If You're Ready for What's Next, Here's What Opens the Door

The business, financial, and strategic acumen that actually drives promotion decisions and how to build it.

The Unspoken Cause

If you’re ambitious, accomplished, and still wondering why the next opportunity hasn’t arrived, you’re not imagining it. And it’s almost certainly not what you’ve been told.

It’s probably not your leadership presence.

It’s probably not your communication style.

It’s almost certainly not your confidence.

It’s likely this: one third of the leadership equation has been invisible to you — not because you missed it, but because almost no one explicitly teaches it to women.

The Missing 33%

I’ve spent decades studying why talented women plateau — and why companies lose the very women they claim to want in senior roles. What I found changed everything about how I think about women’s career development.

Most leadership development focuses on two things: who you are as a leader, and how well you work with people. Those things matter. But the leaders who get tapped for bigger roles — who get invited into the room where strategy is decided — are the ones who demonstrate something else:

Business acumen. Financial acumen. Strategic acumen.

That’s The Missing 33% of the career success equation.

My TED Talk on this has been viewed by millions of people in 23 languages. And yet the organizations those viewers work in are still developing women’s communication skills while quietly overlooking the business savvy that actually drives promotion decisions.

Most women aren’t lacking business savvy because they aren’t smart enough or ambitious enough. They’re lacking it because no one ever explicitly told them it was required, let alone shown them how to develop it.

That’s what Be Business Savvy exists to change.

Start here. Join free.

What You’ll Find Here

The women who advance most effectively make a decision at some point to treat their own development the way they’d treat any other sound business investment — not “can I justify this?” but “what is the cost of not doing this?”

That shift changes everything. And this is where it starts.

Free subscribers get full access to my articles — practical, research-grounded writing on business, financial, and strategic acumen, and how to use all three to accelerate your career.

Monthly and Annual subscribers get:

• Highly actionable guidance — including the Quick Start Business Acumen course, a structured learning sequence built around my Business Savvy framework, designed to move you from skill development to successful demonstration of those skills

• Monthly live working sessions — every month I host an open Zoom for all paid subscribers. Bring a real situation — a budget conversation you’re preparing for, a strategic initiative you’re trying to influence, a leadership challenge you’re not sure how to frame. We work through it together. This is not a webinar. It’s direct access to someone who has spent decades on this specific problem. Come with something real.

• The full archive — every article, fully accessible, searchable, yours

Founding subscribers get all of the above, plus the complete Be Business Savvy course — the full arc of business, financial, and strategic acumen I’ve spent decades developing and refining. Not too hard. Not too mathy. Designed for a full plate.

What’s the Value of a Paid Subscription?

Paid subscriptions are intentionally priced to be expensable — this is professional development, and you can make that case to your organization. And if you’re investing in yourself directly, I’ve priced them to remove that barrier too. Discover more about the value of a paid subscription.

For Organizations

Corporate memberships are available for organizations serious about building leadership pipelines that actually reflect their talent pool. If you’re investing in women’s development and want something that addresses the gap most programs miss, contact me.

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If you’re ready to be seen as the strategic, business-savvy leader you already are — you’re in the right place.

Start with the articles. Subscribe when you’re ready. And when you’re a paid subscriber, bring your real situations to our monthly sessions.

I’m glad you’re here.

Lead ON!

Susan

One more thing: About the logo

About the logo: In 2000, I discovered The Missing 33% of the career success equation for women. When I updated the research in 2023, the finding held. “Close the Missing 33%” is a mouthful — so I chose something more aspirational: Be Business Savvy. A shorter way of saying: build your business, financial, and strategic acumen and close the gap that’s likely holding you back. See the star at the center of the logo? That’s you — shining with greater Business Savvy. Ready to shine? Join us.

Celebrating with friends in Amsterdam after riding in Andalusia - where the horses are magnificent and the desire to return grows stronger.