On Women, Creativity, And Making a Living While Making a Life: TFW Talks Progress & Storytelling With Jessica Doyle
Over the decades, we’ve come up with a lot of words for the act of working. Hustling. The grind. Doing the 9-5. Climbing the corporate ladder. Most of our words for work have an edge of urgent, almost desperate energy, as if merely speaking about career brings us to a precipice and forces us to think about what it might be like to jump.
The question more and more people are asking is, does it have to be this way? Does work have to be desperate, or can it be passionate, instead? Where does the difference lie?
Jessica Doyle is the Vice President of Communications and Engagement Marketing at the global e-commerce giant known as Etsy. She gave The Fem Word team the privilege of sitting down and sharing some of her wisdom on work and career – and that wisdom mainly centers around our wider, global conversation about what these areas of life truly mean.
Jessica Doyle pictured with her family. PHOTO CREDIT: Jessica Doyle
Narrative Industry & The Power Of Telling The Right Stories, Right Now
Like TFW’s founder, Monika, Jessica began her career in the fast-paced world of newsroom journalism. She credits this tough, early career environment with her later success, though some of the lessons were harsh.
“Working in journalism is bootcamp for narration,” she says. “You know what works, what doesn’t, you have immediate feedback and no budget [laughs]. So you’ve got to be scrappy. I really do believe that there’s no greater ‘feeder network’ for narration than working in a newsroom. You’ve got to be good or you [just] don’t last long.”
Narration is simply another word for telling stories, but it also goes much deeper than that. Throughout our conversation, Jessica gave the impression that the real value of words exists in their ability to forge narratives out of otherwise unexpected realms of life.
“When we talk about narrative,” she explains, “what you’re really talking about is how we express our greatest desires, our greatest fears. Words create revolutions, for better or for worse.”
It’s also clear from Jessica’s own experiences that these word-fueled revolutions don’t always happen in dramatic ways. Some of the revolutions that have defined her and so many other women’s stories have been small, even unassuming, and they may unfold slowly and mature only after years or decades of minute-by-minute decisions have been made.
The choice to switch gears and pursue new avenues after a career in traditional journalism led her to make an even bigger social impact than she’d imagined, for example. A hundred small moments of empathy toward team members and sellers means a new culture has taken root in Miss Doyle’s network, each one leading to others down the line of command. And all of these decisions centered around stories, both personal and global.
Jessica’s love of narrative began early on, and she was always a “big talker.” She was an avid member of her high school newspaper club as well as the yearbook committee, and she described herself as having been “an expressive kid” from the start.
“I’ve always been drawn to and fascinated by how we use our words in a way that changes behavior and changes minds. [...]I grew up in a family where stories mattered,” she says, crediting her home life with fostering her love of words. “We would tell each other stories over dinner, and that was sort of the time where we all connected.”
Taking a step back, you can easily see how narrative - storytelling - forms the main thread binding all of Jessica’s career experiences together. From her start at the desks of the Washington Post and CNN to her later (and current) role as a corporate communications expert, she’s always followed where stories led her.
Like many young creatives, at first she wasn’t certain about where that pull could take her. But college taught her that there were more options open to her than she’d expected. “It didn’t just have to be teaching, or writing books, or [typical] things like that,” she says of her realization. “And that [epiphany] led me to a journalism career and eventually to a career in corporate communications. [Now I get] to help companies really figure out their narratives, in a way that’s impactful and reaches audiences.”
Five years into her role at Etsy, Jessica feels she’s at last found a company that truly sees the potential of people’s narratives and stories the same way she does. And guided by her principles and the experiences of countless diverse, creative voices, that company is standing out from other e-commerce giants in a big way.
Selling Without Selling Out - How Etsy Is Changing The Game For Creative Entrepreneurs
Traditionally speaking, women have always found it difficult to balance the competing demands on their time and energy. Does that even need to be said anymore? And after decades of progress in the professional sphere, women are still doing more juggling than coasting when it comes to starting businesses while managing the rest of their lives (and the lives of others around them, too).
Etsy models a unique solution to this problem, and Jessica saw that potential early on.
“You don’t just have to [do this as] a full-time job,” she says of sellers on Etsy’s platform. “You can do a little bit here, a little bit there, [or] devote yourself all day long, all night long, all weekend long to working on your business. It’s scalable. And I don’t see that there are a whole lot of scalable solutions for women in the workplace.”
Allowing women to build their careers around their personal lives and other commitments is a radical shift from the older, less forgiving models that define what it is to be a “working woman.” Jessica and those like her have consistently had the courage to ask why, exactly, there needed to be a work-life hierarchy in the first place.
