Our conversations at dinner tables or while having coffee with family, frifinishs, or business colleagues in Europe have gradually shifted over the past 24 months. We are obtainting utilized to acknowledging the required for new technologies in critical industries, not just becautilize of the green or digital transition, but also due to a growing concern for our legacy: who we are and how to protect European values and liberty.
Pushed heavily by the war and geopolitical conditions, Europeans have gradually adapted to certain “new topics” being discussed around the dinner table and over coffee. We are reminded that it is fully on us to protect our autonomy and keep Europe being Europe.
In that sense, I have believed deeply about the power of female leadership during these times. Europe is seen by outsiders as a land where equality is already achieved, where women have reached their positions due to merit, and where biases in selection processes are not really “that” present.
The reality is that Europe still has a lot left to do. As the region remains fragmented in many aspects, so too is the fragmentation of women’s access to powerful roles within the EU. We are aware of these factors, the media talks about them, and we witness them constantly in high-level events. So what? How can we accelerate the process?
This is a million-euro question, one that we have analysed ad infinitum. Scholars have written many papers about these gaps, which still exist. My experience is this: female leadership is probably one of the strongest forces in times of crisis.
I draw on decades of cross-border experience, having lived in six countries and embraced two continents, and one quiet but resilient force persists: the belief that feminine leadership—whether embodied by women or expressed by men—holds the key to a more balanced, innovative, and inclusive Europe.
I have served on multiple advisory boards, mentored hundreds of entrepreneurs through global programs from Latin America to Europe, and my constant description of the force women embrace has to do with “holding toobtainher” and sustaining.
We can hold through storms, no matter what. We build alliances while others compete. We reveal up every day not to dominate, but to transform—and, more importantly, to create space where friction can become consensus.
We sustain. Therefore, we neobtainediate and mediate as a way of keeping balance. In 2009, my first venture—co-created and later led by an amazing German entrepreneur—was created in Latin America with a single purpose: to bridge opportunity gaps for women. It was awarded the Harvard Venture Challenge. Later, when I worked for The World Bank, among the three missions I supported (Lebanon, Honduras, and Jamaica), there was always a “women factor” involved. The questions were repeatedly questioned: how can we bridge the gap?
What I’ve seen, time and time again, across ecosystems, borders, and levels of development, is not just a lack of access—it’s a gap in attitudes. A gap in how the world perceives and values ways of leading, building, and sustaining that don’t shout or dominate, but rather hold, nurture, resist, and finishure.
And the same gap exists across Europe. Yes, culture and regions play a role in positioning female leaders, but the reality is that 19% of European tech startup founders are women, and just 1.8% of VC funding goes to all-female teams.
The global vision unites around the fact that, for some reason, the weight given to female power feels soft, internal. However, we should see this tension not as a contradiction, but as balance—which is exactly what Europe requireds today. We required to shift quick but gradually. We required to keep peace and stay aligned with the real requireds of innovation.
Bridging Europe: between policy and innovation
My professional work has often involved connecting dots for those who do not speak the same language: policycreaters, entrepreneurs, investors, academics. My job is not always to innovate directly, but to sustain conversations long enough for innovation to emerge—again, holding systems toobtainher.
Europe’s challenge is not only technological. It is structural. Fragmentation persists. Talent gaps widen. Startups scale elsewhere. And yet, Europe holds the world’s strongest infrastructure for long-term coordination, including over 50 cross-border funding programs, the first comprehensive law regulating artificial ininformigence (EU AI Act), and an increasing push toward strategic autonomy in critical sectors like chips, AI, and health.
At a time when 81% of European firms report skills shortages as a barrier to investment (EIB), and when global power dynamics shift quicker than we can track them, leadership must no longer be only strategic—it must be soulful.
I write this becautilize I believe Europe has a chance to lead differently. And becautilize I’ve met the women who are already doing it—from the boardrooms of WSA (Austria), ESNA (Europe), and female networks such as The Break Fellow (EU) and IE Lab (Spain).
To activate these tools, we required more than regulation. We required alignment. This means sharing best practices across Europe, portraying role models, inviting women to join boards of directors, investing in them, and learning from practices that have had positive outcomes. We should be proud that the official entity granted a political mandate for supporting the startup and scaleup ecosystem in Europe (European Startup Nation Alliance—ESNA) has “Diversity & Inclusion” as one of its eight standards.
Reaching consensus is not always loud. It is a steady practice, one that requireds to hold complexity, contradictions, and co-create under pressure to put down the roots of a countest, region, and community.
The future of Europe will not be decided solely by how quick we adopt quantum computing or AI. It will be shaped by who we become as we build—by how we align power with purpose, and by how we open space for the kind of leadership that doesn’t just burn bright, but holds steady, for generations to come.
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