Where did all the
E-women go?
It looked like a cinch. Pretty face with brains behind and loads of charisma to go? Just find yourself someone like Brent Hoberman (Lastminute) to do the figures and you were on your way to becoming a legend. Women were achieving in two years what would have taken 20 in any other business. Glass ceilings? Pah! The only glass ceiling you'd ever be hitting was the one beneath your feet after your third bottle of champagne during the £500,000 launch party in some impossibly cool 15th-floor bar.
Women came pouring into new media jobs at all levels during that honeymoon period. Dot.coms, launching a dozen a week, were desperate for old media skills in design, sales & marketing, production, and editorial. Experience was rewarded with golden handshakes, eye-popping salaries and seductive share options. Who wanted a stuffy desk job when you could come into work dressed like you'd never left home and joke around with your boss who was probably the same age as you? One woman who used to baby sit for Ready2's Susannah ended up running their beauty channel with her best friend, aged 22, and went on to a £30k+ salary. There were no rules - just a wealth of opportunity.
So what happened? Well, first came the almighty tech stock crash in May 2000, then the ensuing dot.com recession. In November 2000 Internet start-ups were going down at the rate of ten a week, and for the last six months the sector has been on shaky ground. Of those dot.com divas, only one (Martha) is still in business although there are many other, lesser-known survivors: Sonia Lo, CEO of eZoka; Becky Lancashire, MD of Clickmusic; Carol Dukes, CEO of ThinkNatural.com; Shah Wasmund, CEO of MyKindaplace.com; and Jane Proctor, founder and editorial director of PeopleNews.com to name a handful.
Next page: they are not alone
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