Tom
Shemesh
Founder & RevOps Leader at cptur.ai
"Merit Is Not a Strategy: Why Women Are Taught to Avoid Power, Money, and Visibility"
"Merit Is Not a Strategy: Why Women Are Taught to Avoid Power, Money, and Visibility"
Thu May 14 - 6:20 AM EDT/New York (See in local time)
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05/14/2026 6:20 AM
05/14/2026 06:40 AM
America/New_York
#WTGC2026
"Merit Is Not a Strategy: Why Women Are Taught to Avoid Power, Money, and Visibility"
#WTGC2026
"Merit Is Not a Strategy: Why Women Are Taught to Avoid Power, Money, and Visibility"
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"Merit Is Not a Strategy: Why Women Are Taught to Avoid Power, Money, and Visibility"
"Merit Is Not a Strategy: Why Women Are Taught to Avoid Power, Money, and Visibility"
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Session: Merit Is Not a Strategy: Why Women Are Taught to Avoid Power, Money, and Visibility
Many women in tech are told that competence, reliability, and hard work will naturally lead to recognition and advancement. In reality, power in organizations follows visibility, negotiation, and political fluency, not merit alone. This talk examines how women are socialized to avoid money conversations, leadership conflict, and self-advocacy, and how this directly shapes career outcomes.Based on lived experience and observation across multiple organizations, the session offers a clear-eyed look at how decisions are actually made, the myths that keep women playing by the wrong rules, and what can be done differently without forcing women to become someone they’re not.
Key Takeaways
- Why merit alone rarely drives advancement in tech organizations
- How avoidance of money, power, and visibility is learned, not innate
- Practical reframes for navigating influence without self-betrayal
Bio
Tom Shemesh is a Berlin-based founder, mentor, and operator with over 10 years of experience working across leadership, operations, and go-to-market teams in B2B SaaS.Her work sits at the intersection of building companies and understanding how they actually run, from decision-making and execution to the often invisible dynamics that shape teams, careers, and outcomes.
She brings a pragmatic, experience-driven perspective to scaling organizations and developing people, with a focus on making complex, often unspoken challenges more visible and actionable.
