Bhavana Smith is Helping Corporate Women Get What They Deserve
At the top of her professional game, the former agency exec is now building a roadmap for other women to follow.
share this article
Ready to unleash the full power of marketing?
In 2015, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was asked when there would be enough women on the Supreme Court. “When there are nine,” she replied. Her point wasn’t that the Supreme Court should be all female, but rather that no one should question the notion of it. After all, for over two centuries, no one blinked an eye at an all-male court. What’s the difference?
For the early part of my marketing career, I didn’t know the unwritten rules of the corporate workplace—rules that benefited men and held women back. For one thing, I was totally unaware of the questions I should ask during a compensation discussion.
The turning point came when I was interviewing for a role that would take me back into the agency world after years in consulting. I knew that agencies tend to pay more; I just didn’t know how much more. So when the recruiter asked me, “What’s your number?” I didn’t answer like I usually would. Instead, I asked, “What are you offering for the role?” When he gave me the salary range, I was like, “Holy shit! I’m so glad I didn’t tell him what I was making!”
Then, I asked a male friend, “How do I ask for the highest end of the range?” And he matter-of-factly replied, “What do you mean? You just ask for it.” I typed an email to the recruiter requesting the top of the range, but I still felt the need to show flexibility. I ended up with a 60% to 70% jump in my salary. I was stunned, and I thought, “How have I been missing out on this conversation?”
I shared the experience with a female friend, and she told me to save that for when it was her turn. It wasn’t until 2020 that I started to write things down, though—I created a Google Doc playbook that I could share with my friends. Ultimately, I said, “Well, why just limit this to my group of women? Why not open it up to anyone who needs it?”
I named my organization Until There Are Nine because our industry needs to reach the point where no one asks the question, “How many women are enough in the C-suite, or on the company board?” I have 25 to 30 seasoned executives who serve as advisors alongside me, sharing our collective 600 (or so) years of experience.
Research shows that women earn less than men for various reasons, including gender bias. But another factor is our reluctance to ask for the number we want and advocate for ourselves. It’s ironic because women are effective negotiators. We tend to consider both sides’ interests and to factor them into the conversation, which is actually better. But many of us fail to define what we bring to the table, and we need to understand all of the things that need to be done before and after the one discussion, too. That’s why I created this career intelligence platform. We’ve got a business case template, which women can use to build their case for a promotion or raise, using cold, hard facts. The template’s purpose is to quantify your value, listing the ways you are making (or saving) the company money.
Of course, a promotion is rarely tied to your performance alone. Timing, funding, and other employee promotions are also in play. And in many cases, you have to be tackling responsibilities for the role above you—you have to be doing 100% of your job and 50% of the next job. You prove that you're already doing it.
I learned this lesson the hard way because my strengths are in strategy and operations. I'm always asking, “How are we delivering on the company value proposition?” I like to set things up, and I like to make things run. No doubt managers appreciate these qualities. But they’re not handing out promotions for efficiency and delegation. How many new clients have I landed? How much business have I brought in? That’s how leaders tend to think.
But I see the industry changing, especially for women. The overall work structure is trending toward more people going out on their own, working for themselves. And when you’re running your own businesses you’re less threatened by gender bias and ageism. Secondly, there’s more transparency, with AI making information easier to access and new laws coming into place. It’s a lot easier to ask for what you want when you know that others have already received it.
