Life style
Shrinking the glass ceiling
Today women are breaking glass ceilings and have emerged as strong entrepreneurs. The status of women in Sri Lanka too have access to professions such as medicine, teaching, politics and have the monopoly to start any businesses.Women around the world we see breaking male barriers, embarking on male dominated fields and disrupting deep rooted practices . No wall is too high for women in Sri Lanka to climb the ladder of success. We spoke to Fiona Nanayakara about ingenuity. entrepreneurial spirit.leadership skills and public relations and news publishing.
by Zanita Careem
About yourself and your career in marketing?
I am Fionna Nanayakkara. with a post graduate degree in Marketing and MBA from UK and currently reading for the PhD at University of Sri Jayawardenapura. Started my marketing career in 2007 and after working for industries FMCG, Healthcare, Manufacturing & Tech launched the first and only press release distribution system in Sri Lanka as News Publisher Online in 2018. In 2019 I was awarded the Most Influential Content Marketer at the World Marketing Congress and was recognised as a top female leader in Sri Lanka for 2020.
You have accumulated vast amount of experience having worked for many top companies. What did you learn from these rides and how do you apply experience in your current role?
Work hard, discipline yourself to work smart with attention to detail time management are my magic action When you are own boss there won’t be anyone following up with you,
Learn everything from being in corporate communications I had no choice but e (as we manage other companies reputations), therefore we have to play close attention to the people , our team from the point of recruitment itself to evaluate thier skills & ethics equally
What made you fall in love with the world of marketing?
We are always on top with global, economic and organisational trends. Access to this information on an ongoing basis excites me to be a marketeer.
In school I loved maths as a subject but marketing came naturally to me. The fact that I was good at it helped me a lot
What does your typical day of work look like? How does your calender look and are you a coffee or tea person ?
I love both but start my day followed by tea where I sit with the newspapers and S scan all headlines and my clients’ articles. Before I start work, I read, exercise, meditate and take care of my doggy’s routine.
At my office, I usually have a heavy day
After work I sometimes have to attend to my studies, but if not its usually a little bit of reading, play time with my dog and Netflix/
How does the Covid-19 pandemic influenced the way your work?
Yes a few income streams needs re-strategizing such as events. However, News Publisher already had the necessary systems in place to work from anywhere. We still work with our industry experts so we don’t compromise on quality and we haven’t lost any talent.
News Publisher online platform is attracting more clients than before We are the only PR agency who has simplified the customer life-cycle so they can access the media from anywhere in the world.
What challenge is on your plate?
Mass media is accessible to an island-wide audience, however majority of this audience is only aware of political agendas. The room for development news is losing space specially in the Sinhala and Tamil media.
What technology trends do you see impacting the marketing industry?
From analysing customer behaviour, producing your product/service to promote technology plays a major part in order to stay relevant and engaged with the customer, employees or the community.
In an agency industr, the sentiment of monitoring helps brand to understand the voice of the people. Now promoting is very easy because the mainstream and social media and online marketing are easily accessible now,
Many entrepreneurs are empowered with numerous resources online to edit images, create videos and develop a creative content.
Brand campaigns are very engaging and memorable thanks to the use of technology. inmodern times.