Inside the "Great Breakup," and what it means for the women who stay
Back in 2022, the period that Lean In and McKinsey dubbed the "Great Breakup," for each woman director who was promoted, two others were heading out the door of their companies. Not leaving the workforce altogether. Leaving the building, taking their badge and their institutional knowledge with them, for every one the company elevated.
The pain lies here
The director level is where people assume the toughest stretch has already been survived. Those early years, with their maternity-leave math and the manager who took you for an intern, were the part you got through. The title, along with the budget attached to it, was yours by merit. Yet this is exactly the level where women were exiting at twice the pace they were being advanced. The pipeline wasn't leaking at the entry level. Here, at the very point where the company had poured considerable resources into filling the seat, the flow was draining away.
Where the number comes from, and what it can't show
That number appears in the 2022 Women in the Workplace report, an annual Lean In and McKinsey study, and it reached a broad audience, Katie Couric Media among them. It has limits worth keeping in view. It reflects a single year, drawn from companies that opt in, a group that leans toward large and American firms. "Leaving" here means leaving that particular employer, not stepping away from corporate life. Some of those directors took a director role at another firm across town, a gain for them and a loss only for the company that didn't keep them. Looking at the 2025 report, the same underlying trend still seems to be in place. Among every 100 men advanced to manager, 93 women are advanced, and that figure falls to 74 for women of color. Some 80% of women report wanting a promotion, while 86% of men do, and equal support is what makes that difference disappear. The ambition is present. Support is the deciding factor.
Imagine it from where she sits
You're a director in a Milwaukee-area company. Across Southeast Wisconsin, two of the four women at your level have walked out within the last year and a half. One of them took a bigger title with a rival firm. Another launched her own venture, perhaps through a local resource such as WWBIC or SCORE Southeast Wisconsin. At the leadership offsite, the chief people officer shows a slide on retention and doesn't name either of them. Now you are the most senior woman in the room, yet nobody has raised what it would take to keep you.
Why it matters for the women who remain in Milwaukee and across Southeast Wisconsin
Staying after a wave of departures isn't the cautious option. You have been drawn into a negotiation without ever agreeing to it. The company has just watched its investment walk out the door, and it knows the next could be you. That's leverage, and leverage has a shelf life. Give it a year and the exits will fade from memory, while your decision to stay gets filed as loyalty, the cheapest asset a company can hold onto.
There is also the matter of added workload landing on your desk. With fewer senior women around, the panels, mentoring requests, and "could you join this?" invitations pile up, and none of it helps your promotion case, yet all of it is now yours.
What comes after
Open the retention talk that leadership ought to have started on its own, and hold it this month instead of pushing it to next quarter. A line you could use: "Two of my peers left this year. I want to stay. What does my next role look like, and by when?" An employer intent on keeping you will come back with a specific role and a date. An employer that is not will offer you compliments instead. Both answers tell you something, but only one spares you another year of waiting.
If your Milwaukee-area company lost women directors this year, has anyone asked you to stay?