Irina
Iozefson-Schneider
Non-Executive Director, Investor, Advisor
"From the Driving Seat to the Boardroom: What No One Tells You About Leading Without the Title"
"From the Driving Seat to the Boardroom: What No One Tells You About Leading Without the Title"
Tue May 12 - 7:50 AM EDT/New York (See in local time)
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05/12/2026 7:50 AM
05/12/2026 08:10 AM
America/New_York
#WTGC2026
"From the Driving Seat to the Boardroom: What No One Tells You About Leading Without the Title"
#WTGC2026
"From the Driving Seat to the Boardroom: What No One Tells You About Leading Without the Title"
https://www.womentech.net/ringcentral
https://www.womentech.net/ringcentral
"From the Driving Seat to the Boardroom: What No One Tells You About Leading Without the Title"
"From the Driving Seat to the Boardroom: What No One Tells You About Leading Without the Title"
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Session: From the Driving Seat to the Boardroom: What No One Tells You About Leading Without the Title
Making the leap from an executive role to a non-executive board seat changes everything - your authority, your tools, and the way you create impact. In this session, Irina Iozefson-Schneider shares her personal journey from leading digital growth, tech, data, and digital transformation as an executive to shaping strategy and investment decisions as a board member across retail businesses representing over €35B in combined revenue. She explores how domain expertise opens the boardroom door, while expanding beyond it into transformation, organisational design, and investment governance is what earns lasting influence. A candid conversation about what it really takes to lead when you’re no longer in the driving seat.Key Takeaways
- From expertise to influence: How to expand your boardroom impact beyond your tech domain into strategy, investment, and organisational transformation.
- The challenge-support balance: How to navigate the board's dual role — holding leadership accountable while empowering them to deliver - and why getting this wrong undermines both.
- Closing the tech gap at the top: Practical approaches to bridging the digital literacy gap with non-tech board peers and building genuine alignment from investors through to the C-suite.
- The identity shift: What changes when you move from the driving seat to an influence role and how mentoring key executives and change agents becomes your most powerful lever.
Bio
Board Member | Advisor | InvestorIrina Iozefson-Schneider is a Partner in a private equity fund focused on value creation across retail portfolio companies, with particular emphasis on digital transformation, technology enablement, and data-led operating models. As a Non-Executive Director for the last six years, Irina bridged the gap between investors, board, and C-suite on digital transformation, customer and data initiatives, supporting tech and data teams from strategy through to execution. Irina advised on digital transformation and organisational change across retail businesses representing over €35B in combined revenue.
Earlier in her career, she led growth initiatives across food delivery, ride-hailing, and online marketplaces in rapidly evolving markets. Alongside her investment and board work, Irina mentors early-stage founders, actively engaged in EdTech startups, backs companies as an angel investor, drawing on her entrepreneurial experience to support sustainable growth.
