Exceptional Women of the World: Andrea Ring, Big Spaceship - a podcast by TheDrum

For Andrea Ring, chief strategy officer of Big Spaceship things seem to have simply fallen into place.

Doing whatever has been in front of her at a given moment, she acknowledged that, though there is ample opportunity, happiness is key and being more intentional is the best course of action — which has informed her choices, especially as it relates to her life.

In fact, its this ideal and idea that brought her closer to her father, with whom she didn’t have the closest relationship — while he battled Parkinson’s disease. Acknowledging that relationships and people are important, she is now armed knowing that she will put the time and energy into making each one special. Taking that experience with her father, Ring realized that she should demand the same at work and used that experience to create a more rewarding career path.

What holds people back, according to Ring, is that we could potentially reveal something about ourselves that, “might not be as great as we think.” But that’s not necessarily a bad thing and forces one to thing about the approach to hard work.

An advocate for running (“run one more mile that [you] think you can run”), Ring believes that can clear the mind and help people make better decisions. A big decision that she believes women grapple with is that of having children and she sees great power in deciding to both have a child or not having a child. Both are equally empowering and that clarity should be celebrated as opposed to being debated.

As far as what she counts as a must learn, Ring has had an awakening and realizes that she has an opportunity to impart meaningful change by looking to hire those in the industry who “may not have had the economic opportunity to find [a strategy] job on their own.” She sees the knock-on effect being a chance to bring in substantial talent and have level of control about positively changing the business for the better.

One aspect of Ring’s work that she finds interesting is that she’s not asked enough questions — and wishes that people would ask more of her. Being in top leadership at the agency, she believes that she is accountable and welcomes the challenging questions about her work.

Fiercely dedicated to the issue of climate change, she believes that we need to hold ourselves and leaders more accountable to the planet and it is, in fact, an existential issue that demands action.

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