Am­bi­ka Ja­gas­sars­ingh

am­bi­ka.ja­gas­sars­ingh@guardian.co.tt

Rhon­da Lan­dreth-Smith re­mem­bers once work­ing all night on a project and not even be­ing in­vit­ed to the pre­sen­ta­tion of it.

“(Ad­ver­tis­ing) is a very male-dom­i­nat­ed in­dus­try and that has not sub­stan­tial­ly changed over the years so it hasn’t been an easy path. As such, I ex­pe­ri­enced my fair share of chau­vin­ism, where the men who I was equal­ly or in some in­stances more tal­ent­ed than were get­ting the pro­mo­tions, recog­ni­tion and ti­tles that I felt I was de­serv­ing of,” Lan­dreth-Smith said.

She stat­ed that ear­li­er on in her ca­reer, there were in­stances where she was nev­er cred­it­ed for her hard work, but in­stead was un­der­mined.

“There were a lot of bi­as­es in favour of the men in terms of them get­ting the bet­ter projects to work on along with the ti­tles and cred­it,” she lament­ed.

De­spite this, how­ev­er, Lan­dreth-Smith said she nev­er lost her fire and fought for the recog­ni­tion and fruits of her labour.

“I was com­plete­ly over­looked but I was al­ways a very vo­cal per­son and made no qualms about ex­press­ing my dis­sat­is­fac­tion about the fact that my male col­league, who hadn’t worked as tire­less­ly on the project as I did, was in­vit­ed to the pre­sen­ta­tion. In the end, I did go but not be­fore I stood up for my­self,” she said.

Lan­dreth-Smith said al­though the ad­ver­tis­ing agency sphere in T&T has been male-dom­i­nat­ed for years, this did not stop her from pur­su­ing a ca­reer with­in the field.

And she has not re­gret­ted it.

Ac­cord­ing to her, she al­ways had a knack for the cre­ative in­dus­try.

“I’ve al­ways had a pen­chant for writ­ing. I read fe­ro­cious­ly as a child, name­ly Fa­mous Five and Nan­cy Drew books and it re­al­ly be­came my refuge so I knew from a very ear­ly age I had to do some­thing that re­quired me to be cre­ative with words. I threw my hat in­to the ring when it came to ad­ver­tis­ing and fell in love with it.”

Lan­dreth-Smith has spent more than 20 years in the ad­ver­tis­ing in­dus­try, and her pas­sion, she said, has nev­er sub­sided due to the flu­id­i­ty of the busi­ness.

“I start­ed at the bot­tom as a copy­writer, ab­sorbed as much as I could, learn­ing every as­pect of the busi­ness and worked my way to the top. To this day, I’m very much still ex­cit­ed by it as the first day I start­ed. It’s an ever-evolv­ing in­dus­try and it keeps you riv­et­ed to what’s hap­pen­ing in the world around you. It keeps you al­ways think­ing on your feet to find new, ex­cit­ing and in­no­v­a­tive ways to reach the var­i­ous mar­kets. To me, there’s noth­ing quite like it!” she said.

She stat­ed that her years in the in­dus­try have not on­ly helped her hone her craft but al­so con­tributed to the woman she is to­day.

“It’s un­pre­dictable and you have to be fear­less in pur­su­ing your pur­pose, the road can be windy but ex­pe­ri­ence has taught me that you have to trust that there is a big­ger plan at play, and no mat­ter how per­ilous it seems you have to get up and keep push­ing for­ward. Every­thing good or bad that hap­pens in life is a learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence that helps you grow in­to be­com­ing the best ver­sion of your­self.”

This she said, con­tributed to her re­silience and abil­i­ty to step out of her com­fort zone.

Over the years Lan­dreth-Smith has re­ceived nu­mer­ous ac­co­lades in­clud­ing the Ad­ver­tis­ing Agen­cies As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s (AAATT) An­nu­al Cre­ative Ex­cel­lence Award.

She has worked with many clients both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, in­clud­ing KFC, Neal & Massy, John­son & John­son, and Hol­i­day Snacks.

Lan­dreth-Smith is now the cre­ative di­rec­tor and co-own­er of Salt­wa­ter Stu­dios (Caribbean) Ltd.

She stat­ed that gen­der plays no role in her com­pa­ny’s hi­er­ar­chy, and it is based sole­ly on the in­di­vid­ual’s cal­i­bre of work.

“I hire and pro­mote on the ba­sis of mer­it, not gen­der. It’s that sim­ple. Once you are bring­ing val­ue to the ta­ble and you are an as­set to the com­pa­ny you are fair­ly re­ward­ed. It’s cer­tain­ly not based on gen­der. In fact, the women in my com­pa­ny hold some of the most key po­si­tions in my or­gan­i­sa­tion and have tru­ly be­come the back­bone of our suc­cess.”

She stat­ed that one of the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of Salt­wa­ter Stu­dios was that in­di­vid­u­als are al­ways fair­ly and gen­er­ous­ly com­pen­sat­ed for their ef­fort and ex­per­tise, re­gard­less of their gen­der.

Lan­dreth-Smith said she be­lieves that as a woman with the po­ten­tial to up­lift oth­ers, it is her du­ty to do so in any way she can.

“I help the younger gen­er­a­tion every day. I men­tor my team every sin­gle day. I feel the most im­por­tant role I have is to share my gifts and knowl­edge with oth­ers, and to be of ser­vice. This is pre­cise­ly why I’ve hired women who have had no pri­or knowl­edge of the busi­ness and tak­en them un­der my wing and trained them and made them each in­to a force to be reck­oned with.”

Her ad­vice for young women try­ing to nav­i­gate the work­ing world is to keep push­ing against all odds.

“Fol­low your cu­rios­i­ty, see what sparks your soul and fol­low that path it may very well lead you to your des­tiny. Take chances, be fear­less and step out­side of your com­fort zone and no mat­ter how dis­cour­aged you may feel at times, keep putting one foot in front of the oth­er—con­sis­ten­cy and hard work does pay off,” she said.

Lan­dreth-Smith be­lieves that In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day is about ho­n­our­ing women.

“It’s about cel­e­brat­ing women and how far we have come. Our re­silience, our ex­tra­or­di­nary abil­i­ty to over­come the odds and thrive in spite of the so­ci­etal lim­i­ta­tions placed on us. We now hold key roles in every pro­fes­sion and walk of life,” she said.

De­spite these ad­vances made over the years, how­ev­er, she stressed that this was not enough.

“There is still so much that needs to be done, there are still parts of the world where we are fight­ing to have our voic­es be heard.”

Lan­dreth-Smith em­pha­sised that in this fight for ad­vance­ment, men al­so had a part to play in sup­port­ing women on their road to suc­cess to bring about sig­nif­i­cant changes.

“I think that it’s im­por­tant that women are able to em­brace their suc­cess whole­heart­ed­ly and not down­play it be­cause their hus­bands or boyfriends feel threat­ened, in­tim­i­dat­ed or in­se­cure. Men have to come to terms with the fact that the ta­bles have turned and women are go­ing to con­tin­ue to break the glass ceil­ing, so sup­port­ing and cel­e­brat­ing the chang­ing tide is key in help­ing to achieve equal­i­ty. Mind­set is key!”