Maybe it’s just my algorithm, but it feels like my timeline is full of women rejecting — or at least rethinking — ambition. Author (and fellow Canadian journalist) Amil Niazi wrote the book Life After Ambition: A Good Enough Memoir about her personal journey away from the pressure to lean in. “Ambition is still an important and necessary tool, but in capitalism, it’s also designed to work against you,” Niazi told Toronto Life earlier this year. Similarly, comedian Phoebe Robinson did a standup special last year called “I Don’t Wanna Work Anymore” all about dismantling girl-boss culture. “Not being a girlboss has allowed me to have a fuller life, which I think is great, not only for my own personal happiness, but it [also] inform[s] my work and the way that I approach it,” Robinson told the LA Times. It feels like we’ve been in an anti-ambition moment for a few years now but I mention Niazi and Robinson specifically because they are both women of color. And for awhile, the girlboss craze and then its subsequent backlash all felt very white. As a workaholic who was raised by immigrant parents to work “twice as hard” as my peers to be successful, I didn’t think leaning out was an option for me, and neither was the c-suite. But, like many millennials, I am burnt out and frustrated with working myself to exhaustion for little reward, especially at this point in my career when I am in a senior position.
I also know that, as irritating as it is, my ambition is an integral part of who I am. While I relate hard to Niazi and Robinson and understand the (much needed) shift away from hustle culture, I am still hustling. My job is still my life and a key part of my identity. And I’m OK with that — for now. I just hate the systems we’re forced to work under that create a lack of boundaries and a breeding ground for burnout (capitalism is so annoying). “When I hear about women losing ambition, I take it with a grain of salt,” The WIE Suite founder and CEO Dee Poku tells me over the phone days after she hosted a two-day summit for women entering the third act of their careers. “Women might be fed up with systems, but I don’t think we ever lose that drive. It just takes a different form. We’ve done the traditional sort of workplace ambition and this is a different ownership of our own destiny.”
That mindset was at the core of The New Guard Summit, a two-day event in The Berkshires curated by Poku and The WIE Suite, “for women leading the next era,” says the event’s press release. “The flagship in-person event, gathered for senior women leaders navigating the third act — the career and life phase defined by impact, legacy, and purposeful reinvention. Programming spanned keynotes, expert breakouts, fireside conversations, table braintrust exercises, and partner activations.” When Poku invited me to the event, I was hesitant considering the aforementioned burnout and overall networking fatigue. But the summit was so much more than just another conference designed to push you back into the workforce with increased productivity or a place to rattle off your resume. It was a reset and a challenge: what do you want the next phase of your career to look like, how will your goals affect the rest of your life — mind and body — and how will you make it all happen?
The Summit 101 — & A Reminder Your Third Act Isn’t About Age
“Community is really important to me,” Poku says about why she wanted to create the New Guard Summit. “Curated community is really important to me. And the reason that it’s important is that we should have as many different types of people in our lives as possible because we are multidimensional people. There is something so valuable about curating women who have goals and aspirations in common, who are at a similar place in their lives and careers, and can be deeply useful to one another. It really helps us move forward in our careers and certainly in our ambitions if we have that peer support.”
That curated peer support was on full display throughout the summit. The theme was The Third Act and focused on three pillars: health, wealth and influence. Speakers included Victoria’s Secret CEO Hillary Super, Scale AI co-founder and world’s youngest self-made billionaire Lucy Guo, celebrity stylist Micaela Erlanger, DIOTIMA and Proenza Schouler Creative Director, Rachel Scott, and renowned women’s health expert Dr Sharon Malone.
When you think of a third act, you may think of being in your 60s, post-retirement, but Poku described it as a career stage of maximum choice and autonomy, where one leverages established expertise for personal impact, distinct from age or retirement. Act One, according to Poku, is the very early stages of a career when you are just entering the work force, finding mentors and yourself. Act Two is when you’ve found yourself and your stride, you have reached a leadership position and are in a position to shape the way decisions are made, but you are still beholden to a system, your bosses, or authority figures around you. And Act Three is all about freedom, baby. You are in control of who you work with and how you live. “It’s less about doing what’s expected or doing what you’re boxed into,” Poku says. “It’s saying, this is how I want to live and these are the people I want to work with and this is what I know and how I’m going to apply it to the rest.”
