The original Empowerwoment Project

How did it all begin? What inspired me do start with the Empowerwoment Project? And why? In this post, I’ll take a short trip down memory lane and explain you why and how the project came about.

I became CEO of Yoast

The adventure of the Empowerwoment Project began in 2019. In the beginning of 2019, I became the CEO of Yoast. When I started in that position, we had far more men than women on both our board and our management team. I was the only woman! And I am a feminist. I believe in complete equality between men and women. So, what was that about?

How could that happen? I was on the board of Yoast for four years prior to becoming CEO. I could have prevented this. Maybe I should have. And it still happened. I was right there. But why? And how? I still cannot answer that question, although I am less clueless than I was in 2019.

My promotion to CEO inspired me to take action and responsibility. This was something that needed to change! I wanted to help my female colleagues to take the lead. And at the same time, I had to find out what our organization did (unconsciously) that prevented women from growing into leadership roles. I took action and started the Empowerwoment Project at Yoast.

What the project looked like

I developed a program that looked much like the program I am now offering to other organizations. It consisted of videos, books, assignments, and peer group meetings. Next to that, I wanted to really take a closer look at our own organization and see what we could change for the better. So the program also contained internal research and policy evaluations.

I asked the women at Yoast to apply. I ended up with 6 amazing women that were really invested and ambitious. On average, we came together once in three weeks and talked about our assignments and experiences. We had an external speaker talking about gender and intersectional feminism to the entire company. I created a digital story on unconscious prejudice and feminism. We did research and talked to other people within our organization. We made policy changes and analyzed salary differences between men and women.

I enjoyed it so much. And I learned so much. It was awesome for me as an initiator and because I got to be a mentor to those women. That felt amazing. But it was equally awesome for me as a participant. I learned so much. I learned a lot about myself and how some beliefs and behavior held me back. And it was so impressive that we could change things. And we did!

What changed at Yoast?

Nowadays, the leadership and management team at Yoast is majority female. And this was not a direct consequence of The Empowerwoment Project. But I do think the Empowerwoment Project made sure that we had more attention to the importance of female leadership. The Empowerwoment Project made sure we talked and thought about gender equality; it made us review our salaries and change HR policies. It made us aware of our unconscious bias. It changed the way we hired people. And all those changes together led to a much more gender-diverse management team.

The Empowerwoment Project affected me personally. It changed the way I felt and how I behaved. But it also changed Yoast, just because there was so much more attention to topics related to female leadership.