Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Redefining Leadership

Why do talented women keep hitting the same invisible walls and what does it actually take to break through?

This International Women's Day, join our Germany Ambassadors as they cut through the corporate conversation to get real about what's holding women back and, more importantly, what moves the needle.

The data is clear: more women are entering the workforce than ever before, yet the path to leadership remains systematically uneven. Women are passed over for early promotions, locked out of the rooms where decisions are made, and left to navigate a game where the rules are rarely written down and rarely written for them.

Two dynamics define this reality. The broken rung, where women are promoted to manager at significantly lower rates than men, creates a leadership gap that compounds over an entire career. And the glass ceiling , where progression at senior levels slows to a near-standstill, limiting representation at the very levels where it matters most.

Beyond the numbers, there's the lived experience: being overlooked for the stretch assignment that would have changed everything; watching a male colleague get the sponsorship you didn't know you were supposed to ask for; building a career without a single senior woman in sight who looks like you.

This event is for women who are done waiting for the system to catch up.

We'll surface the real conversations on power, politics, sponsorship, and self-advocacy that don't happen in the official training sessions. You'll leave with clarity on how advancement actually works, and the tools to play the game on your own terms.

What we're covering:

• Breaking the broken rung: why early promotion gaps compound over careers and how to close them
• Sponsors vs mentors and why the difference changes everything
• How to access and ask for the stretch assignments that fast-track careers; building influence and navigating workplace politics without losing yourself
• Representation, role models, and what it means to be the ceiling-breaker
• Adapting your leadership style without shrinking; and dismantling recruiter bias at the source.

Our speakers are:

• Denicia Schulze, Moderator and Head of International Admissions at Mediadesign University of Applied Sciences
• Charmilla Kasper, Global Senior Learning & Development Partner at TecAlliance
• Chiedza Muguti, Strategic Product Leader at WHO
• Marisa Veiga Lobato-Schlereth, Senior Career Coach & Program Lead at Imagine Foundation
• Ambre Jeanneau, Founder & Principal GTM Enablement at Scaling Edge
• Nga Orstadius-Bùi, Head of Process Operations (SAP Cloud Infrastructure) at SAP

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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Host or Publisher Girls Talk London