Anyone who has worked with me knows that I am extremely action-oriented. I'm all about making things happen.
Cindy Gallop
Too many people, including the ad industry, believe the future is something that happens and just rolls them over in it's wake.
Client companies and advertising agencies are old-world-order places. The systems and processes and structures come from a time when you shot the TV commercial, then you did the print ads, then you did everything else - including the website. Everything has changed, but the systems haven't.
I have a low tolerance for people who complain about things but never do anything to change them. This led me to conclude that the single largest pool of untapped natural resources in this world is human good intentions that are never translated into actions.
If I ran the world, I would find a way to bring the wealth of human good intentions and corporate good intentions together - to activate them collectively into shared action against shared objectives that produces shared hard, tangible results.
Despite their good intentions, today's businesses are missing an opportunity to integrate social responsibility and day-to-day business objectives - to do good and make money simultaneously.
I like to describe myself as a proudly visible member of the most invisible segments of our society - older women.
There was no active, conscious decision-making point, just a gradual realization over time that I'm very happy minus children and marriage.
I consider myself a rampant feminist.
I deplore the shying away that can go on, within women, from the term 'feminist.' I am, absolutely, all about being a feminist.
My personal cause and platform, if you like, is women's rights and women's issues.
I design my start-up ventures around my own personal beliefs and values.
I like to stand out and make a statement.
When I give talks like the one I'm going to give at the Changing Advertising Summit, one of the points I often make to the audience is that I'm not one of those speakers who stands in front of the audience and pontificates - everything I talk about I'm actually doing myself. I'm living it.
My background is advertising: I moved to New York from London in 1998 to start up the U.S. office of ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty.
I realized relatively early on that I had no desire to be a mother whatsoever. I actually love children, but specifically other people's.
I've never felt any particular desire to be married.
I had a high-flying career. Never wanted to get married. All I wanted to do was have some fun.
I realized I was an attractive older woman who never wanted to settle down.
When we launched If WeRanTheWorld, I said to my team, I want us to innovate in every aspect of how we design and operate this as a business venture, as much as the web platform itself - because I want us to design our own startup around the working lives that we would all like to live. Women and men alike.
I love the unknown.
The single biggest lesson I learned was when a hire isn't working out fire them fast. My biggest mistakes, and where I've seen the worst results, were when I gave someone too many chances, or let a situation drift on for too long because I couldn't bring myself to terminate it.
