The chemical processing and manufacturing industry develops exceptional technical talent — and then asks that talent to make one of the most disorienting professional transitions a person can face: the leap from individual contributor to leader. For women in STEM, that transition carries an additional layer of complexity that most leadership development programs were never designed to address.

Leadership in technical organizations is governed by a set of unwritten rules — unspoken expectations, informal power structures, and invisible norms about what credibility looks like. These rules are rarely taught, but always enforced. And they disproportionately affect women, who are navigating a system that was largely built by and for someone who doesn't look like them.

The result is a transition that feels harder than it should. Self-doubt gets misread as a performance problem. And the industry quietly loses high-performing women right at the moment they're needed most — not at the point of recruitment, but at the point of transition.

This session names what's actually happening. Attendees will be introduced to six rules that govern leadership in STEM organizations, gain a clearer understanding of the structural dynamics that make the transition harder for women, and leave with a framework for navigating — or better supporting — that transition. Whether you are making the leap yourself or leading an organization that wants to retain the women coming up behind you, this session offers language for experiences that are often felt but rarely named.