Jo Stephenson has had a successful and exciting career starting as a graduate trainee at Dow Chemical. She went on to work at Sun Chemical and LINPAC where she was the first woman on the senior leadership team. As co-founder of Women in Packaging, Jo has a passion for encouraging and showing the younger generation all the industry can offer!
Our reporter Grace Nolan talked with her to find out more about her journey in the industry, including the challenges facing plastics and packaging.
Q: Could you tell me about your background and how you got to where you are now?
I graduated from UMIST in 1992 and joined Dow Chemical as a graduate trainee working in their extruded polystyrene business. I worked for 8 years progressing from ‘tech desk’ to field sales and then industry manager for the XPS fabrication business. I relocated to Rheinmünster, Germany as Sales Manager, Films in 2000 then to Zürich, Switzerland in 2003 as Global Product Director, Films.
Back in the UK in 2005, having had two children, I spent two years with a global consultancy coaching and then joined Sun Chemical in 2007 as European Marketing Manager for their packaging inks business. I moved to LINPAC Group in 2011 as VP Innovation and Marketing, an exciting role taking on R&D as well as strategy and communications for vac formed rPET trays and EPS food service packaging applications. In 2014, I was delighted to outsource the marketing department of the company to establish PHD Marketing Ltd. PHD is now a leading B2B marketing agency for the print, packaging and plastics sector.
Q: Do you have any qualifications relevant to your current job role? If so, could you tell me how you received them?
At the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), I studied a Bsc. Hons in Textiles, Economics and Management. The industry skills I developed were fantastic but what I mainly learned was I didn’t want to be in the textile industry! Subsequently I achieved Chartered Marketing status through CIM and completed a mini MBA at Thunderbird University, Phoenix, USA.
From a packaging perspective, there is a very limited curricula in the UK and it is one of the issues I am trying to challenge by establishing Women in Packaging UK; a similar organisation to Women in Plastics.
Q: What has been your biggest accomplishment in your career so far?
I have three: I was the first woman on the senior leadership team at LINPAC; a real milestone for the company and breaking through the infamous glass ceiling. Successfully pitching the board and investors of LINPAC to outsource the marketing function to me was a huge achievement and then I won the National Start Up Business of the Year with the Forward Ladies (HSBC) organisation in 2016 which was a great boost for my team.
Q: What has been the biggest challenge in your career so far?
If I’m honest it was accepting the work/life balance challenge. I had an exciting career at Dow and was fast tracking to senior leadership roles. They are an amazing company and my next move would have been another global director role either in Asia or the US to keep my progression moving. Having two children, a husband and family in the UK meant I just couldn’t make the leap and staying with Dow in one location would have meant accepting a more flat-lined career, which I just couldn’t handle. I am delighted with how my career progressed after that stage in my life however, accepting the big corporate career couldn’t be mine, was pretty frustrating.
Q: How important do you feel female role models are to the younger generation and did you have one?
They are critical. We just don’t educate the young about our industry – plastics or packaging – in an effective way and the media hype vilifying its role in modern society is going to put a lot of young talent off joining what is a vibrant and dynamic work environment, which is so sad.
Combine this with a lack of female role models and the plastics industry is bottom of the list for school age girls. We are doing great work at a national level on encouraging women in to the STEM subjects but more needs to be done in educating youngsters on the actual sectors they can join and why.
For women in particular, there needs to be demonstration of the great careers that can be achieved and the women that have been successful. In the packaging industry, where I am closest to the plastics world, I can count the female role models in the Uk on two hands. It’s simply depressing.
Q: What advice would you give to women entering a male dominated environment?
Know your stuff! Being capable and knowledgeable are key to standing your ground. Women tend to be more sensitised to their impact in the workplace and will often not argue or step back, rather than get in to heated debate and defend their position for fear of being seen as emotional. Being respected for your knowledge and capability avoids this challenge.
Women also need to be politically smart. Men tend to be very good at weighing up the politics in a situation or organisation (I know this is a generalisation but just based on my experience over many years of observing organisations) and women are sometimes a little slower at picking up the clues. This takes years of experience but can be an invaluable skill if managed correctly and for the right purposes.
Q: Have you ever been in a situation at work where you have felt your gender has affected your progress?
I’ve definitely felt judged and had assumptions being made about my capabilities because I’m a woman but interestingly I’ve lived through a time where awareness of the unfairness has in fact played to my advantage.
I have had pay adjustments at two companies in my career, where surveys on equal pay have been carried out and my salary has been increased to create fairness. I’m also a Non-Executive Director of a distribution company and whilst I absolutely believe it’s because of my skills, we cannot hide from the fact that having a woman on the board is actively encouraged nowadays. I’ve also been interviewed for two more roles where the interviewer has explicitly said they want a woman to create ‘balance.’
Has it affected my progress? No. Has it made me feel excluded sometimes? Yes. Have I been patronised? Yes. Have I fought through? Absolutely!
Q: What do you feel are the biggest challenges facing the plastics and packaging industry currently?
Consumer mistrust and misinformation. I spend an inordinate amount of time talking to friends, family, black cab drivers and anyone who will listen, on the role of plastics and packaging in modern society. I talk to the fact that if plastic packaging was invented today, we would consider it a green technology. Plastic packaging fundamentally protects and preserves the valuable resources and carbon that have gone in to making the product in the first place, whose loss would be far more damaging to the environment than minuscule grams of plastic.
The media has a lot to answer for in terms of spreading misinformation. I am not saying the industry is perfect but the disproportionate focus on plastics is astounding and we are just not coming together effectively as an industry to defend and educate appropriately to avoid this having long term implications for the industry’s success.
I talk to many customers about the fact that if they used just one tank of petrol less per annum, it would be the equivalent of a typical family of 4’s use of plastic packaging in a whole year. Everyone merrily fills their cars up and drives around but gets cross about contact lens disposal, ear buds and micron thin plastic packaging. The situation is just ridiculous, and consumers are ‘fiddling while Rome is burning’, fundamentally because of inappropriate prioritisation by NGOs, the media and Government.
See…. I can go on for hours on that one!
Q: Do you feel there is enough information/opportunities for the next generation to be encouraged to have a career in the plastics industry? If no-what more do you feel could be done?
There are significant opportunities – we have a shortage of skilled workers in the UK and I truly believe most organisations are open and willing to hire women. The old prejudices and preconceptions are disappearing quickly. However, there is simply insufficient promotion of the benefits of a career in plastics, clear vocational and educational routes in to the sector, and a lack of positive marketing of the industry to ensure long term success.
Organisations like Women in Plastics and indeed, Women in Packaging UK, are key to driving change, raising awareness, creating connections for those women already in the sector and should be connecting more broadly with the education sector to ensure the industry’s voice is heard.
