Diversity Diaries: Why Spaces Like She's Mercedes Still Matter

Do we still need initiatives like She’s Mercedes?

Carolina Andrade

Head of Communications|MB.ioneer since September 2021

Fun fact:Carolina believes there's a particular way of eating. Ask her what it is!

It’s a question that came up more than once before our first She’s Mercedes @ Mercedes-Benz.io event in Lisbon. It is also a fair question. Conversations around diversity have evolved considerably over the years, and so have the expectations people bring to initiatives like these. Women do not share a single experience, nor should we expect them to. We have different backgrounds, ambitions, responsibilities, career paths and definitions of success. If there is no universal female experience, what is the role of a community designed to bring women together? That question shaped our first conversation and ultimately became more interesting than the answer many of us expected to find.

The theme of the event was Thriving in the Messy Middle, a concept that resonated immediately with many of the women in the room. The messy middle is not a specific career stage or life milestone. Rather, it is the space between certainty and clarity. It is the period when previous answers no longer feel sufficient, but new ones have not fully emerged. It can appear when stepping into a new role, navigating a major change, rethinking priorities or simply trying to make a decision without knowing exactly where it will lead. At first glance, the topic seemed broad. As the conversation unfolded, however, it became clear just how differently people experience these moments. Some participants spoke about leadership challenges. Others reflected on career transitions, changing ambitions, competing priorities or questions about visibility and confidence. The stories themselves varied considerably, shaped by different experiences, responsibilities and perspectives.

What was striking was not the similarity of those stories, but the way they often converged around the same underlying questions.

How do we know when we are ready for the next step? How do we make decisions when there is no obvious right answer? How do we navigate periods of uncertainty without interpreting them as failure, lack of progress or a sign that we are somehow falling behind?

Nobody in the room claimed to have a definitive answer. In fact, one of the strengths of the conversation was the absence of simple solutions. There was no formula for navigating uncertainty, no framework for building confidence and no universal roadmap for career growth. Instead, participants shared honest reflections on how they had approached these questions in their own lives and careers, often discovering that experiences that felt deeply individual were not as uncommon as they once seemed. That observation became one of the most meaningful outcomes of the discussion.

Many of us move through our professional lives seeing only the visible parts of other people’s journeys. We see the promotion, the leadership role, the successful career move or the confident decision. What often remains hidden are the doubts, trade-offs, false starts and unanswered questions that existed alongside those moments. As a result, it can be easy to assume that uncertainty is something we experience alone, while everyone else appears to be moving forward with conviction.

The conversations in Lisbon offered a different perspective. They revealed that while careers, ambitions and circumstances may differ, many of the questions people wrestle with are surprisingly familiar. Not identical, and certainly not universal, but familiar enough to create understanding between people whose experiences might otherwise seem completely different. That, ultimately, is why I believe initiatives like She’s Mercedes continue to matter.

Their value does not lie in the assumption that women share the same challenges or need the same solutions. Nor is it about encouraging women to be more confident or presenting uncertainty as something that can be neatly overcome through determination and positive thinking. The real value lies in creating opportunities to make experiences visible, to learn from different perspectives and to have conversations that do not often happen in day-to-day working life.

When people are given space to share their experiences openly, something important happens. Challenges become easier to contextualise. Assumptions are challenged. Perspectives broaden. Questions that once felt isolating become easier to understand. Not because they are solved, but because they can be explored collectively rather than carried individually.

By the end of the event, there were no definitive conclusions about how to thrive in the messy middle. The future remained uncertain, difficult decisions still required making and unanswered questions had not disappeared. Yet the discussion reinforced something equally valuable: uncertainty is not an unusual interruption to growth. More often than not, it is part of the process itself. Perhaps that is also the answer to the question we started with.

We do not need spaces like She’s Mercedes because all women share the same experience. We need them because creating visibility around different experiences helps us better understand our own. In a world where certainty is often presented as the norm, there is value in being reminded that many of us are navigating the questions in between.

Conversations like these are only possible when people are willing to share their experiences openly. A special thank you to Anna Joala, Filipa Anjos, Joana Marques and Mariana Paranhos Pereira for bringing their perspectives to the discussion and helping create a space for thoughtful reflection, learning and dialogue. We are equally grateful to everyone who joined the conversation and contributed to making this first She’s Mercedes @ Mercedes-Benz.io event such a meaningful experience.