Leaders in marketing: Celebrating the women redefining customer engagement on International Women’s Day

At Braze, we are committed to fostering a culture of inclusion and opportunity, recognizing the invaluable contributions of women in the tech industry. This International Women’s Day, we are thrilled to celebrate the trailblazing women who are redefining customer engagement and setting new standards in marketing excellence. As we continue to champion gender equality, we are proud to champion the voices and achievements of remarkable leaders from our community.

To shine a light on their insight and experience, we spoke with Christiane Konrad, VP CRM & Customer Service at RTL+, Sarita Patel, Director of Digital CRM at DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse, Shani Kugenthiran, GM, Martech and Retail Media Platforms at Metcash, and Tatiana Ottenio da Costa, Head of Software Engineering at iFood. Here’s what they had to say.

Question: What sparked your passion for customer engagement and marketing, and what keeps you motivated in this dynamic field?

Christiane Konrad: Nearly 25 years ago, I was studying finance in France when I read an article about customer retention and engagement. It argued that sustainable profitability is not driven primarily by acquisition, but by building long-term customer relationships.

That idea changed my career direction. I was fascinated by the strategic logic: Customer-centricity is not a “soft” concept—it is a financial growth model.

Since then, I’ve experienced several waves of innovation—from early CRM systems to advanced analytics and now AI-supported engagement. The tools have evolved dramatically, but the underlying principle remains the same: When you truly understand your customers and act on those insights, business performance follows.

Sarita Patel: My passion for customer engagement began when I transitioned from a career in finance into retail marketing early in my career. I quickly saw how meaningful and measurable the impact of marketing could be on the customer experience, and I loved how tangible that felt.

There is something incredibly powerful about knowing that your work can make a customer’s experience better—or worse. That responsibility has always motivated me. And while the industry has evolved dramatically over the years, my north star has stayed the same: Creating thoughtful, connected, and impactful customer experiences.

Shani Kugenthiran: It really clicked for me at Yahoo when I properly understood the power of first party data. Not as a targeting gimmick, but as a way to genuinely understand what customers care about and how that insight creates real business advantage. That was the moment it stopped feeling like marketing and started feeling like leverage.

What has kept me in it is the mix: I love walking into something slightly chaotic and figuring out how to make it smarter. I enjoy connecting dots between teams that are not naturally aligned and building things that did not exist before.

And I genuinely like people. The best work I have done has come from actually caring about what stakeholders are trying to achieve and finding the overlap that creates shared outcomes. When engagement is done well, it feels intentional and valuable, not noisy.

This space moves fast. It rewards curiosity and it forces you to keep learning. That combination of complexity, impact and great humans is what keeps it interesting for me.

Tatiana Ottenio da Costa: My path into customer engagement did not originate in traditional marketing, but in engineering.

Throughout my career across eCommerce, healthcare, and now at iFood, I have consistently focused on building platforms that connect technology, operations, and customer experience.

What drives me is leveraging engineering to solve real problems at scale: Reducing friction, increasing relevance, and making interactions simpler, more efficient, and more personalized.

More recently, with the advancement of AI and large language models (LLMs), I see an entirely new level of personalization becoming possible—far more contextual, dynamic, and granular. This evolution makes the field even more compelling and intellectually stimulating for those of us building infrastructure and products at scale.

Question: As a trailblazing woman in the customer engagement space, what challenges have you encountered, and how have you overcome them?

Christiane Konrad: One of my biggest challenges has been convincing organizations that customer-centricity and profitability are not conflicting goals—they reinforce each other.

In many companies, short-term revenue targets dominate decision-making. Investing in data infrastructure, predictive models, or AI-driven personalization can initially feel like a cost rather than a growth driver.

Driving transformation therefore requires both strategic clarity and persistence. I’ve learned that it’s essential to translate customer initiatives into measurable business impact. Retention rates, lifetime value, engagement intensity—when you make customer-centricity quantifiable, the conversation changes.

Introducing AI into customer engagement added another layer of complexity. It requires trust, new skills, and cross-functional collaboration. My approach has always been to combine vision with proof points: Start with focused use cases, demonstrate impact, and scale from there.

