It was her 26th move throughout her lifetime before Robin Jones settled in Vancouver two decades ago.
During her youth, her mother uprooted the family frequently as she pursued a master’s degree, a doctorate and later a professorship before working as a school superintendent in New Orleans.
“It happened for reasons that I think aren’t abnormal, but it still was a lot,” said Jones, chief marketing officer for Vancouver’s QuickMobile.
While her adolescent daughters are deeply rooted in B.C., Jones isn’t quite sure where she considers home to be.
“I guess I would say Louisiana,” she said, “only because my parents are there.”
Much like her mother, Jones moved throughout the U.S. pursuing her education, earning a bachelor of science from Florida State University and a master of business administration (MBA) from Boston’s Northeastern University. For a short time, she even considered a career in broadcast journalism before settling on marketing.
A 29-year-old Jones met a Canadian man in Boston while working at a tech company and eventually moved to the West Coast when commuting became too much of a drag for the couple.
“Sometimes I get stir-crazy and think, ‘I gotta move – even if it’s just down the block,’” said Jones, who has called QuickMobile her professional home for just more than a year following stretches at other B.C.-based tech companies.
Her rise in the local tech scene – she was marketing director at Absolute Software and vice-president of marketing at Active Network – isn’t typical for a woman working in a predominantly male industry.
An October 2014 report from Catalyst Canada, a non-profit organization focused on expanding opportunities for women in business, found 53% of women who started in the tech sector immediately after earning an MBA were likely to leave and take a job in another industry.
Meanwhile, only 31% of men fell into the same category.
One of the key concerns women kept encountering, according to the study, was the lack of female mentors in the workplace.
It’s an issue that has become even more significant to Jones as she’s got older.
“I’ve come across so many extraordinary young women in my career who, with a nudge here and a nudge there, have just gone on to do profound and wonderful things,” she said, speaking with a slight hint of a Southern accent.
“In my career, women have just been so influential. Both those above me and those who worked for and alongside me.”
But there have been rocky moments during her tech industry tenure – one of which she categorized as “probably the darkest experience I ever had professionally.”
A pregnant Jones and a male executive had been experiencing a testy working relationship when they decided to talk it out.
“He said to me, ‘I guess I just have a problem with women.’ And I was so shocked because he literally said it to me in front of another executive,” Jones said, adding she didn’t know where that would leave her.
She was fired soon after the exchange.
“The emotional impact of that when you’re halfway through a pregnancy was profound,” Jones recalled.
“That was a real wake-up call professionally.”
Instead of keeping away from the tech sector, Jones realized how important it was to keep working. But later on, after six years at Active Network, she felt she was just spinning her wheels.
“I had gotten out of touch with the day-to-day of marketing,” she said.
“I had four me’s running different teams for each of the four divisions, and I was sitting on top of it, and frankly I was bored to tears.”
That’s when QuickMobile offered her its first chief marketing officer position.
QuickMobile, which develops mobile event apps, named chairman Craig Brennan its new CEO in mid-January. Deloitte ranked it Canada’s fifth fastest-growing tech company in November following 12,332% revenue growth over five years.
Jones said joining a startup reignited the “thrill” she got from marketing.
When it comes to leading the smaller team, her goal is to let people play to their own strengths and find ways to make those strengths align with their roles.
“I’m not a micromanager-type leader – in fact, I’m not capable of it,” she said.
“I have one rule: if something’s off the rails, I better not be the last one to know.”
