Bringing Female+ Leadership into Full Bloom with Yvonne Poul

Finding My Mission: Elevating Voices and Empowering Others

As students at Tomorrow University, we are asked very early on in our degree to define our personal mission. It took me a while to narrow down the area I want to create a positive impact in, but some key aspects of it had always been clear to me:

• Elevating diverse voices to create a just and equal world, which is why solidarity is one of my key values
• Leveraging my background in art, specifically storytelling and technology, to help empower others

This has led me to hold a workshop on the topic of Women+ in Tech at ToU’s December 2023 Meet-up in Berlin, and to also start the first Women+ in Tech Circle at ToU. A big inspiration for me in that regard was the previous Female Leadership Circle held at ToU,  where I met Yvonne Poul, one of the co-leads and a founder herself. When we were asked to interview an entrepreneur who is inspiring us, I thought of Yvonne because I wanted to learn more about her unconventional approach to female+ leadership.

How Yvonne Poul Is Redefining Female+ Leadership

Yvonne founded aufblühen (“to flourish”), a consulting and (female+) leadership coaching company, in April 2023. What stood out to me was that she had not only worked over 10 years at a tech company, but even climbed the ranks up to become managing director before she decided to leave corporate life behind altogether.

She now applies her own experience in leadership to help female+ leaders find an authentic voice. Her vision is to create a corporate environment with a focus on not just being successful, but also purposeful and future-oriented and that supports more courageous, authentic and passionate women+ in leadership positions.

“You have to be everyone, and you have to make all the decisions on your own.”

Yvonne mentions that one of the biggest challenges to an entrepreneur is that you are completely on your own. Even with a big network and familial support, the decisions are your own to make and the personal investment is also higher. Taking on responsibility was something that she had always been good at, as well as seeing things through. But she admits that there is a different dimension to it now as an entrepreneur.

Dreaming Big: The Villa aufblühen

In a few years, Yvonne’s goal is to not be the only one working at her company anymore. Instead, she dreams of establishing the “Villa aufblühen” as a place with a big kitchen and garden, where female+ leaders can gather and connect, and talk business around the campfire. When Yvonne told me about that dream, my mind immediately started spinning and I imagined possible ways I could help her achieve that dream.

When I told her that, she laughed and told me that a female friend of hers once told her: “If you say it, it happens.” If you talk about your goals and visions with people, that will create opportunities. Female+ leaders and founders do not talk enough about their aspirations, maybe because they have experienced belittlement and not being taken seriously often enough in their professional lives. But women+ are also excellent networkers and resourceful and we all could lean a bit more on our networks.

”To simply place trust, in that things will evolve and grow."

Growing, flourishing, and nurturing are themes that constantly emerge in Yvonne’s attitude towards life and work. She says it is important to develop that deep, fundamental trust in yourself and your environment, in that things will fall into place and whatever happens will happen for a reason.

Leading with Authenticity and Vulnerability

I love how Yvonne brands herself as “leadership witch” which is quite a refreshing concept in the context of the coaching industry. She mentions that she has encountered people who would scoff at her for that, but I admire how it makes her stand out and how she takes full ownership of a female identity that has a long history of marginalization and persecution.

Authenticity is very important to  Yvonne: her previous corporate job required her to build up a kind of armor that, she admits, is still very hard to break and discard sometimes.

She entered the workforce very early, at 22 years old, and encountered a lack of female+ role models which led her to emulate male leaders. When she took on responsibilities as a leader herself, she felt that the armor became ever tighter around her. Leaders are often expected to stay positive, encouraging, and motivating their teams, regardless of what is going on in their personal lives. But leaders are also humans, and by opening up and admitting to being vulnerable, we can foster empathy and respect for each other.

Business culture is still dominated by older white men who have been socialized in a highly competitive environment, so I think it is no wonder that many people in a corporate environment tend to overplay their own vulnerability and focus on projecting confidence. But there is also a generational shift, Yvonne notes: For GenZ, authenticity seems to come naturally.

From Lone Warriors to Collaborative Teams

As people in their 30s, Yvonne and I have both been inspired by how younger people go out and try to change things. Yvonne mentioned that rediscovering that teenage rebel in herself and being reminded of the times in her youth when she protested injustices was an influence on her decision to found her own company.

"To plant a seed but leave it up to people what grows from it”

Yvonne has witnessed many women+ in leadership positions being lone warriors; but to her it is of utmost importance that we work together, regardless of gender, and that we build more diverse teams, in every aspect.

Courage, Creativity, and Owning Your Journey

Connecting with people at ToU who all have very different experiences but a somewhat shared goal of making this world a better place, I also learned the value of community and how much more we can achieve when we just pile our resources, knowledge and motivation. Leading the first iteration of the Women+ in Tech Circle at ToU felt to me like planting a seed into the earth and then tending to it together, to hopefully grow it into a strong and healthy plant.

It is all about what each of us can accomplish with the skills that we already have, as Yvonne notes. Unfortunately, a lot of women+ have a tendency to collect and hoard skills – myself included, now with my 4th degree completed.

Yvonne thinks it is important that people get more in sync with themselves, especially women+, and trust their gut feeling more. By leaning into our creativity, existing relationships and leveraging our strengths, women+ are already all set up for success. But that insecurity in our own skills and experience leads many women+ to undersell their own work, which can be a critical disadvantage in leading your own company, where you have to be your own best salesperson.

For Yvonne, entrepreneurship is highly personal. It confronts you with yourself, and especially for women+, the visibility part is difficult to handle – because it is your own product, your own vision and that digs deeply into the core of yourself. It takes a lot of courage, but you cannot be courageous every single day, Yvonne says. Sometimes, it is important to stop for a moment and reconnect with yourself and nature’s rhythm to keep yourself from just functioning.

It is in those moments where Yvonne truly feels herself and connects with others, that she feels the biggest sense of fulfillment in her current path. With her friend Gina Eitelbös, she has founded the non-profit association MADITA and has used her experience and skills in event management to hold the Circle of Joy - sistersforsisters, an event series in Vienna, where hundreds of women+ gather and raise their voices for those world-wide that cannot.

All it takes is an idea, and reaching out to your community, to grow a seed into a flourishing plant.

Read more

08. März 2025 – Circle of Joy-sistersforsisters @Gartenbaukino, Wien - Tickets

‍Association MADITA

Connect with Yvonne Poul: LinkedIn and Website

Portrait-Photo Credit: Yvonne Poul, MBA (Photo: TVK Fotografie)