I want to tell you about Maria Abercrombie.

She moved to New Zealand from Brazil in her twenties. No established network. No roadmap. Just a vision, a work ethic that most people would find exhausting to witness, and that particular kind of quiet determination that does not announce itself until one day you look up and realise she has built an entire life worth aspiring to.

Today Maria runs My Vibes Co, a digital education and coaching business helping small business owners grow with smart systems and digital tools. She hosts the me.vibes podcast, one of the most genuinely useful business podcasts coming out of New Zealand right now, where she breaks down automation, scaling, and the practical intelligence behind building a business that actually works without burning you out in the process. She is a community leader, a mother, a founder, and one of the most naturally gifted business minds I have had the privilege of knowing personally.

And I am writing this article because more people need to know her name.

That is the whole point, actually. Not just of this article. Of everything I believe about women in marketing technology right now.

The Tall Poppy Problem Has a New Address

New Zealand has a cultural phenomenon called Tall Poppy Syndrome. The idea that when someone grows too tall, too visible, too successful, the instinct of the people around them is to cut them down rather than celebrate them. It is a structural feature of the culture, not a personal failing, and it disproportionately and consistently affects women in business.

But here is what nobody is talking about yet. Tall Poppy Syndrome has found a new home inside the conversation about artificial intelligence and marketing technology, and it is doing damage in a way that is both subtle and completely predictable.

When a woman in MarTech steps up and says I am using AI to work smarter, to serve my clients better, to build systems that scale without burning me out, the response from some corners of the industry is not celebration. It is a suspicion. Is she really doing the thinking? Is the AI doing it for her? Is any of it actually her work?

Nobody asks a man that question.

The gatekeeping that used to happen at the boardroom door has simply moved online. And some of it, uncomfortably, is coming from other women.

I refuse to participate in that. And I think you should refuse too.

Visibility Is Not Vanity. It Is Infrastructure.

There is a quote I come back to constantly in my work with founders and business owners across Auckland and Los Angeles.

"Girl, they don't know you if they can't see you."

I said it first to a client who was brilliant, experienced, and completely invisible online. She had spent years perfecting her craft and almost no time building the visibility that would allow the right people to find her. Her digital presence undersold her in every direction. And the clients she deserved were finding someone less qualified instead, simply because that person showed up and she did not.

Visibility is not about ego. It is not about performing to be successful or manufacturing a personal brand that has nothing to do with who you actually are. It is about making sure that the work you have put in, the expertise you have built, the value you genuinely offer, is findable by the people who need it.

Maria Abercrombie understands this. The me.vibes podcast is not just content. It is infrastructure. Every episode she publishes is a searchable, shareable, discoverable piece of her expertise living permanently on the internet, working for her audience and for her business simultaneously. That is smart. That is strategic. That is exactly what AI-integrated marketing should be helping more women build.

What Celebrating Each Other Actually Looks Like in Practice

Supporting women in MarTech is not a hashtag. It is a behaviour. It looks like this.

It looks like writing an article that names a woman you admire and links to her work so that Google knows her name is worth knowing. It looks like sharing her podcast episode to your audience, even when she is technically in an adjacent space to yours, because abundance is a strategy and scarcity is a trap. It looks like leaving a review, sending a voice note, showing up to her event, booking her course, and telling three people about her this week.

It looks like using AI to amplify her reach, not to replicate her voice. It looks like building systems that give you more time and capacity to show up for the community around you, not just for your own metrics.

And it looks like refusing to let Tall Poppy Syndrome masquerade as discernment. There is a difference between critical thinking and cutting someone down because they are visible and make you uncomfortable. One of those is useful. The other is just fear with better vocabulary.

The me.vibes Podcast Is Worth Your Time. Here Is Where to Find It.

If you are a small business owner trying to figure out how to use digital tools and smart systems to grow without the overwhelm, Maria Abercrombie is one of the clearest, most practical voices on the subject available to you right now.

She brings warmth, real intelligence, and the kind of teaching that meets you where you are rather than performing above your head to look impressive. Every episode of the me.vibes podcast is built to give you something you can actually use.

Go listen. Go follow. Go tell someone else about it.

Listen to the me.vibes podcast on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/65zlFF9iruorXiAQ1eEX5L

Follow My Vibes Co on Instagram: instagram.com/me.vibes.co

Follow Maria Abercrombie and everything she is building. She has earned every bit of the visibility that is coming her way.

The MarTech Vision

I built The Intelligent Marketing Studio at Social Global Grind on one core belief. That visibility is not optional for a serious business. The gap between the quality of your work and the quality of your digital presence is quietly costing you the clients, the opportunities, and the recognition you have already earned.

That belief applies to my own business. It applies to every client I work with across Auckland and Los Angeles. And it applies to every woman in MarTech who is doing exceptional work and not yet getting the reach she deserves.

They do not know you if they cannot see you. So let us make sure they can see you.

Starting with Maria.

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Francesca Alexander is the founder of The Intelligent Marketing Studio at Social Global Grind and the Hustle and Glow Network, a business community for founders building with intention across Auckland, New Zealand and Los Angeles, California. She hosts the Hustle and Glow Podcast, a long-form conversation series on marketing, identity, community, and what it actually takes to build something real.

Read more at socialglobalgrind.com

Join the community at hustleandglow.com Follow the journey at linkin.bio/francescahustles