Shownotes
Erica Rooney spent almost a decade climbing to Chief People Officer before she hit a wall she'd seen coming: a 132-year pay gap, leadership rooms that weren't built for her, and a moment where she realized she couldn't hand her daughter the same fight. So she left — and started Her Collective, a company built to help women climb the ladder on their own terms.
Then AI arrived, and almost by accident, Erica became one of its earliest women advocates. Her new book, The AI Gap: Women, AI, and the Next Great Leap Forward, makes the case that AI is either the biggest opportunity women have ever had, or it's about to widen every gap that already exists.
In this conversation, Erica and Michelle get honest about what nobody tells you before you leave corporate — and how she learned, the hard way, not to hang her worth on any single deal.
Three takeaways from this episode:
- Build the runway before you jump. Erica didn't quit cold — she ran the numbers with her husband and a financial planner first, and got the "you have six and a half years of savings" reality check that made the leap feel survivable.
- Don't hang your worth on one outcome. After a signed speaking deal fell through days before the event, Erica spent a week in a funk — until she realized she'd tied her entire sense of success to a single price tag. Her mantra now: "What is meant for me will not miss me."
- AI is a fork in the road, not a guarantee. Erica's read on AI is unflinching: it's "either going to be the greatest opportunity for women, or it's going to set us back" — and which one happens depends on who's in the room building it.
About Erica Rooney: Erica is the founder of Her Collective and a former Chief People Officer in tech. She's the author of Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors (endorsed by Mel Robbins) and the newly released The AI Gap: Women, AI, and the Next Great Leap Forward. She hosts two podcasts and runs a weekly community for women building careers and businesses on their own terms.
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