Business Savvy Used to Get You Promoted. Now It Keeps You Employed.
What the AI layoff wave is really telling women
You’ve seen the headlines.
Coinbase cutting 14% of its workforce. Block eliminating 40% of its staff. Law firm Baker McKenzie laying off up to 10% of its global workforce - all as a direct response to AI.
This isn’t a tech story. It’s a business story. And it’s coming to your office, if it hasn’t already.
Let’s take a careful look at the language in these announcements. They’re not just cutting costs. They’re describing a new kind of worker -- one who can direct AI toward outcomes that matter. Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong, called for “strong and active individual contributors.” Block’s Jack Dorsey wants “player-coaches.”
What they’re describing, whether it’s intentional or not, is the need for Business Savvy.
For years I’ve been making the case that business, financial, and strategic acumen -what I call Business Savvy - are key missing components in the career success equation for women. I’ve said, develop, enhance and demonstrate Business Savvy and it will set you apart. It’s what moves you from competent to promotable. From high-performer to high-potential.
And that’s still true.
But the landscape has shifted. Business Savvy is no longer just what moves you up. In an AI-accelerated world, it’s what keeps you in the room.
An Example IRL
I spoke recently with an executive at a large manufacturing company - one that sells specialized equipment to major commercial customers and measures success by units placed in the field.
She was troubled. Market conditions were shifting. The equipment was there, but how consumers were using it was changing. She started asking: shouldn’t we be measuring profit per unit, not just units placed? Are we measuring the right things for where this business is actually heading?
No one handed her that question. She arrived at it herself, by paying attention to what the business actually needed -- not just what it had always measured.
That’s Business Savvy. Specifically, it’s financial acumen meeting strategic acumen -- the ability to look at how your organization measures its own success and ask whether those measures still serve the strategy.
She doesn’t have “finance” or “strategy” in her title. She’s an executive who was paying attention. That’s the whole point. And her very Business Savvy manager took notice!
Who’s Most at Risk?
The women most at risk right now are not the ones who lack talent, work ethic, or ambition.
They’re the ones who believed what they were told - explicitly and implicitly, by their organizations and their leadership development programs - that excelling at relationships, communication, and presence was enough.
It was never enough. I’ve been saying that for twenty years.
Now the cost of the Business Savvy gap is no longer just a missed opportunity. It’s a pink slip.
The four actions below won’t just protect your seat. They’ll position you for what comes next.
