Women Take the Lead Network

Women Take the Lead Network brings together professional young women from various fields from both Egypt and Denmark.

Being in a leadership position always comes with specific challenges and being a young woman in a leadership position even more so. Offering a space for the young women to reach out and share not only challenges, doubts and difficulties but also praise and success is what Women Taking the Lead Network is all about.

Women Take the Lead Network

2022

Mette Kristoffersen, a Senior Manager at Bain & Company talks to the participants about the double standards when it comes to being assertive in the work place as a woman. (Photo: Rowan El Shimi // DEDI)

Meet the participants

Get to know the 23 participants taking part in Women Take the Lead Network 2022.

The young female leaders come from various backgrounds and experiences; some work in local or national government, non-governmental organisations, corporations, start-ups, and family owned business.

Women Take the Lead Book launch

Welcome dinner and Book launch

Read the book online here.

In March, in both Copenhagen and Cairo simultaneously, the new participants of the Women Take the Lead Network met for their welcome dinner with the participants from the 2021. During both dinners, the booklet from 2021 was launched. The booklet introduces the participants of the network as well as documents their experiences from the workshops in Cairo and Copenhagen.

International Workshop in Denmark

After the welcome dinner and two local meetings where the participants from Denmark and Egypt met with each respective delegation as well as online, they finally got to meet face to face at the first international workshop in Denmark in August. The workshop included two workplace visits to the software company cBrain where participant Anna Bjørn Reland works as well as Carina Sandholm’s workplace Pleaz.

The rest of the workshop was designed to give the participants the opportunity to set their own agenda and give talks, host conversation circles and pose questions for the whole group to discuss. The topics included: maternity leave, overcoming imposter syndrome, finding ways to be assertive, among many other topics.

The design of the program or the network itself enables us to have these open spaces for conversations, to share experiences and learn from each other. It’s not that the WTL team is giving us information or specific knowledge – it’s built more on peer-to-peer learning.

Roaa Ahmed, Strategic Growth Manager at Chefaa

Roaa Ahmed reflects on how the city’s infrastructure can be a factor in productivity in the work place. (Photo: Rowan El Shimi // DEDI)

Women helping women

Read about the participants’ experiences from the workshop

For Alexandra Singpiel, it has been a huge privilege to be a part of this network. “The past days have clearly shown that we face similar challenges and it’s always nice to support each other and also in part validate each other – it’s not just me, it’s also systemic issues that are challenging to all of us. It’s really useful when being in doubt having a network to go back to that can tell you that you’re doing a good job and it’s not your fault all the time.”

Four participants share their experiences

International Workshop in Egypt

After a successful workshop in Denmark, the participants came together once again in Cairo in October 2022. The focus of the workshop was inspiration, innovation and micro-financing and they visited and met with various actors on the sustainable fashion scene in Cairo.

Dare to lead like a woman

Read about the participants’ experiences from the workshop

“When you meet people from the same background you can very fast feel like you’re very aligned and agree on everything. But when you meet people from very different backgrounds it makes you reflect more and it makes you get into discussions that maybe you wouldn’t do if you only met people that you already understand and know,” Josefine Bak says.

The Women Take the Lead Network’s second international workshop offered a space for reflection, sharing and support (Photo: Rowan El Shimi // DEDI)