Miro’s Brigid Archibald and Greenbeam’s Cia Kouparitsas discuss what small businesses consistently get wrong about developing women, and what to do instead.
What’s happening: Cia Kouparitsas, CEO of workforce intelligence platform Greenbeam, and Brigid Archibald, VP of Japan and APAC at Miro, say the biggest barriers to women’s progression in small businesses are not ambition or capability gaps.
Why this matters: For small business owners and startup leaders, retaining and developing talented women is both a culture and a commercial issue. Both leaders argue the fix is less about good intentions and more about deliberate design.
Ask two senior women in tech what small businesses are getting wrong about developing women and the answers are different in detail but consistent in direction. The problem, both say, is rarely the talent. It is the system around it.
Cia Kouparitsas, CEO of workforce intelligence platform Greenbeam, and Brigid Archibald, VP of Japan and APAC at Miro, both point to the same underlying issue: too many organisations rely on encouragement when what women actually need is structure, visibility and leaders willing to actively open doors.
Visible by design
For Kouparitsas, who brings more than 20 years of experience across technology businesses in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and across Asia-Pacific, the starting point is something she says leaders consistently underestimate.
“Too many women are told to lean in without a clear understanding of what success or progression actually looks like,” she says. “We aim to change that by making expectations explicit and capabilities fully visible.”
At Greenbeam, every role carries a defined success profile with transparent skills benchmarks, performance data and clearly articulated responsibilities. The goal is to shift promotion conversations away from subjective judgement and toward evidence.
“It transforms promotion conversations from subjective debates into evidence-based discussions, removing ambiguity and bias,” she says.
Archibald takes a similar position from a technology angle. At Miro, the platform itself is designed to reflect the same principle, with features including anonymised input ensuring that voices which might otherwise hesitate are heard and recognised on their merits.
“Every contribution on the Miro canvas is treated equally,” she says. “Features such as anonymised input ensure that voices which might otherwise hesitate are amplified, creating a space where all team members can share insights openly.”
Every leader at Miro, she adds, is responsible for identifying and creating development opportunities for employees, spanning mentorship, stretch projects, sponsorship and visibility in strategic conversations.
Sponsorship over mentorship
Both leaders draw a distinction that they believe too many small business owners miss. Mentorship and sponsorship are not the same thing, and confusing the two comes at a cost.
“Mentorship is valuable, but for women in small businesses and startups, sponsorship is even more important,” Kouparitsas says. “Encouragement alone builds confidence, but sponsorship opens doors to real opportunities.”
Sponsorship, in her definition, is active and specific. It means advocating for stretch assignments, making introductions to decision makers, and giving women early access to strategic and commercial conversations.
“Commercial literacy is a superpower,” she says. “The more someone understands the levers that drive growth, the more impact they can have, and the more their potential is recognised.”
In fast-growing startups particularly, she warns, talented women can stall mid-career not because of any capability gap but simply because the pathway forward was never made visible.
Archibald frames the same challenge through the lens of everyday culture and meeting practice. Effective mentoring, she argues, begins with genuinely understanding the person in front of you.
“Mentoring women effectively starts with truly getting to know your team members,” she says. “Understanding their ambitions, strengths, motivators and the barriers they face allows you to create development opportunities that genuinely support their growth.”
She also points to the importance of meeting rituals that distribute participation rather than defaulting to the loudest voice. Sharing agendas ahead of time, she says, gives people the space to prepare and contribute on equal footing.
The work nobody sees
One of the more specific observations Kouparitsas raises concerns a category of contribution that consistently goes unrecognised in smaller organisations. Women, she notes, often take on stabilising work such as mentoring new hires, documenting processes and managing stakeholder relationships. These contributions are essential to how organisations actually function, but they are rarely the work that gets rewarded.
“A sponsor can ensure these contributions are recognised, valued, and leveraged as part of career advancement,” she says. Her advice to small business leaders is direct. “Don’t wait for someone to ask for help. Be proactive in identifying talent, championing it, and creating measurable pathways to growth.”
Archibald adds a cultural dimension that she believes is often underestimated in fast-moving or high-pressure environments. Leaders, she says, should actively encourage a culture of curiosity, creating space to ask why not and prioritising learning over perfectionism.
“Encouraging learning over perfectionism helps individuals step forward without fear, particularly in fast-moving or high-pressure environments where hesitation can hold talented women back,” she says.
She also advocates for mentorship that extends beyond a single relationship, connecting women with both male and female mentors inside and outside the organisation to broaden perspective, expand networks and accelerate development.
For both leaders, the throughline is the same. The clients who inspire Kouparitsas most are the HR and technology leaders she sees actively redesigning systems they once had to navigate themselves, building organisations where advancement is linked to capability rather than proximity to power.
“When performance criteria are transparent and advancement is based on evidence, all employees understand what success looks like and how to achieve it,” she says. “This clarity improves retention, strengthens leadership pipelines, and encourages a culture of accountability and fairness.”
Archibald puts it simply. “When diversity is encouraged and nurtured, the whole organisation thrives.” For small business leaders, that is ultimately the argument both women are making. Building visible, structured, inclusive pathways for women is not a programme that sits alongside the real work of running a business. It is, they both believe, the real work.
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