“There really aren’t a lot of economic opportunities for women where you can fit it into your lifestyle,” she points out. “Etsy really fills that niche, and it’s also great for people who have [that] creative bent […] and maybe don’t see themselves as part of the ‘power base.’ This is a place where you can be empowered…and make a living as well as a life.”
By putting that ‘power base’ into the hands of creative entrepreneurs themselves, rather than gatekeepers or exclusionary market forces, Etsy has opened up a whole new realm of possibility for those seeking to combine their art and their businesses.
“People like you and me came up through a power dynamic that was not envisioned for us. We understand at a molecular level what it [truly] means to be a disruptive force in the place around us and to do good out of that.”
Jessica Doyle, Etsy
Most importantly, the platform and its team have given these creators permission to blend entrepreneurship and art seamlessly, without feeling like they must sacrifice relationships, potential, or personal wellbeing to achieve their goals.
As Jessica proudly tells us, “it costs 20 cents to list an item [on Etsy]. All you need is an idea, and 20 cents - and you’re on your way to owning a business.” Such a low barrier to entry is truly a sea change for entrepreneurs all over the world - especially female and BIPOC ones.
This departs from many analysts’ more pessimistic predictions about the future of entrepreneurship, which often center around the monopolization of markets by huge, multi-billion-dollar conglomerates that have no problem shoving smaller competitors off the stage. Having another vision for the future of entrepreneurship is vital.
As former Indian president and aerospace legend A. P. J. Abdul Kalam was fond of saying, “you have to dream before your dreams can come true.” In many ways, Etsy gives permission for dreamers to dream, and the platform presents the kind of alternative vision our entrepreneurs and economies need now more than ever.
Jessica presents these competing visions succinctly. “[…] We love these commodity goods, but actually purchasing things that say something about who we are as individuals is something we want, too,” she asserts. “And we want a connection with other people, we want a connection with sellers. You know, the main street sellers can’t succeed anymore with the same velocity that they used to, and they have to move online, they have to have places like Etsy that are willing to ‘fight the big guys’ for them.”
She’s living proof that sometimes, “fighting the big guys” is less about going head-to-head and is more a matter of providing the right place for people to be heard - and to do so on principle.
On The Principle Of Disruption In Business And Life
The word “disruption” naturally grabs the attention, and at first glance it may sound negative. But in the world of business, disruption is both a positive force and a major goal for discerning entrepreneurs.
People define it differently depending on their industry and beliefs, but for Jessica, “it’s about looking at the landscape and seeing an imbalance - finding a better path forward than the status quo.”
We can easily fall into the trap of assumption in both our professional and personal lives. It’s not uncommon for us to frame experiences and expectations around the way things are done or how it’s always been. But these assumptions are limiting, and to achieve progress they have to be set aside in favor of something new. That process takes courage and vision - and a healthy dose of vulnerability, too.
During our conversation, Jessica repeatedly touched on what this courage looks like in action. At times it’s finding the gumption to “disagree with the big scary people with the big scary business cards,” while at others it is a matter of saying to others, “well, this may not be what you want to hear, but it’s what you need to hear.”
This kind of initiative arises over time and isn’t an instantaneous process by any means. Distilling her disruptive abilities down, Jessica says:
“Looking back, the central theme is valuing myself. Knowing what my value was. I think that’s a really hard thing for young women, young professionals - [it’s not really] gender-specific, because so many of us come into the workforce not knowing what our value is. But speaking as a woman, I’m a people-pleaser, and there were decades where I didn’t speak my mind. I didn’t want to upset the apple cart, I didn’t know if my perspective was needed or wanted. I’ve had to kind of train myself out of that to this day.”
To her, disruption is as inevitable as it is vital, anyway. Major players can’t afford to forget this as they seek to take more and more of the market share, often at the expense of real, meaningful competition. Allowing creative, diverse entrepreneurial voices into the mix isn’t negotiable.
“It’s about the survival of what we believe in as a country and as a world,” she warns. “People need to be able to compete against market forces. So we have to be there to support them every step of the way.”
Looking back on her time in the newsroom, Jessica considered her and Monika’s unique perspective on what competition really means for traditionally underrepresented people. To her, their experiences are an undeniable asset despite what they took to achieve.
“People like you and me (Jessica and Monika) came up through a power dynamic that was not envisioned for us,” she reflects. “We were sitting in the back of the room for a long time, and we really had to fight for our place at the table. We understand at a molecular level what it [truly] means to be a disruptive force in the place around us and to do good out of that. We’re not here because we want power, we’re not hungry to dominate. We do it because we want to impact for the better.”
This kind of revolution isn’t always loud. Often it takes place in subtle, long-term actions and behaviors, such as simply empathizing with the people who work for and with you. COVID only brought the need for such small steps further to the fore, for Jessica.
