Lauren Nutt Bello is the President and Managing Partner of one of Jmac’s clients, Ready Set Rocket. Lauren has been instrumental to the growth of the agency since joining in 2012. In addition to her marketing expertise, she is a thought leader in diversity, equity and inclusion, and a strong advocate for social justice.

Jmac had the pleasure of speaking with Lauren about her background, her work at Ready Set Rocket, and her thoughts on the important and wide-reaching issue of paid parental leave in the workplace.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your background.

I’m Lauren Nutt Bello, President and Partner of Ready Set Rocket. We\’re a full service digital marketing and creative agency. I have been in the industry for about 13 years now.

What services do you provide for your clients?

Ready Set Rocket is a full service agency: we work with clients on brand, content and digital strategy and produce work ranging from campaigns and content production, to websites and apps.

How did you and John meet, and what\’s your relationship?

John was our day-to-day PR contact with a PR agency we used years ago. He was a standout partner with that shop. He was behind a lot of the pickups that we received and the success we had.

Years later, when John went off on his own, we were really excited to partner one-on-one and have him working strategically on our behalf as someone who really understood our agency and how we had evolved over time. We knew that he could strike a balance between working hard to get us the right placements, panels, speaking opportunities and awards, while at the same time knowing what we needed to prioritize as a small business, because we don\’t have the PR budget to cast a giant net.

What are some of the top issues you see within digital marketing today?

The regulation around data collection is very interesting to me, and how that\’s going to inform the level of visibility that marketers can have into consumer behavior from the first interaction to the conversion. At first, marketers went from not being able to track anything to wanting to track everything, and now we\’re being pushed to ask: “What can we actually track? What does that mean as far as how much visibility we can truly give a client?” And I think that\’s a really interesting thing to think about, because so much data has been socialized recently.

Outside of digital marketing, I\’m very passionate about DEI and inclusivity. Gender equality in the workplace is something I spend a lot of time learning about, and use my platform as a thought leader to speak about.

What are some of your thoughts on the issue of paid paternity leave in the workplace?

As a first point, I think the designation of paternity/maternity leave needs to disappear. It’s parental leave, and should be considered the same regardless of the gender of the parent, sexual orientation, etc. The idea of maternity leave became ingrained because women were historically the primary caregivers, and when they entered the workforce it was thought that women should be the ones to take time off so that they can be home with their new baby. While this was a great first step, focusing just on the woman causes a ripple effect of issues. When you really dissect this automatic assumption that women should be taking off and men shouldn’t, or that just a “primary caregiver” should take time off – you start to see how these policies inadvertently create inequality.

Can you expand on how paternity/parental leave policies impact both genders both inside and outside of the workplace? 

When a baby is born, that\’s when the division of responsibilities at home is set as far as caretaking, setting the baby’s schedule, etc. And there are ripple effects of taking parental leave (or not) for both parents that have impacts far beyond those few months after the baby is born. Beyond the mom having time to heal and bond with the baby, it\’s a time when long-term standards are set in terms of how the in-home partnerships work and what gender roles and the split in parental responsibilities look like. Ultimately, when this split in at-home responsibilities is skewed toward one gender, that is going to have a macro impact on career growth and opportunities for the parent who is taking on the majority of responsibilities at home.

If companies say that they’re committed to gender equality, then it shouldn’t just be a PR and recruitment-driven benefit in their perks package. Companies need to think about how to actually encourage people to take parental leave, and make sure employees don\’t feel like they\’re going to be penalized for taking it. I think many men are put in a tough position where they feel like if they take it, then they won’t be on the same career track, or they won’t be up for x bonus or x promotion. And with only women taking leave, it inherently discounts their ability to be measured on an even playing field, and ultimately impacts their career trajectory.

How do you think these particular leaves impact minority groups in the workplace? 

This is important for both big corporations and small businesses to think about, especially when you consider the stats around minority groups such as the LatinX and BIPOC communities. Minority women are severely under-represented across key industries, especially for senior and executive level jobs. When we consider the stats showing that these women handle the majority of the work around the house and take on the the most hands-on role with child rearing, we realize how much corporate policies don’t encourage men to take off for parental leave or give women an equal playing field in the office, which sets the stage for these patterns to continue.