Working Moms Kick-Off Hosted by JW Player Women in Tech
There is no one kind of working mother / “Doing It All” Is a Myth...and other truths from working moms. In honor of Mother’s Day, JW Player’s Women in Tech organization interviewed five leaders in media and tech on navigating the workplace effectively as working moms in 2021 - especially as the home and office merged as one in the last year. Come join us for a sneak peek from the series, as well as a live discussion afterwards.
- Featuring highlights from “Working Moms,” an interview series with working moms in media and tech
- Interactive live discussion hosted by JW Player Women in Tech
- Tips for returning to the office (or hybrid work) from panelists
- Tips on finding your support network as a working mom in 2021
Panelists
Senior Director of Product, Sailthru
Director of Product Marketing, Healthline Media
Founder, Podnods
Senior Director and Managing Editor, Hearst Television
Senior Credit and Collections Analyst, JW Player
About the Panelists
Allison Stone
Allison Stone is a leader in product management with over a decade of experience managing roadmaps and teams of product managers and designers. Her career focus has been building world-class SaaS for B2B audiences. As Senior Director of Product at Sailthru, Allison and her current team are responsible for day-to-day management and strategic planning for multi-million dollar products and features within the CM Group portfolio. At home Allison balances parenting duties of a 7 year old girl and 4 year old boy with her husband, a finance executive in media. Working from home full-time while coordinating virtual (hybrid) learning for the big kid, pre-school drop-off / pick-up for the little kid, with no stable childcare since the pandemic started has been a ride to say the least.
Elizabeth Donovan
Elizabeth Donovan is the Director of Product Marketing at Healthline Media, the number one health information publisher in the U.S. She focuses on launching new digital products that support Healthline’s mission to help all people live well. Previously, she spent time at Ueno – a creative agency recently acquired by Twitter – and media companies Reuters and The Economist. An avid traveler, Liz took a year off to travel to 14 countries in 2016 (and can’t wait to go back to them all with her kids!). She lives in New Jersey with her wife Heather, 8 month old daughter Sophie, and 3 year old son Oliver.
Mercan Topkara
Mercan Topkara recently founded Podnods, an AI based podcast discovery and monetization platform. She got her PhD in Computer Science from Purdue University. Since then, she’s worked at several roles at IBM TJ Watson Research, JW Player, Teachers Pay Teachers and Luminary Media. She co-authored many papers at international journals and conferences, and co-invented several patents. She is also a proud mom of two girls 10 and 12, who love visiting their parents' work places and heavily judging the snack quality.
Emily Phillips
Emily Phillips, Senior Director and Managing Editor at Hearst Television, oversees the central content teams that provide national digital coverage, copy editing services and digital videos to Hearst Television's more than two dozen markets around the country. A journalist at heart, Emily's work melds her experience working on digital products like mobile apps and newsletters with a passion for operational efficiency and workflow improvements. Emily and her husband live in NYC with their almost 3-year-old daughter.
Lorna Bonnie-Akinola
My name is Lorna Bonnie-Akinola and am a Senior Credit and Collections Analyst, part of an awesome Finance team at JW Player with several years of experience within Billing, Credit and Collections. I was born in West Africa but grew up in London -UK. I have worked within the Publishing and Tech space throughout my career over 20 plus years. I have a very energetic 9 year old and we both love the outdoors, going biking, hiking, roller skating ( am still a novice trying to keep up with him) and camping with Scouts when possible. We also enjoy quite times at home either reading (both avid readers) watching movies and playing video games with his classmates. I also enjoy meeting new people, traveling, cooking and learning about other cultures.