Marie-Hélène Savard has been named Yahoo's new Head of International Media. She oversees the company's content businesses in Canada, Latin America, Europe, India and Singapore. She leads Yahoo's global editorial team in their coverage of worldwide events, including the upcoming Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and in their approach to News and Finance topics. We caught up with Savard this week.
SDTC: Can you describe your career trajectory up to this point?
MS: I grew up in Montreal and studied business at McGill. The job I have now didn't exist when I was a teenager, so I can't claim this was my master plan all along. I had no idea what I'd end up doing, but I was passionate about music and the internet, and I've been incredibly lucky to spend my entire working life involved in both – first in the music industry for eight years, and then in digital media.
My first experience that relates to what I do now was a part-time job for l'Equipe Spectra when I was a student. Spectra puts on events like the Montreal Jazz Festival in the summertime, but it's also an artist agency that manages a number of concert venues. I did everything they'd throw my way: database entry, booking travel for the Jazz Fest, translating contracts and menus, updating the website, collecting press clippings. The job came with an all-access pass to the Jazz Fest concerts, a never-ending supply of CDs and colleagues who were as passionate about music as I was. Heaven.
After graduation, I spent six months in communications for a government agency, and that was enough for me to realize I might be happier in a less corporate environment. I applied for an entry-level position in Sony Music's New Media department, and three weeks later I was moving to Toronto for the role.
I joined Sony Music's digital team before Facebook, before smartphones, before musicians talking directly with their fans through Instagram and Twitter and Snapchat. I would spend time with artists teaching them how to use platforms like MySpace, and then do sessions with marketing managers and A&R to explain the types of insights they could get from online fan communities. Towards the end of my time there, I was also overseeing digital marketing budgets and partnerships for big names like Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake and Usher.
I moved to Yahoo in 2009 to run their entertainment properties in Canada. The role evolved as time went on and I started managing the full Canadian editorial group (including Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, and Yahoo Sports) about two years ago.
On top of my Canadian role, I've also spent the last year pulling double-duty as chief-of-staff for Yahoo's International Editorial group, overseeing business operations. Earlier this month I became the Head of International Media at Yahoo, running the editorial business for all markets outside the US, including Latin America, Europe, India and Southeast Asia.
Can you walk us through a typical day?
I manage teams in 10 countries, so a typical day has me waking up in a hotel room trying to remember which city I'm in. When I'm in Toronto, I stick as close to a routine as possible to make up for all the time I spend on the road.
I'm usually awake by 6 am, and the first thing I do is check my work email. By then it's mid-day in Europe, late afternoon in India and evening in Singapore, so I deal with any urgent requests that came in while I was sleeping, along with the emails I can answer with just a sentence or two. Early morning is also my favourite time to just generally catch up on the internet – on top of the Yahoo app, I'll check my Tumblr dash, Facebook, Medium, Snapchat… I save articles to Pocket to read when I'm on a plane.
I walk to the office and spend those 35 minutes prioritizing my work for the day or thinking through some of the more complex issues. Once I get in the office, the first thing I do is look at data. Of the two main dashboards I use, one shows real-time performance of articles on all Yahoo sites, and one ranks the engagement of all our posts across our 20+ Facebook pages. I'll often send a quick note to an editor if I notice something interesting, or I ping them on HipChat about an article. Most of my day at the office is spent in meetings. Like most tech companies, all meetings at Yahoo are done through video conference, so I don't even have a desk phone. The most challenging thing is finding meeting times that work across time zones, and I don't always succeed. I've taken my fair share of video conferences from my kitchen at 3 am, but so have the Yahoo editors in Mumbai and Dubai.
Things quiet down around 4 pm, and eventually I head back home. I try not to bring any work home with me, though I do have my phone with me in case anything pops up.
What was the best piece of career-related advice you've received?
That my job is to make my boss's job easier. Whenever I work for someone new, my first order of business is to understand what their priorities are and what success looks like to them. Whether you're just starting out or you're a CEO, odds are you'll always have a boss. Having strong alignment with them really goes a long way.
Any tips for young women starting out in your field?
Ask. Ask to take on more responsibilities if you feel like you're not learning, ask for feedback if you're not getting it, ask for help if you're feeling unsure. No one will look out for you better than you, so figure out what you need and ask for it.
What can we look forward to seeing on Yahoo this year?
Yahoo's content strengths are in Sports, News, Finance and Lifestyle, so this year we're doubling down in those areas. In Sports, Yahoo always goes big on Olympics coverage, and we'll make the most of our international presence this summer in Rio with journalists on the ground from a number of countries, including Canada. In Finance, we're gearing up to stream the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, and in Lifestyle, we'll be further integrating Polyvore into our content strategy.
Why do you love what you do?
There's a lot to love about working in digital media in general. For one, it's never boring. It's constantly evolving, and it's been fascinating to witness the models of content consumption change over time and across geographies. And every day at Yahoo, I get to interact with incredibly smart, dedicated and passionate people on projects with a staggering reach – Yahoo has 1 billion users worldwide, so those are a lot of eyeballs on our articles and videos.
The post Her Career: Marie-Hélène Savard, Head of International Media at Yahoo appeared first on Shedoesthecity.
