Niamh Donohoe and Imogen Short are behind 'Pivot', a web-based short-format comedy series that looks at the absurdity of corporate culture and the bias inherent in the workplace, particularly for women as they rise up the ranks
“When I’m CEO, I’m going to not smile as much as I like,” says protagonist Mel Bridge, played by actress Hannah Bath, in the second episode of web-series Pivot, a show created and written by Hong Kong-based Imogen Short and Melbourne-based Niamh Donohoe of Three Wise Sheep, the production company they founded at the start of the pandemic to tell female stories.
The sentiment is one that many women will be able to relate to in response to being told to smile more. It’s certainly one that Donohoe, who also directed the series, understands, having been told to smile on a number of occasions over a twenty-year career that includes news and current affairs experience with the BBC followed by various television jobs in Australia before this recent foray into narrative comedy.
“I’d be interviewing CEOs and they’d say, ‘All I need for you to do is smile and then I can answer the question’. It was that complete lack of respect for my professional background. It’s an experience I’ve had, and I’m sure every woman can attest to being told to smile,” says Donohoe.
Pivot follows the story of forty-year-old bank employee Mel as she attempts to become the company’s first female CEO, portraying experiences that many women who have spent time in the corporate world will empathise with. During script development, Donohoe and Short interviewed women in New York, London, Hong Kong and Australia from a range of corporate functions about their professional experiences, hearing stories ranging “from daily microaggressions through to overt misogyny,” says Short. “There was a common theme in all those conversations that there was nothing they could do about it; that it’s just the way the world is and what women have to put up with to be in these roles and work their way up in the corporate world.”
Much of Pivot’s script is based on these women’s revelations as well as the personal experiences of the writers themselves. In episode three, the series’ two male characters, Alan and John, are having a discussion about quotas. “I’m all for quotas,” says John. But, “it does mean there are a lot of female leaders who don’t deserve to be there.”
“This is an actual conversation that I had with someone who is very senior in an insurance company,” says Short. “It’s what he said and what he believes. There’s a lot of work to do to change those mindsets.”
