

Marta, CHRO at Casavo, Milanese by adoption.

Extremely passionate about my Job. In love with: Davide and the Giglio island, where we met; my family (special mention to Andri, Ale, Dante and Lapo, the funniest nephews in the world), music (from Debussy to Salmo), traveling, nordics crime writers, series based on real stories and experimenting with cooking recipes in the weekend.

Which female leader inspires you the most and why?

Marina Abramović. She is a pioneer, she disrupted the idea of conceptual art as a woman and because she’s a woman. She showed that you can have an impact and be an inspiration without claiming to be understood or fighting to have a space.

Did you experience any biases for being a female leader? If so, how did you deal with it?

Yes, amplified by being, for certain professional contexts, considered young and female.

The bias was underestimating my competences. Finally, for me, it was an opportunity, and I dealt with it by approaching the stakeholder with humility, replacing the subjective component with data, strong ideas, experience and continuous learning.

What’s a leadership lesson that you’ve learnt that’s unique to being a female leader?

Do not be ashamed to be empathetic. It is not a weakness. It’s a fundamental part of emotional intelligence and, even if you have the best idea, if you do not convey your messages in the proper way and you do not have the ability to understand your audience, you will never make an impact.

You’re leading other women as well. What does working with other women mean and how do you help them with their growth?

It means having partners that can easily put themselves in your shoes and that the collaboration is by design two-sided. I try to stimulate them to always put experience and continuous learning at the center, avoiding “white noise”, so in business interactions I suggest not to take any of that personally. If a colleague challenges your proposals, he/she is not challenging you as a woman or professional. If you think so, you waste a lot of energy and create unnecessary frustrations.

What’s one thing that you recently learnt that you would have not believed years ago?

That in 2022, in a world that thanks to technology can be transparent and inclusive by design, and after a period of global difficulty, destructive leaders (if we call them like that) can still find such a space.

Which advice would you give to your younger self?

Approach Coding and Agility and do that as soon as you can!

If you could have one superpower, what would you like it to be? And why?

Gift of ubiquity, not to have to compromise between work and extra-work passions.