From a Woman to a Leader

You keep waiting for someone more qualified. A mentor who has done it before, a manager who will finally say you're ready, a role model who proves it's possible. But what happens when that person doesn't exist? Dr. Karny Ilan went looking for a role model who was both a surgery resident and a startup CEO. She couldn't find a single one. So she became one. In this episode, Karny sha...

You were the best engineer on the team. So they made you a manager. And then, as Megan Robinson says, no one told you the rules had changed. If you've ever felt like you're winging it as a new manager, or you're waiting for a title before you act like a leader, or you keep doing great work hoping someone will finally notice, this episode is for you. Limor sits down with Megan Robinson,...

"Your English sucks, but I like your energy." A radio station manager said it to this week's guest, Lirone Glikman, when she walked in looking for a show. It sent me straight back 25 years. In this solo episode I take you to the first big tech conference I ever attended, Java One in San Francisco, where I stood at the top of an enormous escalator looking down at thousands of engineer...

Lirone Glikman has built relationships across 28 countries, and she's convinced that showing up as yourself, accent and all, is your biggest unfair advantage. She's a global keynote speaker, personal branding expert, bestselling author of The Super Connector's Playbook , and founder of The Human Factor. In this episode, Lirone and I get practical about the two things most women in tech...

Merav Yanai spent 30 years watching companies fail their managers, and she finally did something about it. She's an HR executive who moved to operations after an acquisition, led a major merger across US and Israeli teams, then left corporate to found Leap, an AI tool that gives mid-level managers the real-time thinking partner most of them never get: private, in the flow of work, available wh...

You've built something you're good at. You've put in the years. And now, part of you wants to do something new, but another part whispers, "If I leave, I'm starting from zero." I'll be no one. My guest this week, Or Harel, knows that feeling, and she walked through it anyway. After 13 years in the military, including a role no woman had held before her, she left at 31...

You walk into a conference. You don't know anyone. Everyone seems to already be in clusters: laughing, exchanging cards, working the room. And you're standing at the edge of it, wondering what's wrong with you. For most of my career, that's how I felt. In this solo follow-up to my conversation with Naama Nicotra, CEO of NakedPak, I'm naming the playbook Naama was running withou...

Naama Nicotra is back for round two. The founder and CEO of NakedPak, the first brand making microplastic-free meals with edible, hot-water-soluble packaging, sat down with me again to talk about the things we didn't get to last time. She told me about the moment she watched two men at an event bond instantly and what it revealed about why women in tech don't form those same bonds. She wal...

You look at the people you admire, and you see the finished version. The company, the title, the stage, the applause. You almost never see the years of failure and rejection it took to get there. And quietly, you start measuring yourself against their outcome instead of your own journey. In this solo episode, I share my honest take on my conversation this week with founder Naama Nicotra and what i...

You look around at the founders, and at the people who keep getting ahead, and they all seem to have the technical background you don't. The right unit in the army, the right degree, and a keyboard in their hand since they were kids. So somewhere along the way, you decided that building your own thing, or going after the bigger role, isn't really for someone like you. Naama Nicotra is living proof...

You did everything right. You built the career, earned the title, took the speaking slot, and finally had the baby. From the outside, you reached the pinnacle. From the inside, something is empty, and you can't name it. In this episode, I sit down with Rachel Spekman, founder of Made for More Coaching, a licensed therapist, and a former senior director in tech startups. Rachel spent a decade i...

You're at a dinner party with people you've known for a year. They didn't know what you did for a living. When they find out, one of them looks at you and says: "Wow. I didn't know you were so successful." You should feel proud. Instead, you feel something else. Irritation. And it takes you a while to understand why. This is a solo episode, my personal take on the convers...

You're great at your job. You've built skills, taken on hard projects, and delivered results year after year. But somewhere along the way, you started noticing that the people getting the bigger opportunities, the speaking slots, the calls from headhunters, are not always the ones doing the best work. They're the ones who are visible. In this episode, I sit down with Chen Guter, CMO at...

You've been quietly wondering whether you're cut out for the role you actually want. Maybe you've told yourself you're not technical enough to work in tech. Or that you're not aggressive enough to be in sales. Or that you're not the right "type" for the leadership role you keep watching other people get. So you've stayed where you are, even though you can'...

You've spent so many years working hard at the next thing that you can't actually answer a simple question. If you didn't have to worry about money, what would you do? Most of the women I coach freeze on that one. They've spent so long defining themselves by their job, their level, and their next promotion that they've forgotten what they used to dream about, or whether they ev...

You've spent your whole career making sure you're prepared. You read the book before the meeting, you learn the framework before you lead the project, and somewhere along the way, you start believing that the reason you're in the room is that you know more than the next person. So what happens the day you walk into a meeting and you don't? In this episode, I'm sitting down with...

You've been telling yourself you'll start speaking up when you feel ready. When you know enough. When your message is perfectly formed. I know, because that's exactly what I told myself for years. In this solo episode, I'm sharing my own speaking journey, from submitting to JavaOne over 20 years ago just because I wanted to visit San Francisco, to this week, when I'm at the ELC...

You know you're competent. You know your ideas are good. But somehow, the people who keep getting heard, getting promoted, and getting opportunities are the ones who just... talk more. And you're still sitting there, waiting for the perfect moment to speak up, which, let's be honest, never comes. Helen Gottstein is the founder of Loud and Clear Training, a TEDx mentor, and a keynote co...

When my husband broke his hip on a ski trip, I couldn't get to the hospital. I had four young children at home and had to wait for the babysitter. When I finally arrived, a day later, the nurse looked at me with judgment. And I thought: no matter what I do, someone is judging me for what I didn't do. That's what it feels like to be a woman trying to hold everything together. And that&#...

You know you're capable. You know you work harder than most people around you. But somewhere along the way, you started wondering if leading at scale means losing the parts of yourself that actually matter, your family, your values, the way you naturally lead. Dipti Srivastava grew up in a small town in India where engineering was considered a field for boys. She moved to Silicon Valley, raise...

You're saying yes to everything. You're the most reliable person on your team. You're working harder than anyone around you. And somehow, you're the one being taken for granted. Sound familiar? In this solo episode, I share a story from early in my career that I still think about to this day, a trip I gave up out of fear, to protect a job I ended up leaving anyway. I talk about wha...

You're the first one in and the last one out. Your calendar is back-to-back. You're eating lunch while walking to your next meeting. And somewhere in the back of your mind, you keep telling yourself, "I just need to get through this week." But what if the way you're working isn't just unsustainable, what if it's actually making you less effective and less appreciated?...

There's a moment in my career I still think about. A colleague was promoted, and I wasn't. We were doing similar work. I went to my manager and asked why, and his answer wasn't clear. You're not strategic enough. You're not visible enough. You're not ready. At the time, I was crushed. But looking back, I can see exactly why it happened. I was focused solely on execution, no...

You're doing everything right. You're delivering great work, hitting deadlines, and solving hard problems. So why does it feel like no one notices? If you've been putting your head down and waiting for your manager to recognize what you bring to the table, you're not alone. But that strategy has a ceiling, and it's lower than you think. In this episode, I sit down with Lalitha...

You know that conversation you've been putting off? The feedback you haven't given, the conflict you keep sidestepping, the moment in the meeting where you stayed quiet and walked out angry? This is the episode where I get personal about why I've done the same thing for years, what it cost me, and the three things that actually help. I'm a recovering avoider. In this solo episode,...