Why the Road to the Boardroom Starts in Girlhood
By Jennifer Flanagan, President and CEO, Actua
April 15, 2026
Originally published on TheFutureEconomy.ca
Public measures of successful women tend to focus on outcomes: the degrees on her wall, the “C” in her title, the awards on her shelf. We spotlight these achievements, sometimes overlooking the structural barriers that make leadership anything but inevitable.
As a mother of two adolescent girls, a girls hockey coach and the CEO of Canada’s largest youth STEM outreach organization, I see the reality behind the “finished product.” I see the hundreds of experiences and moments that either fuel ambition or quietly dampen it, and the endless tension in between.
I know that leadership isn’t made in the boardroom; it is forged in girlhood. And right now, I am watching a generation of future leaders being “un-made” before they even finish high school.
The Quiet Opt-Out: How We Fail Girls in STEM
In my work, I see the magic that happens when girls are given the safe space to be curious. I see them thrive in programming designed specifically for them, building robots, learning about AI and solving complex problems with a confidence that is unmistakable. But in my living room, I see the other side of the coin.
I watch my daughters’ friends navigate a world that still, however subtly, codes STEM as “masculine.” I see bright, capable girls skipping a physics class or opting out of advanced math without any idea of the impact. They don’t realize that by age 16, they are closing doors to engineering or AI careers before they’ve even walked through them.
This isn’t an ambition gap; it is an identity and information gap, and it is absolutely the result of long-standing, stubborn systemic barriers. Research shows that by age six, girls begin to internalize biases and stereotypes about who belongs in science and technology. When we frame the identity of a girl and that of a STEM professional as opposites, girls feel forced to choose. Too often, they choose the identity society rewards and stop seeing themselves as the “type of person” who belongs in the fields shaping our future.
The Digital Silencing of Young Girls
As a parent, I also see the new, even more complex barrier: the digital silencing of our daughters. We cannot expect women to lead at 40 if they are being driven offline at 14.