So, to speak in Beyoncé albums, I would consider myself in the Cowboy Carter era of my career; confident, creative, and been around long enough that I consistently deliver excellence. I’m a senior director. I love my job. But that freedom Poku speaks of is still out of reach. The media industry is shrinking so editorial directors are now also content creators, editors, video editors, writers, reporters, talent bookers and social media managers. I am not able to how and when I’m going to work — or with whom — yet, but it does feel like that Third Act is fast approaching. Could a trip to the Berkshires with a bunch of ambitious women get me there faster?
The Drive To The Berkshires That Felt Like Crossing Into A Different Chapter
I flew into Newark airport the morning of Day 1 of the summit and headed to WIE Suite member Stephanie Roberson’s house in New Jersey. She’s the Chief Merchandising Officer at Shopbop and graciously offered to drive us to the summit at the Miraval Berkshires Resort and Spa. Before I even got out of the car, I realized that Poku’s curation skills were already on display. Roberson is one of the most impressive and kind people I’ve ever met and learning about her work, her advocacy for mothers and maternal health, was so inspiring.
By the time we wound our way through the rolling roads of the Berkshires, my out-of-office reply had been active for a few hours, and I was already resisting the urge to check Slack.
Old habits die hard. But chatting with Roberson brought me back to the purpose of the next 48 hours and the temptation to fall back into the grind subsided.
If a Third Act is the phase of life and career that exists beyond the relentless climb, it was time to ease up on the incline. As we pulled up to one of the most bougie and beautiful resorts I had ever seen, it was exciting to know that I’d be surrounded by founders, executives, investors, board members, and creatives who had already accumulated the titles, the promotions, the exits, and the accolades that society tells women they can’t have.
The question hanging over the summit wasn’t how to get more. It was, “What happens when you’ve achieved what you once thought would define success?” For many women, especially those who have spent decades proving themselves in rooms not built for them, that’s a surprisingly complicated question. As I arrived, New Guard tote bag now in hand and networking instincts fully activated, I expected conversations about scaling businesses, maximizing influence, and staying competitive. Instead, what I found was a collective interrogation of ambition itself.
The Message Was About Purpose Instead Of Pressure
There’s a familiar script at leadership events. Someone asks what you do. You answer with your title. You discuss growth, opportunities, goals, and metrics. Everyone leaves inspired to work harder. There’s pressure to be productive. This felt different and that was intentional. Throughout the summit, women who had reached objectively impressive heights spoke candidly about exhaustion, reinvention, caregiving, grief, menopause, aging, and the quiet realization that achievement alone doesn’t provide meaning forever.
On day one, there were movement sessions in the morning, journaling time to set our intentions, a cocktail hour and dinner where Poku and others shared remarks. One of my favorite moments came from Toni Wallace, Partner and Head of Global Music Brand Strategy & Partnerships at UTA. During dinner, Wallace was one of the select few women asked to speak on their third acts. “As far as what I would like my third act to look like? I would really love to do something with purpose and impact,” Wallace said. “I’m deeply concerned, as I know many of you are, about what’s happening in the world right now and I have a very difficult time sleeping. I just feel like we all need to be using the incredible gifts that we have to help make a difference.”
Wallace’s candor was so refreshing and I witnessed multiple women approach her afterwards to thank her for being so real. So many of us aren’t sleeping. And now is the time to step up and lean into purpose. The stakes are too high. In the U.S., women are losing rights as this administration is hell bent on dismantling any progress that was made in the Obama era. As Wallace said, in a room full of women with influence, thinking about using that power for good is necessary.
The Conversations Around Aging, Wealth & Influence Felt Radically Honest
“I hear some version of women figuring out their health, wealth, or influence every day,” Poku says. “Women are really thinking about their health in different ways. And it’s not just about like self-care, but it’s really like, how can I live better longer? The women’s health space has exploded and is very much driven by women. We’re really finding innovative solutions to how we live our lives. But it also feels really overwhelming. I just wanted to hone in on that and bring some experts to the table to help us understand how we should be living our lives in our 30s, 40s, 50s, and onwards.”
