In recognition of International Women’s Day 2025 on 8th March, IAB Europe is celebrating the incredible women who help shape our organisation and industry. This year’s theme, ‘Accelerate Action’, reflects the drive, dedication, and leadership that fuel progress within our business and beyond.
Throughout March, we’re going to be highlighting the diverse roles, experiences, and achievements of the women at IAB Europe, as well as our National IAB colleagues. By sharing thoughts and stories, we hope to inspire and encourage more women to pursue careers in digital advertising and showcase the collective impact of our team.
To kick off the series, we’re happy to introduce Anastasiya Baydachenko, CEO of IAB Ukraine. As a female leader in digital advertising, Anastasiya has been a driving force in leading the digital advertising industry forward in Ukraine, while navigating the challenges of working and living through the war. Here’s what she has to say.
Q. Can you tell us about your journey into digital advertising and how you became the CEO of IAB Ukraine?
My career path in advertising began almost immediately after graduation from university in 2003, before that I was an intern at the National Security and Defense Committee for a year. My first job was at the UM media agency as a TV buyer, TV planning head, and later planning director and strategic director. I started working with the digital sphere before it became a popular direction in Ukraine. Since 2006, I have participated in the work of industrial associations, I was one of the methodology authors for assessing the volume of the digital advertising market holding the positions of CDO in Dentsu and CEO of Isobar from 2010 up until 2016. After my contract ended with IPG for the positions of Chief Transformation Officer and Chief Operation Officer in 2019, I planned to take a small sabbatical for a few months, but I was offered the position of CEO of IAB Ukraine.
No matter how funny it sounds, I was then offered a part-time job - half a day working with IAB and half a day with my projects. It did not happen as expected, because, for the first two years, it was not just part-time employment, this work required 150% loading and full commitment, because there were very few members, debts, and a misunderstanding of the role of the industrial organisation and the aggressive strategy of other associations.
Q. As a female leader in the industry, what challenges have you faced, and how have you overcome them?
At the very beginning, the Ukrainian digital industry was a realm of men. Often, if a woman, the owner or manager of a digital agency, came to a meeting, they said that she must be someone's protégé.
Even with over 20 years of active industry development, with many women having obtained leadership positions, started their businesses, and become owners of agencies and services, we still face difficulties. Namely, the lower level of salaries and bonuses, worse motivational packages, the difficulty of receiving maternity benefits, the need to leave maternity leave after a few months, and the need to work full-time after maternity leave having part-time offers and payments.
When I joined the IAB, we only had one woman on the board - now we have three. There was one female committee chair, now we have five (Market Standards, Programmatic, Mobile, IM, Data). We are trying to increase the number of female speakers at all our events to at least 40%.
I think this may seem obvious, but even these simple steps don't happen by themselves. The goal of increasing the presence and visibility of women in the industry must be formed, declared, and always kept in front of the eyes.
Q. How has the war in Ukraine impacted your work, and what strategies have you used to maintain resilience and lead your team through these challenges?
A full-scale war completely changed our reality, including at work. The team ended up in different places, the schedule and plans were destroyed, and we lived and worked in short-term periods. What helped us at that time was joining information resistance projects. For the first two months, we were so busy with these projects it helped us not to concentrate only on our fears.
I changed the approach to a more flexible one, we started the working day later, since there were several alarms at night, and the deadlines also became adaptive, for example, we released our flagship project on the rating of agencies in 2022 in May, instead of March. But we released it.
Accordingly, precisely then, in the spring of 2022, a clear understanding was formed that the task of the industrial association in such turbulent times was to be islands of support for the industry. Because of what? Due to the stable implementation of industrial projects: market assessment, rating, Barometer, salary cut, etc. On the other hand, we must remain very humane and empathetic and understand that most of the people we communicate with have been affected by the war in one way or another, some have lost relatives, homes, and jobs. Some have PTSD and have difficulty with psychological conditions.
This also applies to the team. Sometimes we spend more time on our internal statuses on communication and psychological recovery than on the work processes and projects themselves.
If I were to try to formulate this strategy for survival during war, I would call it empathic resilience. When you are so stable first, you can, without faltering, help another person stand up.
Q. Balancing work and personal life is always a challenge, but even more so in times of crisis. How do you manage to stay focused, motivated, and take care of yourself?
Balance is always a hard thing, regardless of war or political situation. I personally find it helpful to understand that we are complex beings - which for a full life should maintain a physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual balance. This means, at a minimum, that sports, studies, communication with loved ones, art therapy, and spiritual practices (meditations) should always be present in my life. I observe that sometimes war can significantly shift the balance towards work, but it can also be a kind of therapy in these times because one does not focus only on war and war news. The opposite worked for me, I returned to drawing.
To stay focused and motivated, I am helped by routine tools of planning and control plan-fact. But maybe it works because I love my job and I have other interests: kids, hobbies, studies.
Q. What advice would you give to other women aspiring to leadership roles in digital advertising?
Every time I've been told that something is not possible, I answer - "News flash, I do impossible things”
How does it work?
1. Formulation of a clear goal
2. Understanding of resources and ways
3. Understand that you may have to fall 1000 times and get up 1001 times
4. Every time you hit a brick wall, ask yourself where the other way is
5. Understanding how other people will be involved
6. keep the desired target in front of your eyes moving step by step
And this boring step-by-step is far more important than any magic.
If you're keen to hear more from Anastasiya and learn more about her experiences working in the digital advertising industry in Ukraine, keep your eyes peeled for our exclusive new "Advertising Amidst Adversity: War Diaries from IAB Ukraine's CEO" blog series coming soon!
