Caitlin Clark poses with WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert after being selected first overall pick … [+] at Brooklyn Academy of Music on April 15, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
Are you ready? While there are indeed headwinds trying to hold women back as 2024 becomes 2025 – from the overturning of women’s reproductive rights to reversals of diversity policies and more – there were also historic gains for women in business and finance that can catapult women to the next level.
The number of women in the C-suite of private companies valued at over $1billion doubled this year, according to Women’s Business Collaborative and women CEOs in the Russell 3000 (index of the largest 3,000 US companies) jumped from 6.8% in 2023 to 9% in 2024. And Caitlin Clark (pictured) and other remarkable female athletes broke records and catapulted women’s sports to a new stratosphere.
In addition, women stand to inherit $30 trillion by 2030, only 5 years away, according to McKinsey and other sources. The World Economic Forum calls it “The Great Wealth Transfer.”
DOE headline on clean energy job growth in 2024
With the economy shifting towards prioritizing both values and profit, and with new industries being created such as in clean energy, climate, sustainability and artificial intelligence, whole new careers, jobs and new business opportunities are opening up for women than there have been in the past. For example, a Department of Energy study found that clean energy jobs grew at twice the rate of jobs overall. Now is the time businesses are leading with purpose, even if they don’t call it that, as Daryl Brewster of Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose wrote this week (he joined a panel I moderated at the Solutions For Change Summit earlier this month).
Joan Michelson moderating panel at Solutions For Change Summit produced by the Alliance to End … [+] Plastic Waste, Dec. 6, 2024. L to R; Vanessa Chan, Michael Braungart, Daryl Brewster, Joan Michelson.
But women are still getting in their own way. Here’s how.
So many women are holding themselves back, even when doors crack open.
I keep hearing women undervalue their skills, their experience, their knowledge, and what they bring to the table. I keep hearing women emphasizing how they are missing pieces of the qualifications in a posting, rather than the special skills they bring to it.
As a result, these women are either not going after job opportunities, or showing up an interview in a way that diminishes their expertise and their value.
woman – pixabay
Maybe they were thinking they’re being humble, and a team player, but what they’re really doing is showing how they should not be given that job opportunity. That is, they are eliminating themselves from the opportunities they actually want and are very qualified for, and where they could thrive.
It’s not humble to downplay your expertise in a job interview or any conversation. That doesn’t mean be arrogant either.
Most important career advice, especially for 2025
The most important piece advice for 2025 is to recognize how much you know, how much value you can bring. Recognize how qualified you are for any opportunity that shows up at your door. There will always be more to learn, but what you bring is unique, includes being resourceful, and the intelligence to figure out strategies and tactics.
There is a lot of information you can learn if you need to, but you can’t teach initiative, or enthusiasm. You can’t teach resourcefulness, you can’t teach ideas, you can’t teach creativity, and we each have our own unique approach to problem solving.
You also have a network. It takes particular people skills to build a network and to know how to gracefully leverage it on behalf of the company.
“Women often have far more skills than their résumés”
So, shoulders back, stand up straight, chin up, own the space you occupy, own your knowledge an