Lily Badger – Head of Marketing/Executive Team of HOP WTR

Website: https://hopwtr.com

Lily Badger is an innovative, results-driven Brand Marketing Leader with 10+ years of successes in branding, marketing and e-commerce. Currently she is the only female on the leadership team for a startup beverage brand called HOP WTR, running Marketing for the CPG brand that is poised for fast growth and a swift acquisition target within 2-3 years.

 

HOP-WTR-products

 

She embraces IWD, saying, “Growing up in a family of women (2 sisters, mother – my father was very outnumbered) I never thought that women couldn’t achieve the same as men. My mother was the first woman in her class at Business School and actually met my father because she hired him.”

“Only as I got older did I realise that women had to fight for equal rights in so many sectors – pay, education, just to be heard, and ultimately success. IWD mean’s a day to celebrate and highlight ALL women out there working to put food on their tables, breaking the glass ceiling, or just getting through a rough day.”

Working in the male-dominated beer/beverage industry she says, “Women face so many challenges in this sector (getting ahead, getting heard outside of creative/marketing, and making real connections/friendships with colleagues) because it’s a boys club and most of the boys in it still think girls have cooties.”

She started in the industry prior to having a child and said she’d never come back to it, but she has, and says this time she’s happier, explaining “It’s because I have found allies in the men I work with who support my needs and don’t look at them as deficiencies.”

“Additionally, I know my boundaries and I’m advanced enough in my career that I can set them. We don’t all have that luxury and I know I am lucky in that sense. But, I recommended starting small and set one boundary, like I am logging off from 5pm-7pm to be with my kid, or I need a 30-minute lunch break to pump – whatever it is, set just one thing and see how it goes and incrementally. Add more until you’re happy. Like filling your cup.”

In order to achieve equality she says, “Men must be women’s allies. Allyship means allowing women the spotlight, hiring women, promoting women, voting women into office and ultimately celebrating what we have achieved loudly so other men get the picture.”