The Fierce Future-Forward Female

“I’m not here to tick a diversity box. I’m here because I kick ass and I can do my job. My pronoun shouldn’t matter - I’m here, I’m Jess, and I’m working in motorsport.”

Late last month, the celebrated motorsport media mogul Jess McFadyen joined us for a chat - we know, we can’t believe it either. For those who don’t know, Jess McFadyen is the Director of Digital Strategy at Motorsport Network, managing two major global entities in 18 different languages - in addition to managing her own social media following.

Within the first few minutes of the discussion, we understood that our mandates weren’t too dissimilar - inclusivity, representation, thinking towards the future - and those were only the first laps of this track walk. Jess McFadyen’s story, in our very humble opinion, has not even reached its apex and we’re so enthralled by what she shared.

McFadyen’s F1 origin story is rooted in family. She came to Formula 1 through her brother; who declared at a young age that Jess was going to somehow, someway, work in F1. Motorsport was family time, and for the lucky few young female fans, that is their point of entry - the family pipeline.

However for many other female fans, they come across the sport later in life. McFadyen understands that, “Motorsport is one of the most inaccessible sports out there - unless you have people who are there to teach you the complicated rules; it’s tough. My goal is to share motorsport through social media and build that community and knowledge base for those who didn’t have access, like I did.”

For the record, her family are Ferrari fans, but Jess stepped outside of tradition when she saw Lewis Hamilton in his GP2 days and she picked him up as her driver - just one example of how future-forward Jess’ thinking is, even as a young girl. She has an almost seer-like predication to be able to see what (or who) will become successful. She then learned how to foster this skill into strategic thinking - and turned it into a career.  

“I’m not afraid to show my strength. Society has taught us not to show our strength, but entering a male-dominated industry, I knew I had to be strong, powerful and proud about being a woman in this space. I know my worth and I am going for it.”

With social media serving as a thick thread in Jess’ narrative, she was able to marry her forte for foresight, and was not afraid to share where she imagined the space to go. Early on in her career she had somehow landed her dream job - yet, she noticed their apprehension for the future. She was really ahead of the curve when she recognized that social media would soon become a pivotal platform, while selling online advertising space for a media company. She saw social media as a game-changer in the traditional space, and knew that either the company or her career trajectory had to change. She made the leap.

“The growth of social media taught everyone in the paddock to adapt - you can’t just sit on your laurels and do what you’ve always done. You have to ask - What’s the future? How do we keep moving forward? How do we make sure we don’t get left behind?”

Now you can start to see the emergence of motorsport Jess. It was the right move, because she was able to pitch to big players on other avenues in which to reach fans - and also, it was challenging her, activating her. Five years after she left her dream job to follow the social media curve, her dream job drew her back to the team to not only follow this curve - but to lead the charge. That’s the definition of ‘full circle.’

If this awe-inspiring discussion wasn’t enough, what had also made this chat so enthralling was her vulnerability. She spoke about her struggles with mental health, social media, her job, and how to keep the passion alive when it’s also your profession.

“I’m able to segment it from my personal life and I think that’s what keeps me happy. It can become all-consuming, not putting boundaries between my personal sense of self and brand. I defined myself as Jess McF1 and that’s not healthy. Through a lot of work I’ve been able to talk about the balance. When people ask if working in my passion kills the passion, seeing a therapist to help draw the line has been one of the best things I’ve ever done [...] I love sharing vulnerability because we as a society need to normalize that not everyone is doing okay, and that’s okay.”

Honestly, we could have sat there listening to Jess all day. (We actually did go almost an hour over time. Sorry Jess!) Hearing her talk about her career journey, her passion for the future, her insight on life, and how she transitioned from strategy thinker to a leader in the industry reminded us that we love what we do. We love hearing the passion and energy spill out of our speakers’ voices, we love watching strangers become friends, we love building this community - and all with the one tool that brought Jess success: social media. It is a tool where Jess found her path and we are so lucky to be able to use the tool that she loves to amplify her message, in hopes that someone hears her words, or reads this and thinks, ‘a career in motorsport is not inaccessible.’  

“I want the entire world to fall in love with Motorsport and if I can be a teeny tiny part of that, it would make me so incredibly happy.”