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ElizabethOgabi·Oct 21, 2021

I'm really interested to know what got you your first promotion to a manager role?

Research says "The biggest obstacle women face on the path to senior leadership is at the first step up to manager. For every 100 men promoted and hired to manager, only 72 women are promoted and hired." That means at every subsequent rung up the corporate ladder, there are simply fewer women to promote.

What helped you climb up? Did your manager recognise your potential? did you ask for the promotion? were you poached?

For me, it meant moving to another organisation and applying for a more senior role. I wonder why I never asked my employer at the time for a promotion but decided to look elsewhere. This tends to be the story for most of my friends.

Would love to hear what got you your first promotion!

BrianaBrownell·Oct 21, 2021

I was promoted to senior management early-career at 25. It was a difficult transition because the rest of the executive team had 10+ years experience and I had not quite two. This is what I did and this is what I recommend to anyone seeking promotion. Think about what your boss wants, and then think about what your boss's boss wants, and then make that happen. In my case my boss's boss was the CEO so I thought about what she wanted. And that was to grow the organization by getting into higher-value, higher-margin areas. So, I became the go-to-person to get us there. I kept pushing us to suggest those kinds of projects to existing clients, I did training, I figured out what competitors were doing, I figured out what industry trends were for us and against us. I brought ideas and strategies for us to grow, relentlessly.

madisonpollardshore·Oct 22, 2021

I reached a management post at quite a young age (24), and it was all down to the managers that I had had previously. My manager in my first FT post when I was 19 saw my ability and willingness to learn, and let me lead on large-scale projects, managing several teams in the process. This stood me in good stead when I relocated, and it only took 4 months in my new company for me to be promoted to management. I was lucky in that all the managers in that team were female, and were keen to see more women/nb people in senior roles, and so were incredibly supportive.

tiarafeaster·Oct 22, 2021

When I worked in retail, I was able to snag the store manager role because the current store manager was leaving, and no one else wanted the responsibility. At the time there weren't many female store managers in the company. Once I became a manager I worked hard and after about 2 years decided I wanted to be the companies first black female district manager. I ended up leaving the company due to relocating to the south and the company had no locations here.

sysval·Oct 25, 2021

Thanks for the question and for sharing the research. It was not my experience as I got a manager role at a Fortune 25 company when I was not even 21 years old, as a surprise. I applied for an engineer position, had my BSc, 2 years of professional experience and the level of passion for technical problem solving that must have gotten them to take a chance with me ( it also helped that the guy before me failed and was let go). Getting promotion to global director, now that sucked the life out of me. I had to work twice more than my all-male peers, clocking 80 hour weeks running 70 people organization and had the responsibility of three peers at the director level. Just to prove that I am one of them. Took me three years, three bosses - with each I had to start from scratch. But everything got a lot easier once I broke that ceiling. Most important lesson was to network with the right people and build visibility. Because performance itself (yep, 80 hours) won't do sh*t.

ElizabethOgabi·Nov 04, 2021

Thank you so much for your transparency (also, congrats) and I agree with you on the importance of networking and not just relying on performance - however, this should change.