From Little Actions to Big Changes: Finding Success in Male-Dominated Industries
This International Women’s Day, we’re honoring the trailblazing women who continue to break barriers and inspire change.
One such individual is Amy Pham, a Senior Manager at Woolworths Group and the proud owner of her own dance studio, Dance Domain.
Amy recently sat down with EdgeRed to share her journey. She reflects on her professional experiences, the challenges women face in the workplace, and her invaluable role with Women in MCV – an initiative that fosters collaboration and open dialogue among women in commercial and operations at Woolworths.
Amy shares how the power of small actions can lead to big changes.
You can watch the full interview below
Introduction
My name is Amy Pham, I’m 30 years old and currently I work at Woolworths as the Senior Manager in the Range Optimisation Analytics team. What we do is we look at what should be the most optimal range, through optimising against lots of different metrics across commercial strategy and customer. I do have a degree in analytics, but also marketing as well. So prior to that, I did a few roles in some marketing areas.
I do have a passion for dancing and I’ve danced since I was 5 years old and done lots of performances, teaching and have credentials in dance teaching. And right now, I also own my own dance studio in the inner west, that holds about 50 classes across around 200 kids and adults.
What are the challenges in working in tech and analytics as a woman, and how do you deal with it?
In general, in work, in life, everywhere, when you experience all of these dispositions or feeling like you’re in a male dominated industry or it’s hard to sort of get through, I think it’s really important to remember why you’re there and to be really confident in yourself. I’m strong about being authentic and being where your feet are, which is grounded. And that has led me through the last couple of years, is thinking about those statements.
So it’s really important around how you can just be yourself, how you can raise some of those topics and conversations and just not be afraid to build resilience, build confidence in some of these situations. Have the courage to have the conversation as well.
Tell us more about the Women in MCV initiative.
Being in sort of the tech or analytics industry as a female, I noticed in a lot of situations whether that be like meetings or discussions or projects, there were a lot of situations where it was quite male-dominated, the males were speaking up, the females weren’t speaking up and I really wanted to do something about it and really wanted everyone to feel confident and comfortable to have an open conversation and have everyone be able to speak up. So I did get together with a couple of other females and discuss – what if we created a community together where we could just share our experiences and be ourselves and talk about these topics that we don’t normally talk about in this environment.
So it started from 3 women, to 20, to 50, and we held a lot of different events around talking about topics on gender equality, unconscious bias, caring as a mother or having different stages of your life, juggling your mental load, a lot of these topics that we may not really talk about in the environment. And it was such a nice safe space for everyone to share their experiences but then also share their strengths and what they really feel good about, because that’s what we want to bring to the workplace – is you feeling good about yourself and your feeling confident that you deserve to be there and you deserve to have a voice.
How do you manage to balance your full time career with your passions?
I think it’s important that everyone has work and passion and it doesn’t have to be as extreme as what I’m doing. But everyone has their work life but then everyone also has a passion, whether it’d be dancing or whether that’d be spending time with their family and that time is actually so valuable and gives you so much more energy and strength. So owning a dance studio has been like such a dream come true for me. I actually feel so warm and I feel more energised when I come out of the studio, even though I’m working at night.
As a female entrepreneur, what are the challenges you have faced? Are they similar to the challenges mentioned before?
I think you probably find similar stories as women in entrepreneurship as well, when you’re trying to deal with lots of different suppliers, or you’re trying to deal with lots of different parents or all the little admin things that you need to do as a business owner, it does become quite male-dominated. And you really need to speak up and own what you have as well because you don’t want to have that misconception or myth that as a female, you aren’t doing as well as a male, so like being really strong and just believing in yourself, I think is really important.
On the topic of International Women’s Day, what are your opinions on gender equality?
I think gender equality is a super interesting topic – what it means to me is that everyone is equal and everyone has the ability to have their own experiences and thoughts and opinions and ownership of things, not depending on your gender or not depending on anything really. So everyone has that equal opportunity.
I think it’s also understanding that there’s an equal distribution of power and influence, especially in a corporate environment or in the work environment. And it’s having a culture where everyone understands that and everyone actually also practices it as well, in the little actions, with also the big actions too.
The theme of this IWD 2025 is “Accelerate Action”, are there any actions you take in your life, or recommend others to take, to try bridge the gender gap?
I think there’s 2 things you can do – one is start with the little actions and the little actions build up to something bigger. As an individual, there’s so much you can do in terms of having the conversation, it’s within your day to day, like interactions, your body language, the way you speak about things.
It really is about the conversation and breaking down the barriers because we do want to create that culture for change, so, making sure that you spend the time thinking about it, and also spend the time actually actioning it as well within your day to day.
I think the second thing is a little bit bigger – is creating that community or creating those events or activities where you can bring together these topics and it becomes the forefront of the conversation. I think that’s super important and that was sort of the reason I began Women in MCV so we can make it heard and be known and start to grow it and then it’s now a ‘women in commercial and operations’ initiative at Woolworths, which I’m really really proud of, that it’s becoming bigger and bigger. And I think that’s how you start the change – it’s just starting a little bit, going big.
A heartfelt thank you to Amy for sharing her story and experience, as well as insightful advice on navigating work and life as a woman. We hope her story can inspire other women and invite for more change towards gender equality.
This blog was written by Moon.
About EdgeRed
EdgeRed is an Australian boutique consultancy with expert data analytics and AI consultants in Sydney and Melbourne. We help businesses turn data into insights, driving faster and smarter decisions. Our team specialises in the modern data stack, using tools like Snowflake, dbt, Databricks, and Power BI to deliver scalable, seamless solutions. Whether you need augmented resources or full-scale execution, we’re here to support your team and unlock real business value.
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