Kaori Abe de Shutterstock
Kaori Abe, senior LatAm sales marketing manager at Shutterstock, reflected on the progress and opportunities she has observed in terms of female leadership. “I’ve been part of this industry for some time now and have seen progressive takeovers of top positions by women,” she said, adding that when she first began her career, women were already climbing the ladder of success, occupying more and more positions as directors at the level of VP and C-suite. “I believe there’s still more space that could be occupied by women from company boards up to the presidency and that is the latest stage. I think we’re really moving up,” she said.In her professional journey she has found herself with women who showed her the way and gave her their best support. “During most of my career I’ve had incredible women as bosses, fantastic women as individuals, as professionals who helped me build my career with every chance of being promoted.” And though she has worked in areas dominated by women such as client service positions in agencies and in company marketing departments, that has driven her to establish very high standards of quality and execute her work with excellence. “We women have always given more than 100 percent in our search for perfection,” she said, “and that also influences other parts of life like that of health care.”Kaori reported that many large companies carry out inclusive projects that involve certain groups of employees whose presence increases company knowledge of certain communities in their country. She has even taken part in committees of this kind with many positive results. She mentioned that at Shutterstock there are specific groups for determined communities like, for example, women at Shutterstock who are offered chats and training workshops to help them in their careers.“I believe there’s a place for this kind of project in medium and small companies, though it would be on a smaller scale. this is the right attitude,” she said.She acknowledged that many positions are sutil for men only, depending on the segment. “Opening the way to a higher level is hard, especially when dealing with a woman, or when she belongs to some marginalized group or community.”
