Jorja Wilkins
Her career has never moved in a straight line. She has led digital transformation, built strategic partnerships, introduced new technologies and is currently completing a PhD in sustainability. She believes the ability to keep learning, adapt and step outside your comfort zone has become one of the most valuable leadership traits, with some of her biggest opportunities coming from saying yes before she felt ready.
On the progress of women in media, Wilkins draws an important distinction between visibility and trust.
"There's a difference between being represented and being trusted with risk. It's easier to put a woman on a panel or in a visible role than to hand her a transformation project that might fail publicly, with a budget and a deadline attached. That second kind of trust is what builds a track record. The next step isn't more visibility but giving women ownership of projects where genuine commercial risk and accountability sit with them.”
On artificial intelligence, Wilkins sees the efficiency gains as real but believes the greater opportunity lies in better-informed human judgement. The businesses that get this right, she argues, won’t be the ones with the most AI, but the ones that use it to sharpen human accountability. Speed, she warns, can quietly erode scrutiny if you let it.
Her advice to young women entering a rapidly changing industry is practical: stay curious, but don't mistake curiosity for a strategy. Take the bets where the downside is recoverable and the upside is disproportionate. Not all will pay off, but each one leaves you with a skill, a relationship or a lesson. Readiness is not something that arrives before you start. It is something you build by starting.
