Women with their eyes on top leadership roles face a sobering reality. While representation has increased at the vice president and senior vice president levels since 2018, in 2024 a McKinsey and LeanIn.Org report forecast that white women won’t see gender parity at these levels until 2046. By contrast, women of color won’t see parity at senior leadership levels until 2072.
Women who want to rise in the ranks—or reach and stay in middle management—face several challenges:
- The “broken rung”: Currently, only 81 women are promoted to their first manager role for every 100 men.
- The “motherhood penalty”: Working mothers face numerous disadvantages, including a 4% average pay cut per child, while working fathers receive a 6% average pay increase per child living with them.
- The “glass cliff”: This phenomenon describes situations where women are only elevated to the highest levels of leadership during times of crisis or turmoil.
Women of color face additional hurdles:
- Intersectional microaggressions and institutional bias
- Being the “first” or “only” in their role or at their level
- Fewer role models and reduced mentorship and sponsorship
- The pressure to represent their entire race and gender
Given these external risks to a smooth rise in the org chart, women—especially women of color—must build their own “career insurance.”
I recommend thinking of career insurance as the package of relationships, skills, and strategies that can protect our careers when unexpected setbacks or losses occur.
Here are four strategies women (and particularly women of color) leaders can implement today to strengthen their career insurance:
Cultivate A Power Network
Just as women benefit from a different kind of network than men, women of color benefit from a diverse network, including:
- Peers: fellow executives or middle managers who are also women of color
- Cross-cultural allies: executives and senior leaders who are white
- Mentors: experienced leaders of all backgrounds who can offer valuable guidance
- Sponsors: influential figures who can open doors, make key introductions, and say their names in rooms they cannot access
Tactical advice: Join professional associations specifically for women of color. Prioritize opportunities to engage in cross-departmental projects. Regularly share your point of view on topics relevant to your industry, practice area, or the workplace in general on platforms like LinkedIn. Identify and generate opportunities to speak at industry events.
2. Properly Package Your Body Of Work
By this stage of career, a robust body of work is already there. The only question is: Are you presenting it as advantageously as possible? Given the deep social conditioning that many women of color are subjected to—from their formative years onward—there is often room for improvement here.
To rise into progressively senior-level roles, you must demonstrate concrete, tangible evidence of your leadership acumen. That means being able to communicate the ROI from:
- High-impact projects you led (or made substantial contributions to)
- Improvements and innovations you implemented
- Thought leadership you produced (publications, presentations, speaking engagements)
- Other relevant and quantifiable recognition
Tactical advice: Document your achievements and leadership accomplishments meticulously. Seek and take on high-visibility projects. Apply for industry awards and distinctions like Crain’s Awards, ADCOLOR Awards, and TED Fellows (advanced strategy: cultivate sponsors who nominate you for them). Create a personal “case study portfolio” that memorializes the stories of your successes and the transformations you catalyzed; update it quarterly. Craft and practice sharing your successes in varied contexts with different audiences.
3. Develop A Sticky And Strong Professional Brand
Part of the presentation of your body of work is branding. Women of color who have their eye on the corner office and boardroom must have a distinct and authentic executive presence that includes:
- A clear value proposition: What do you bring to the table?
- Consistent messaging across platforms and media: This isn’t simply a best practice, it builds deeper levels of trust, inspiring confidence in decision makers.
- Thought leadership in your area: What do you stand for?
- Visual elements: As much as we may wish otherwise, stakeholders will make split-second judgments. Do your headshots and visual assets exude the executive presence, leadership, and style you want?
Tactical advice: Write and periodically update your compelling personal brand statement (e.g., Catalyzing results-driven innovation in CPG marketing, or Shaping future generations of leaders to advance groundbreaking science). Develop a sustainable content strategy, which can include articles, posts, and talks. Seek media opportunities (podcasts and panels can be great places to start) and industry recognition. Invest in executive coaching and public speaking coaching.
4. Master Dynamic, Strategic Career Navigation
Mastering complex, ever-shifting economic, organizational, and interpersonal dynamics is the baseline for success these days. That means keeping your skills sharp:
- Negotiation skills to maximize your compensation, budgets, resources, and opportunities (recommended reading: Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz)
- Complex, strategic thinking skills to engage in long-term career visioning, planning, and mapping
- Problem-solving skills to bridge institution-wide differences, generate innovative solutions, and balance risk with necessary experimentation
Tactical advice: Curate your personal board of directors for advice and outside perspectives. Map out different potential trajectories for your leadership and overall career using a whiteboard, Miro board, Passion Planner, or similar. Stay updated weekly on industry developments. Identify and create the most impactful opportunities for moving your leadership forward. This should include both internal opportunities (spearheading a high-profile project, delivering a presentation to the whole company) and external opportunities (cultivating relationships with decision makers in your industry, applying to speak at conferences, pitching strategic profile-raising collaborations to industry leaders) to increase your visibility and showcase your strengths.
For women of color leaders, implementing these four strategies will go a long way toward shoring up your career insurance. Though it may be tempting to deprioritize these in favor of “putting out fires” from week to week, investing in even one aspect of each of these strategies starting today will pay dividends in the long run.
Systemic problems demand systemic solutions. Still, we must also do what is within our power. Neglecting to build our career insurance risks further delaying race and gender parity in senior leadership roles well beyond 2072.