Women Rising in Corporate Ranks

Screen 16 of 23

She began her career as a trainee at Deutsche Bank over 25 years ago. Today at the age of 52 she has come a long way and leads a large team in the bank’s credit-risk management section. “I was one of very few women, sometimes the only woman, in the classical lending business where I began my career,” she says. But “That has changed a lot,” she says. The reason: “Today, many women are much better trained and have good initial qualifications.” And yet, she adds, it has still not become much easier for them to reach management level. Competition for top jobs is hard, she says. And apart from that, even today it is usually left to women to work out how to organize a career and a family – and make the two compatible. Rösler knows; she has a grown-up son.

In fact, women are more successful in their careers today than ever before. Inge Rösler’s generation laid the foundation on which crowds of young women are now building. They are much more self-confident – as well they might be. Never before have so many women attended university or gone out to work – 47% of Germany’s wage earners today are women, and they have never earned as much as they do today either.