In many professional environments, aging remains a topic people approach cautiously, especially women. At the summit, it was discussed openly. Women spoke about visibility, relevance, changing identities, health, and the realities of navigating workplaces that often celebrate youth while simultaneously benefiting from experience. Rather than framing aging as decline, attendees described it as a period of expanded perspective. There was a noticeable absence of apology. When it comes to wealth and money, Poku wanted the summit to focus on more than just “doing the basics” or “what our financial advisor tells us to do.”
“How can we be really clever about building, growing wealth over the long term?” Poku asks.“Let’s think about generational wealth, which I think about a lot in terms of Black women. I’m in rooms where this sort of wealth information is being passed down by wealthy people to the next generation. They’re getting access to information because they’ve had access to this wealth over longer periods. So, how do we get in those rooms and how do we get access to that wealth information if we haven’t had generational wealth in that same way?”
One of the speakers during the wealth sessions said something I’ll always remember: “The real wealth is going from ‘how much’ to ‘what for?’” That brings us back to purpose.
For the panels on influence, Poku says she wanted them to be about how “the concept of influence has changed. And I would say executive women want to also have influence in a way that’s different to being an influencer.” Her hope was to equip executive women to build a direct audience via platforms like Substack and podcasts, enabling a different kind of impact that they used to have.
“It used to be that you build this career, you build all this knowledge, you build all these relationships and you became a VP or an EVP or CEO or president, and your influence was filtered down through the company,” Poku says. “And now we’re really thinking about the way you build your influence beyond being confined to the workplace. Now, there is the ability to have a more direct line to your audience.”
In the afternoon influence session on day two, Jo Cronk from Whaler spoke about the difference between creators (“storytellers”) and influencers (“endorsers”). Cronk was honest and irreverent about the state of the business and how to bridge the gap between marketing, branding, and real, true influence. Many of the women in the room shared their frustrations with the expectations for everyone with a successful job or business to now become an influencer as she gave honest feedback and tips on where to start. Not only did the summit act as a beautiful reminder to own our worth and power, there was also tangible advice we could take with us.
Women talked about setting stronger boundaries, caring less about external validation, and becoming more selective about where they invest their time and energy. The honesty felt radical precisely because it was so ordinary.
Community Is The Real Power Move
“I host a lot of gatherings and I remember a friend, one of our members, saying to me that the thing that she loved about walking into an event that I had hosted was that as a CEO and as a mother, she was always the one making sure everybody else was taken care of. And what she loved about walking into a WIE Suite event was that she felt that someone was taking care of her,” Poku says.
For all the discussions about leadership, the strongest takeaway wasn’t about strategy, it was about community. Many attendees spoke about the isolation that can accompany senior leadership roles. The higher women rise, the fewer peers they often encounter who understand the unique pressures they face. The summit created space for something increasingly rare: candid conversation without performance. People shared uncertainties alongside accomplishments. They exchanged lessons instead of elevator pitches. They asked questions without pretending to already know the answers. In a culture obsessed with individual achievement, there was something powerful about witnessing women invest in collective wisdom.
A woman I met during the summit (I’ll keep her anonymous for her privacy) worked at Meta and was laid off the morning of day two. She wasn’t upset, she was excited. Because she was surrounded by women who told her she was exactly where she was supposed to be. And she new that with this newfound community, she’d be okay.
I Left Thinking About Ambition Differently
On the bus ride back from the Berkshires, I kept returning to a simple idea that surfaced repeatedly throughout the summit: ambition doesn’t disappear as we age, it evolves.
For some women, that evolution means launching another company. For others, it means mentoring future leaders, pursuing creativity, strengthening relationships, protecting their health, or reclaiming time that was once consumed by professional demands. None of those paths are inherently more valuable than the others.
What The WIE Suite’s The New Guard Summit offered wasn’t a blueprint for your next chapter but permission to imagine the rest of your whole proverbial book. In a world that constantly encourages women to keep striving, climbing, and accumulating, the most transformative message I heard all weekend was that ambition can be measured by more than capitalistic achievement. Sometimes ambition looks like expansion, relationships, redefinition or reinvention. And sometimes, after decades of proving yourself, ambition looks like finally asking what you want — and allowing the answer to be enough.
I’ll leave you with my favorite quote from an interview with Jill Scott (talking to Angie Martinez) about the stages of a career that, to me, encapsulates everything the summit taught me and what I’m striving for in the present and future.
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