Germaine Hendrik, the marketing lead of adtech Quantcast for APAC, is one of the winners of ‘Empowered Women in Tech’ at MARKETECH APAC’s Empowered Women Awards 2023. The awarding exercise is an inaugural effort by the digital media to recognise the outstanding women marketing leaders in the industry.
Germaine is a seasoned marketer with a diverse roster of experience working with top companies Standard Chartered and Isentia Strategy & Content. She joined Quantcast in 2020 as a marketing specialist, and within only 2 years, was elevated twice. Currently, she helms the marketing of the adtech firm for the whole of APAC region.
Handling a 2-person team to answer to region-wide marketing remit
Germaine’s responsibility when she was appointed as the APAC marketing lead of Quantcast in 2022 had a unique challenge – with 8 different markets covered by the adtech in APAC, she only had two people under her team to manage its marketing business in the region.
Nevertheless, this didn’t stop her from leading the company to achieve remarkable marketing initiatives. From events, to content, and digital marketing, Germaine was able to leverage the team’s capabilities to deliver communication strategies at a diverse range.
Under her direction, the team was able to deliver flagship content that drove an increase of 7000 new customers via the Quantcast website and over 1000 high-quality leads for sales. Amongst her other key contributions, through 14 owned and sponsored events, Quantcast was able to reach over 300,000 customers and prospects in the wider marketing industry.
Ultimately, despite the small headcount, she was able to lead Quantcast’s marketing team to drive USD7.9mil in marketing-generated revenue across APAC.
A data-driven leader for the new-era marketing
Quantcast as a first and foremost data company would demand from Germaine a consistent leadership approach that is agile and forward-looking with a data-driven strategic foresight. Needless to say, this is the kind of leader Germaine had been.
Germaine says that part of being the head of marketing in such kind of business is being able to use data to make decisions that aren’t just for marketing, but for other departments that marketing touches. With this, she needs to be a marketing visionary in order to be in tandem with trends that constantly work in advanced ways.
“This means that I need to always have a clear vision for the region I manage and be able to communicate it to my team, and hold them accountable for the strategies I devise,” she says.
In line with this, she also believes that the value of resilience is extremely important. Adapting to new trends and challenges takes a resilient approach, particularly to keep one’s team motivated and moving forward.
“This includes navigating the recent economic downturn, changes in data privacy regulations and directions in the business as a result,” added Germaine.
Taking the charge in diversity and inclusion
As an empowered woman leader, Germaine goes out of her way to ensure that diversity and inclusion are actively practised within her team and the company.
On a regular basis, Germaine reviews her team’s performance and ensures that they have access to opportunities for career advancement, promotions, and pay where relevant with company policies. She also makes the effort to eliminate potential bias that may be at play by having active participation in all company processes.
As part of the leadership team in APAC, she sits in on at least one interview during the hiring process for any individual, not just the ones hired for marketing. She believes that having a presence in these processes helps her to contribute to the elimination of gender bias in recruitment, and helps the hiring managers establish objective criteria for performance.
In moving the needle in women empowerment, Germaine, most especially, is an active member of the Quantcast Women’s network. Through this platform, she uses her knowledge and skills to help provide women in the business with the training and support they need to succeed in a wide variety of roles.
“When women succeed at the workplace, so do men, and vice-versa. True equality is when people are celebrated for their successes, not their gender,” remarked Germaine.
Aside from Germaine, check out who else made it to Empowered Women Awards 2023 Winners’ list.