Transformation succeeds when people understand why it matters—not just how it works.

Sarita Patel: One of the biggest challenges has been navigating spaces without a clear blueprint. Often, you have to be willing to step into the unknown—take risks, try new approaches, and learn from the outcomes, even when they aren’t successful.

Failure really can be a great teacher. Each experience—positive or negative—becomes something you can draw from to build something better. Over time, this has given me more confidence as we tackle new ideas and projects.

Shani Kugenthiran: I am not sure I would call myself trailblazing. I have spent a long time helping traditional organisations evolve, whether that was modernising media revenue models or now building connected retail and marketing ecosystems…and the harder part has not been the tech or the strategy, it’s been the room.

For years I thought being senior meant sounding a certain way. A bit more neutral. A bit more restrained. Slightly less me. I gave that a go…It was exhausting.

What changed was realizing credibility does not come from performing leadership. It comes from doing the work well, from delivering, from learning fast and from being willing to ask people who are much smarter than you for help and listening when they share.

I genuinely love building things and connecting the dots between people, data and commercial outcomes. That curiosity and energy is part of who I am, so trying to mute it made no sense.

I have had strong sponsorship along the way and I am surrounded by badass women who back each other properly. That really matters.

Now I focus on building things that move organisations forward and I do it in my own voice. It is far more fun that way.

Tatiana Ottenio da Costa: My primary challenge has always been operating in highly technical, fast-evolving environments that demand continuous learning, decision-making under ambiguity, and collaboration across diverse professional profiles.

Over time, I realized that technical strength alone is not sufficient. Developing strong interpersonal skills, active listening, and the ability to align people around shared objectives proved essential to navigating these environments effectively.

This combination of technical depth and human sensitivity has enabled me to build trust, reduce friction, and foster more collaborative cultures. I believe this ability to move fluidly between technology and people—between hard and soft skills—has been fundamental to my trajectory and particularly important in environments that remain insufficiently diverse.

In my experience, progress becomes significantly smoother when we establish a clear common denominator: Clarity around the problem to be solved, genuine care for people, and autonomy supported by reliable information, so that each individual can perform at their best.

Question: Can you share a successful campaign or project that you led, and what made it stand out?

Christiane Konrad: One of the most impactful initiatives I led was the shift from reactive churn management to predictive, data-driven engagement in a subscription environment.

Instead of analyzing cancellations after the fact, we introduced predictive modeling to identify risk earlier and adapt communication dynamically. We strengthened segmentation, refined customer journey mapping, and integrated AI-supported personalization into our CRM execution.

The goal was not simply to improve marketing campaigns, but to demonstrate that Customer Engagement is a core business lever. By linking engagement metrics directly to retention, lifetime value, and profitability, we repositioned CRM from a communication function to a strategic growth driver.

For me, that shift in perception—from campaigns to business impact—was the real success of the initiative.

Sarita Patel: One of the most meaningful projects I’ve led was our ESP migration to Braze. We had an exceptionally tight timeline, yet the level of collaboration across Braze, our agency partners, and our internal DSW teams was remarkable. Everyone was committed, aligned, and ready to move quickly.

Now, about six months into our Braze partnership, we’re starting to unlock new capabilities that will elevate the customer experience in a way we simply couldn’t before. I’m extremely proud of the work because it was truly a collective effort across many teams towards one common goal.

Shani Kugenthiran: The work I’m most proud of has never really been a single campaign. It has been reshaping how organizations create value.

In my previous role at Paramount, I led a digital commercial transformation that fundamentally shifted how the business generated revenue. We moved from a largely traditional model to a modern, data informed ecosystem that made advertising more measurable, more targeted and far more commercially effective. It did not just grow revenue. It changed how the organization thought about growth.

At Metcash, the focus now is even more structural. For the first time, we are building an enterprise wide growth engine anchored in a single view of the shopper, with retail media as one of the key value drivers. It is about connecting data, technology and commercial strategy so decisions across the organization are driven by a real understanding of the shopper, not siloed activity.

What makes this kind of work stand out is that it strengthens the foundations. It is less about short term campaigns and more about building capability that compounds over time.

