The Middle Child of Corporate America

Why the Mid-Career Executive Woman Gets Overlooked And What to Do About It

“Be so good they can’t ignore you,” the posters said. She was. They still did.

Across corporate America, the forgotten group isn’t the new grads or the seasoned leaders.

It’s the mid-career executive woman who is overqualified for junior roles, not given the reins to lead, and somehow, quietly left out of every talent discussion that promises “equity” and “diversity.”

The system runs on her. But it doesn’t run for her.

She plays by the rules. She delivers.

But she’s not invited to the meeting after the meeting. She trains new hires who leapfrog her within two years. When budget cuts come, her promotion is delayed again because leadership is “reprioritizing.”

Not getting promoted

She is too good for them to let her go but she is not good enough to set direction. They rely on her to steady the ship, fix broken teams, and deliver results without drama. She’s the backchannel, the fix-it call, the one who always knows where the bottleneck is. But when it’s time to appoint someone to lead the next division or drive the new strategy? They look elsewhere. It's clear she is not getting promoted.

Call it the U-bend of ambition. And she’s stuck in it.

The data

A 2023 McKinsey report found that women in mid-senior roles are leaving at the highest rate ever recorded. Burnout is a main contributor. Many are simply tired of asking for what should already be obvious.

Worse still: she's often told to “just project masculine energy or speak about her contributions louder.” Completely ignoring the fact that the system is built to overlook her.

The numbers support this.

She earns less than her male peers and she knows it. A 2022 Payscale study showed that women with 10–20 years of experience see the pay gap widen, not shrink. The longer she stays, the less she makes.

Add in teenage kids, aging parents, and a boss who once praised her work, got her working hard, and now blithely takes credit for it; and it’s no wonder she’s Googling “how to start your own consulting business” at 2 a.m.

This is the stage no one prepares her for. Not the career books. Not HR. And certainly not her employer, who still lists her as a “flight risk” but does nothing to help her land.

If you’ve read this far, you might be her.

So what now?

Some women stay. They lobby for a new title and keep score. Sometimes it works.

Others choose something different: they stop waiting. They look for their next role and learn the tactics of negotiating better. Then they negotiate with their next company using maximum leverage. Or they build something of their own.

Either way, the message is the same: Being ignored is a signal. And it’s time to act on it.

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