“During COVID we were all kind of living in the eye of a hurricane,” she reflects. “We were all kind of managing though it, but having an employer that understood…sometimes, there are days when you’re just going to break. I think we all broke at some point over the last 18 months. Having empathy for all the people who were going through that and through a thousand different things was so important.”
This empathy shows itself through many of the policies and practices that Etsy has put in place, whether it’s their practice of allowing for more personalized, laissez-faire leadership styles among managers or their integration of industry-leading diversity and leave policies as a matter of course.
Jessica has plenty of hard numbers to back up her company’s claim to greatness in the realm of people-first entrepreneurship. As of this writing, Etsy’s overall team includes:
A board comprised of 50% women;
A 44% ratio of female leaders overall, across departments;
A 30% women-led team of engineers in their tech department, which is over twice the industry benchmark of 14%;
A seller base that is 81% women;
And in Jessica’s department, a radical, 97% women-led team.
Talking about these statistics highlighted another major point Jessica was making about disruption - it’s as much about principles as it is about progress.
“We’ve always been about lifting up women, and we’ve been very purposeful around that,” she says of Etsy’s history as a company. “You’ve got to ‘see it to be it’ when it comes to diversity, and you’ve really got to care. You have got to build goals around it, and you’ve got to be transparent, and you’ve got to hold yourself accountable for it.”
The platform puts action behind these words by implementing such practices as hiring outside auditors to “grade” their performance in the realm of diversity hiring and inclusion, publishing a detailed annual report that combines the brand’s financials with their “impact metrics” in arenas like social, environmental, and economic equality, and by engaging in constant, meaningful collaborations with small-scale sellers and major economic players to help boost the potential of creators everywhere.
If you ask us, that’s the kind of “disruption” anyone can get on board with.
Looking Toward The Global Future Of Creative Business And Empathetic Entrepreneurs - We’re Trending Toward Integrity
It seems fitting to end this piece with a look toward the horizon, especially when we consider the place of TFW and its partners in that collective, creative future. And it’s not just artists who are putting their weight behind the movement for more empathetic business practices.
When The Fem Word partnered with the BIPOC and women-led consulting firm, Akytech Consulting, we knew that we shared a set of values, and we believed that they were worth acting on. Telling women’s stories, empowering girls in STEM and beyond, and advocating for a more values-first approach to business were all vital themes guiding both Akytech and TFW when we started our partnership.
So, we asked Jessica the big question: how can people and organizations like us really support creative, diverse entrepreneurs and professionals through our work?
“Figure out what the real value is in creative entrepreneurship,” she advises. “It’s about finding new products [and] finding new ways of doing things. It’s about helping those people to succeed, be it [through] having an incredible pipeline to jobs - at a corporate level, are you letting people in at every stage of the job journey and are you making it part of your job to make them successful? Is it finding avenues for entrepreneurship that you can market, that you can sell? Or it [could be] building great platforms, tech, [and] ad networks that help support small business owners.”
With decades of experience to back up her advice, she’s willing to bet her own future on the success of these principles and the actions they inspire. Behind her confidence is an army of consumers who crave something different - something more meaningful than the norm.
“You can’t commodify creativity,” she says. “The world will always want a muse, and will always want better products that are made for them, and I think it’s our moral responsibility to find a way [or path] that’s outside of the big-box stores and that allows people to bring their creative selves to the fore and make a business out of it.”
“People want that - they want to support small businesses,” she adds. “They want to support BIPOC-owned businesses. They want companies that care about the planet, that aren’t just putting fake smiles on their boxes. They want a box that brings you a real smile. [Something] that’s good for [both] people and the planet.”
And Jessica isn’t afraid to put some fire into these beliefs, or to “pour gasoline on them” as she puts it. When she and companies like Etsy stand up and act with that kind of passion and integrity, the results are all but guaranteed. It all begins with amplifying the potential of those who need it most.
“As long as we’re doing that, I wouldn’t bet against us,” she states with confidence. “We’re going to continue to be out there in force, and we’re going to continue to grow.”
That’s the kind of vision that changes everything. We’re glad to see that it has the kind of advocate it needs to make a real impact - an advocate like Jessica.
We want to once again thank Ms. Doyle for sitting down with us and sharing her story with The Fem Word’s readers and fans. Thank you! And another big thank you to our partner, Akytech Consulting, who makes it possible for us to find and share stories like these. Together, we’re leading the way forward.
This interview is made possible by our partner Akytech Consulting, a minority, woman-owned consulting company in the DC area which allows The Fem Word to highlight women leaders.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the interviewee, and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Fem Word organization. Any content provided by our interviewees are based on their opinions and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.