That is the work I am drawn to.

Tatiana Ottenio da Costa: One example I consider particularly relevant, given the current wave of technological transformation, is the structured application of large language models (LLMs) in real-world contexts—an initiative that began during my time in the healthcare sector and has since expanded significantly at scale within iFood.

In healthcare, this work involved leveraging LLMs to support professionals, structure clinical information, and enhance communication with patients—always with a strong emphasis on security, privacy, and reliability.

At iFood, I have expanded this approach into martech and customer journey initiatives, using these technologies to drive personalization, experimentation, and operational efficiency at scale.

In parallel, within engineering teams, we have applied LLMs to accelerate learning, support decision-making, and reduce operational load, establishing a new benchmark for productivity and quality.

This shift represented a true paradigm change: Moving from isolated automations to systems capable of understanding context, language, and intent—significantly amplifying technology’s impact on both user experience and how teams operate.

What made this initiative a meaningful case study was the deliberate balance between innovation and responsibility, combined with a strong focus on solving real problems—building sustainable capabilities rather than one-off solutions.

Question: What advice would you offer to women starting their marketing career?

Christiane Konrad: The most defining career decisions often begin with curiosity and the courage to change direction. When you follow what truly convinces you, growth—both personal and professional—follows. That has certainly been true in my own journey.

I would encourage women to develop confidence in both strategic thinking and technological understanding—always linking innovation to clear commercial impact. Marketing is not only about creativity; it is about driving sustainable growth. Those who understand how technology enables customer engagement and profitability gain real influence within an organization.

Do not hesitate to step into transformation initiatives, even if they appear complex at first. These projects not only accelerate learning—they also differentiate you. Being part of meaningful change is often what sets you apart and shapes your career trajectory.

And finally, trust your perspective. Especially in times of technological and organizational transformation, diverse viewpoints are essential to building solutions that are both commercially sound and genuinely customer-centric.

Sarita Patel: Be willing to take informed risks and stay open to continuous learning. Whether it’s AI or a new feature in Braze, embrace opportunities to learn and experiment. Take the time to understand your goals and the landscape around you, and use that insight to build a plan that thoughtfully considers both possibilities and pitfalls.

Marketing evolves quickly, and adaptability is essential. Some of the most meaningful career moments come from raising your hand to lead through change.

Trust your instincts, stay curious, and never underestimate the power of your unique perspective.

Shani Kugenthiran: Understand how the business actually makes money. It sounds simple, but it changes everything. When you know where revenue comes from and how value is created, your marketing decisions get sharper and your influence grows.

Get comfortable with technology. You do not need to code, but you do need to understand how data moves, how platforms connect and what measurement really means. That fluency is powerful.

Find a sponsor. Not just a mentor who gives advice, but someone senior who will advocate for you when you are not in the room. That can change the trajectory of your career.

Do not shrink your voice to make the room comfortable. You can be warm and direct at the same time.

And stay curious. This industry moves fast. The people who thrive are the ones who keep learning and are willing to step into complexity before they feel fully ready.

Build depth, build relationships, and absolutely back yourself.

Tatiana Ottenio da Costa: My primary advice is to build a strong technical and conceptual foundation, develop a deep understanding of the business, and cultivate critical thinking.

Seek environments that value autonomy, learning, and accountability—and do not hesitate to take on challenges before you feel entirely ready.

Investing in intellectual repertoire, strong references, and support networks makes a significant difference over time.

Above all, remember that consistent growth comes from the combination of curiosity, discipline, and the willingness to learn from reality.

Final thoughts

As we celebrate the achievements of women redefining customer engagement, it's clear that their insights and experiences are positively impacting the marketing landscape. Their stories remind us of the power of curiosity and strategic thinking, and the courage needed to embrace change. By fostering a culture of inclusion and opportunity, we can continue to drive innovation and set new standards in marketing excellence.

As these leaders have shown, the combination of technology and human insight is key to creating meaningful, impactful customer experiences. Let their journeys inspire us to push boundaries, embrace new challenges, and champion the voices that drive our industry forward.