mgsh GTM Consultancy GTM Engineer Clay Solutions Partner

The community GTM Needed

Women in GTM engineering are rare as unicorns. My co-founder Marina Ghilchik is changing that.

by Stephanie Holland

Want to break into GTM? Stop perfecting. Start doing.

Picture this: London, 2023. Clay's first live event in the city. Sixty people packed into a room. 56 of them were men.

Marina walked in, looked around, and immediately clocked the problem. Not because the men were there - they looked smart, successful, the kind of people worth spending time with. The question was simpler: where were all the women?

She asked Varun, Clay's co-founder, about the gender gap. Then casually floated an idea: "You should start something. A community. Call it Girls Who Clay."

Varun thought for exactly one second. "No, you do it."

That's how movements start. Someone sees what's missing and decides to build it.

The Stigma Nobody Talks About

That ratio at the first event wasn't an accident. It's a symptom of something bigger - the quiet assumption that GTM engineering is "too technical" for women. Too complex. Too much.

Marina's response to that assumption? A hard no.

Girls Who Clay exists to break three things:

Marina puts it plainly: "We're quite rare and we're pretty much the first in the market with this." That's not a problem to solve. It's a position to own.

The stigma.

That GTM tools like Clay are somehow beyond women's capability. The complexity is a feature, not a barrier. If men can figure it out, so can we.

The isolation.

When you're the only woman in the Slack channel, the only one on the client call, the only one who gets it - you need people who understand what that feels like.

The silence.

A space to ask any question without judgment. To admit you're stuck. To figure things out together without performing expertise you haven't earned yet.

Marina puts it plainly: "We're quite rare and we're pretty much the first in the market with this." That's not a problem to solve. It's a position to own.

What It Takes to Break Into GTM

Here's what most people get wrong about GTM engineering: they think it's about mastering the tools.

It's not.

Marina doesn't care whether you're a man or a woman. She cares whether you think strategically and programmatically. Because if your brilliant workflow doesn't scale, it's not a solution - it's a liability. And no VC or PE firm funding Series A or B growth is interested in liabilities.

The surrounding tool stack changes quarterly. What was essential six months ago is legacy today. The only way to stay relevant? Stay tool agnostic.

"Select tools for the process rather than pushing the process into existing tools," Marina explains.

You don't need to be an expert in every new platform. But you need to know what it does, the pros and cons, how it stacks up.

Most importantly: think in systems that scale. If your workflow requires manual intervention at every step, you haven't built a solution. You've built yourself a second job.

The Clay Learning Curve (And How to Actually Climb It)

When people start their Clay trial, Marina asks them one question: "How many minutes did it take you to burn through your freebie credits?"

The answer is usually embarrassing.

Learning Clay isn't about memorising features. It's about rewiring how you think. Last year, people were writing JSON by hand and wrestling with webhooks. This year? It's AI-focused.

Marina's advice: "Put more hours into learning how to prompt properly rather than learning code. Code is irrelevant now."

For structured learning, she recommends:

Clay Cohorts - Free, valuable, taught by Yash and EZ who nail the essence of the tool.
Clay Bootcamp - The Harvard of GTM education. Two hours daily for several weeks. Intense, hands-on, with a mentor and trainer assigned to you. Price tag runs around $6,000, though scholarships exist.

What the Community Actually Does

Girls Who Clay isn't a networking group with quarterly happy hours. It's seventy to eighty women who communicate daily about GTM, tools, workflows, and everything in between.

WhatsApp channel for quick questions.

Can't figure out a formula? Need someone to spot the typo in your JSON? Ask and get answers fast.

Bi-weekly calls spanning time zones

from APAC to the US West Coast. Marina admits the time zone juggling is brutal, but she's making it work.

Tool exploration together.

What's new? How does it work? Who's using it and for what?

Job and freelance leads.

When someone needs a specialist with specific skills, they knock on Marina's door first. She connects the right people to the right opportunities - but only if the role is legitimate. Dodgy requests get shown the door

The success stories? Women landing positions at established agencies. Freelance collaborations with top GTM operators. Getting their next project because someone in the community vouched for them.

It's the kind of community that changes careers.

The Scholarship Worth Knowing About

Clay Bootcamp is running a scholarship program. Six spots total:

Two for Girls Who Clay active community members
Two for people in APAC
Two for world-class submissions

If you've got the time, interest, and dedication - apply. Links are on Marina and Nathan Lippi's LinkedIn profiles.

The Advice That Matters

Marina's closing wisdom for women wanting to break into GTM?

"Stop thinking, start doing."

Women tend to procrastinate. To make things perfect before showing anyone. To wait until we're ready.

Meanwhile? The boys build first, apologise later.

Marina's with the boys on this one. Test, then apologise if you need to.

Here's the process that works:

Start with the end goal.

What are you trying to achieve?

Map the process.

How does data flow? What needs to happen to make it better, more efficient, more effective?

Trace your steps backward.

Create the blueprint first.

Then build it in Clay

(or whatever tool stack you're using).

Don't start with the shiny new template on LinkedIn and try to force it into your business. Start with your business challenge and build the solution that scales.

Finding the Unicorns

Women Who Clay exist. We're just rare enough that finding each other matters.
If you're one of them - or want to be - Marina's on LinkedIn. Look for the blonde with red lipstick who plays with Clay. Her surname is impossible to spell (Ghilchik, if you're curious), but she's easy to find and responsive.

The community is there. The support is real. The opportunities are growing.
You just have to stop waiting for permission and start building.

That's what Marina did. That's what we're all doing.

And that's what Girls Who Clay is here to help you do too.

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We Are The Founders of mgsh. - GTM Consultancy & Clay Agency

Marina Ghilchik

Founding GTM Engineer, Girls Who Clay

Marina Ghilchik is the force behind the #GirlsWhoClay community and an avid supporter of process automation, proactive pipeline generation, and common-sense solutions for scaling SDR productivity.

With extensive experience in global lead generation, Marina specialises in sustainable and cost-effective pipeline strategies. Former Global SDR Director at Talkwalker/Hootsuite, delivering $32m in pipeline.

Marina is expert at scaling outbound sales through process automation, multi-domain deliverability optimisation, and has in-depth knowledge of SDR workflows.

Stephanie Holland

Founding GTM Engineer, author of Brandlust

Stephanie Holland is a Clay-Certified Strategist specialising in GTM planning, messaging frameworks, and CRM enrichment for B2B SaaS scale-ups navigating brand evolution.

With 15 years across enterprise sales and marketing, Stephanie helps companies align their infrastructure with strategic positioning. Former EMEA Sales & Strategy Lead at Microsoft and Yahoo!, delivering €5.8M in revenue through targeted ABM and sales enablement.

Stephanie is expert at brand positioning and messaging frameworks that support GTM evolution, CRM enrichment and systematic lead generation workflows, and cross-functional GTM strategy bridging marketing, sales, and customer insight.

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