We began wondering… what if female CEOs were normal? What would it be like for female leadership to be so blasé that it doesn’t make headlines? This is the story I’m helping ABC to CEO tell. ABC to CEO is a non-profit built with a mission to inspire one million young women to prepare for the possibility of being CEO. In a world of eight billion people, it almost seems too small. Their role is to inspire. Mine is to help them do it in a way that sings.
To help the gears in someone's brain begin to follow our case, I used rhythmic, cadenced language that builds within a familiar visual style (newspaper-style graphics) to help someone join us in wondering where, why, and when the world fell off its axis — and how we might partner together to get it spinning straight.
Its her time. To help women step into the world we're building, I acknowledged the reality of where a woman starts, "future-paced" the language, and directed her attention to where the bridge is. Language that normalizes its aims strips back pushback laced into more sensationalistic language. Women being the world's natural leaders will be normal. We're just writing about it now.
To show how the mission of preparing for possibility can radically transform how we greet a day, I wrote a short, easy-to-grasp example that readers could see themselves in.
This was fun! I articulated the organization's value in a way that hopefully feels approachable and enjoyable to engage with. We know being CEO isn't a mile-marker for a worthwhile life. For us, it means learning the rules of the game so that competence is never the defining reason a woman doesn't get a seat at the table. *And yes, the choice part makes me cry. In a world where women far too often find themselves choiceless and following scripts written for them, I want women to have more space and freedom to choose.