79% of women believe DEI rollbacks will hurt their careers. But here's what nobody's saying: the broken rung was already cracking before any program got cut.

Those leadership development tracks, mentorship circles, and diversity cohorts were handing out maps. The women who actually got promoted built something different — they built keys. Sponsors who carried their names into rooms where decisions got made. Not because a program assigned them. Because the relationship was real.

You don't need a program to build that. You need three people playing three specific roles: a sponsor with organizational power, a peer advocate who trades visibility with you, and a strategic connector who bridges you to your next orbit. This episode walks you through the advocacy audit — mapping who actually has influence over your next opportunity — and shows you how to build the infrastructure nobody can disband.

Subscribe to the Protege newsletter for weekly frameworks: newsletter.theprotegeproject.com