{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"The Ambition Gap: Why Women Are Advancing Less\u2014And What Leaders Can Do About It","description":"A new study, Women in the Workplace 2025, reports a troubling reversal: stalled early advancement, declining company commitment, and a new ambition gap as fewer women aspire to promotion than men for the first time in a decade. In a fast growing Central Ohio economy, this Columbus Metropolitan Club forum asks: are women being left behind just as opportunity expands? New research from McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org shows that only 80% of women now aspire to promotion, compared with 86% of men\u2014a reversal of long-standing trends. Yet the data tells a more hopeful story as well: when women receive the same sponsorship, support, and clarity about advancement as their male peers, the ambition gap disappears entirely. The problem, it turns out, may not be women\u2019s ambition\u2014but workplaces that make ambition harder to sustain. Leaders from business and the nonprofit sector discuss what is driving the ambition gap, why it disappears when women receive equal sponsorship and support, and what leaders can do to build workplaces where women can advance. Featuring: Michelle Bryant, Partner, McKinsey and Company Dr. Pamela Gregory, Owner and CFO, National Center for Urban Solutions Kelley Griesmer, President and CEO, The Women\u2019s Fund of Central Ohio Lillian Morales Laster, Executive Director, Empowering Latinas Leadership Academy The host is Margaret D Finley, President, Central Ohio Belonging Consortium. This forum was made possible by the Mary Lazarus Legacy in Civic Engagement Fund and was sponsored by Advanced Drainage Systems, Event Marketing Strategies, and The New Directions Career Center. The presenting sponsor of the CMC livestream was The Center for Human Kindness at the Columbus Foundation. CMC's livestream partner was The Columbus Dispatch. If you\u2019d like to keep exploring this week\u2019s forum topic, our friends at The Columbus Metropolitan Library recommend reading This Isn't Working: How Working Women Can Overcome Stress, Guilt, and Overload to Find True Success by Meghan French Dunbar (2025). This forum was recorded before a live audience at The National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus Ohio on March 4, 2026. ","author_name":"The Columbus Metropolitan Club","author_url":"http:\/\/columbusmetroclub.org","html":"