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Her Career: Marie-Hélène Savard, Head of International Media at Yahoo http://ift.tt/25fwAPY shedoesthecity
Marie-Hélène Savard has been named Yahoo's new Head of International Media. She oversees the company's content businesses in Canada, Latin America, Europe, India and Singapore. She leads Yahoo's global editorial team in their coverage of worldwide events, including the upcoming Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and in their approach to News and Finance topics. We caught up with Savard this week.
SDTC: Can you describe your career trajectory up to this point?
MS: I grew up in Montreal and studied business at McGill. The job I have now didn't exist when I was a teenager, so I can't claim this was my master plan all along. I had no idea what I'd end up doing, but I was passionate about music and the internet, and I've been incredibly lucky to spend my entire working life involved in both – first in the music industry for eight years, and then in digital media.
My first experience that relates to what I do now was a part-time job for l'Equipe Spectra when I was a student. Spectra puts on events like the Montreal Jazz Festival in the summertime, but it's also an artist agency that manages a number of concert venues. I did everything they'd throw my way: database entry, booking travel for the Jazz Fest, translating contracts and menus, updating the website, collecting press clippings. The job came with an all-access pass to the Jazz Fest concerts, a never-ending supply of CDs and colleagues who were as passionate about music as I was. Heaven.
After graduation, I spent six months in communications for a government agency, and that was enough for me to realize I might be happier in a less corporate environment. I applied for an entry-level position in Sony Music's New Media department, and three weeks later I was moving to Toronto for the role.
I joined Sony Music's digital team before Facebook, before smartphones, before musicians talking directly with their fans through Instagram and Twitter and Snapchat. I would spend time with artists teaching them how to use platforms like MySpace, and then do sessions with marketing managers and A&R to explain the types of insights they could get from online fan communities. Towards the end of my time there, I was also overseeing digital marketing budgets and partnerships for big names like Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake and Usher.
I moved to Yahoo in 2009 to run their entertainment properties in Canada. The role evolved as time went on and I started managing the full Canadian editorial group (including Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, and Yahoo Sports) about two years ago.
On top of my Canadian role, I've also spent the last year pulling double-duty as chief-of-staff for Yahoo's International Editorial group, overseeing business operations. Earlier this month I became the Head of International Media at Yahoo, running the editorial business for all markets outside the US, including Latin America, Europe, India and Southeast Asia.
Can you walk us through a typical day?
I manage teams in 10 countries, so a typical day has me waking up in a hotel room trying to remember which city I'm in. When I'm in Toronto, I stick as close to a routine as possible to make up for all the time I spend on the road.
I'm usually awake by 6 am, and the first thing I do is check my work email. By then it's mid-day in Europe, late afternoon in India and evening in Singapore, so I deal with any urgent requests that came in while I was sleeping, along with the emails I can answer with just a sentence or two. Early morning is also my favourite time to just generally catch up on the internet – on top of the Yahoo app, I'll check my Tumblr dash, Facebook, Medium, Snapchat… I save articles to Pocket to read when I'm on a plane.
I walk to the office and spend those 35 minutes prioritizing my work for the day or thinking through some of the more complex issues. Once I get in the office, the first thing I do is look at data. Of the two main dashboards I use, one shows real-time performance of articles on all Yahoo sites, and one ranks the engagement of all our posts across our 20+ Facebook pages. I'll often send a quick note to an editor if I notice something interesting, or I ping them on HipChat about an article. Most of my day at the office is spent in meetings. Like most tech companies, all meetings at Yahoo are done through video conference, so I don't even have a desk phone. The most challenging thing is finding meeting times that work across time zones, and I don't always succeed. I've taken my fair share of video conferences from my kitchen at 3 am, but so have the Yahoo editors in Mumbai and Dubai.
Things quiet down around 4 pm, and eventually I head back home. I try not to bring any work home with me, though I do have my phone with me in case anything pops up.
What was the best piece of career-related advice you've received?
That my job is to make my boss's job easier. Whenever I work for someone new, my first order of business is to understand what their priorities are and what success looks like to them. Whether you're just starting out or you're a CEO, odds are you'll always have a boss. Having strong alignment with them really goes a long way.
Any tips for young women starting out in your field?
Ask. Ask to take on more responsibilities if you feel like you're not learning, ask for feedback if you're not getting it, ask for help if you're feeling unsure. No one will look out for you better than you, so figure out what you need and ask for it.
What can we look forward to seeing on Yahoo this year?
Yahoo's content strengths are in Sports, News, Finance and Lifestyle, so this year we're doubling down in those areas. In Sports, Yahoo always goes big on Olympics coverage, and we'll make the most of our international presence this summer in Rio with journalists on the ground from a number of countries, including Canada. In Finance, we're gearing up to stream the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, and in Lifestyle, we'll be further integrating Polyvore into our content strategy.
Why do you love what you do?
There's a lot to love about working in digital media in general. For one, it's never boring. It's constantly evolving, and it's been fascinating to witness the models of content consumption change over time and across geographies. And every day at Yahoo, I get to interact with incredibly smart, dedicated and passionate people on projects with a staggering reach – Yahoo has 1 billion users worldwide, so those are a lot of eyeballs on our articles and videos.
The post Her Career: Marie-Hélène Savard, Head of International Media at Yahoo appeared first on Shedoesthecity.