5 Questions with Holly Wainwright

Holly Wainwright is an Executive Editor at women’s media company Mamamia, which means she is a senior editorial staffer and contributes content to the audio and writing teams. She's the co-host of Mamamia Out Loud, the top female-fronted podcast in Australia, and the author of five novels, including her latest, He Would Never.

Q1. What has been your best career move?

I grew up in Manchester, but moved to London when I was 19 to study “periodical journalism” – basically magazine journalism; I realised I didn't have what it took to be a ballsy news reporter and always loved long form. I worked in magazines for years, from the free street press in London and Sydney to glossy gossip magazines. I was a deputy editor and climbed that ladder, but my career really took off after I had children, in my 40s, which I always like to tell people because a lot of young women are in such a hurry, and if they haven't ticked every box by the time they're 30, they think their lives are over. The thing that changed everything was jumping from magazines to digital media, because although I've worked at Mamamia for over a decade, I've done so many different things. Taking that risk was no small thing because it involved a pay cut and a massive leap of faith to a new medium that meant that I was learning – what podcasts were, how socials worked. I lived through the first pivot to video and I'm living through a second. This is no disrespect to anyone, but colleagues who did not make that jump from magazines – often because they were very well compensated, and that is incredibly important, it's not like I have a trust fund or a rich husband – couldn't gather all that experience. I could keep evolving as media completely changed from the time that I entered it.

Q2. A lot of women struggle after they've had children, but your career has blossomed in your 40s and 50s. How do you explain that?

Although I loved my work in magazines, it was very obvious they were in decline when I left. Every meeting was about staff cuts and dropping numbers. And after I had kids, and I had my kids quite late, I got this fire in my belly: if I've got to leave them every day, I want to do something that I'm proud of, that excites me, that has potential. I also have a partner who is exceptionally capable at home, so I have that support. Brent, my partner, still does most of the hands-on lead parenting. That doesn't work for everybody, but it worked for us. It made me more ambitious, rather than less, and moving to Mamamia, working with Mia Freedman and other amazing women, I suddenly had my eyes open to all these possibilities. I’d wanted to write books since I was seven, it was my dream, but I wasn't in a world with people who did that. It built my confidence to a point where I was like, “Well, why not?” We do live in a very ageist world, but women in their 40s, 50s and beyond – we're at our best. We've lived a lot of life. We know a lot of stuff.

Q3. If you had your time over, what would you do differently?

This sounds like a cliche, but I wish I'd backed myself earlier. I was offered an editorship when I was pregnant with my first child, and I'd been working so hard to get to that position, but I was like, “No, there's no way I could do that.” I don't see that as a mistake necessarily, but why did I think I couldn't do that? Fear and insecurity held me back, and it still does at times. I'm not some ego monster, but I think that taking leaps and backing yourself is very important. But I want to make it clear that when I did make that jump to digital, the first year or so was brutal. The pressure was intense. You're going from putting out a magazine and hoping people like it, to being able to see in real time, all the time. Am I failing? Are we bringing in the numbers? Do people like this story? 24/7 newsroom. I've suffered burnout and crises of confidence, made lots of mistakes. Maybe if I'd been more confident in my 20s and 30s, my career might have gone differently.

Q4. On Mamamia Out Loud you have to share a lot of opinions. How do you handle the public aspect of your career, especially trolling?

It's interesting because when I first came to digital media in 2014, our modus operandi was, publish provocative headlines. That's how a lot of websites built their followings at that time. But aiming to be provocative does not build trust, and trust is the most important thing as a brand. Just annoying people … is not making the world better for anybody, is it? If you listen to Mamamia Out Loud, hopefully you don't think it's full of shouty opinions, because we're as measured as I think we can be. We do not want women to turn off our show feeling worse, depressed, anxious. There's so much shouting on the internet, so much division, so much name-calling, that we don't want to add to that. So we try really hard to model respectful disagreement. I don't obsess about [the comments]. It can be very bad for your self-image, but when I get things wrong – which of course you do when you're working at speed and across so many different topics – you want to own that. Personal trolling is terrible when it happens. It's hard to ever build a thick skin. But a lot of people in my position understand what we do and don't talk about online. You will find me posting about my job and the interesting conversations we have. You will find me posting a lot about the tomatoes I'm growing, or my dog. The price of entry is very high for women who want to have opinions on socials. Everybody sets their own boundaries.

Q5. How do you see podcasting evolving in the next 10 years?

When we first started making podcasts at Mamamia, we literally used to make videos that showed you how to listen to a podcast on your phone – where to find them, how to press play, how to save one. We would see commercial clients and have to tell them what a podcast is. Now, podcasts have become the new talk show. You look at the celebrity-hosted podcasts out of the US that are now fully videoed and available on YouTube, clipped up for socials. It's where every celebrity goes to tell their story. Podcasts are now, in lots of ways, TV. It will be interesting to see what happens because there's lots of room for variety in podcasting. But what people really love about podcasts is the intimate connection they have with the hosts. And podcasts need to keep that connection even as they grow in their scale. What people tell us over and over again [at Mamamia Out Loud] is, “You make me feel less alone. You make me feel informed. You make me laugh.” People don't see their real-life people as much as they'd like to. We are all so busy, so disconnected. AI will enable us to do things more quickly, but that need for connection – people are actually valuing it more highly every day.

Interview by Susan Horsburgh