Gen Z Women
FIRST FIVE PROGRAM
Award-winning professional development for Early Career Women navigating male-dominated industries.
Early Career Women face numerous obstacles in the workplace. And gender is only one of them.
Gen Z women enter male-dominated industries determined, dedicated, and ready to contribute. But they're learning the unwritten rules of professional life while being managed by people shaped by a different generation's values and expectations, inside industries still largely built around historical gendered norms.
Each layer is manageable on its own. But together, they amplify the natural uncertainty of early career, putting retention, participation, and progression into leadership at real risk, right when it matters most.
Multifaceted support for maximum professional development
The First Five Program has been built over years of experience working specifically with Gen Z women in male-dominated industries. It starts by building an understanding of the landscape they're navigating - how their confidence and competency shapes their sense of value and contribution - alongside the professional skills to maximise participation, visibility, respect, and relationships at work.
Importantly, this development doesn't happen in isolation. Participants connect with peers at a similar career stage and experienced women already leading in industry, addressing isolation many feel unnamed. Their managers are trained alongside them, and employers receive data and recommendations to sustain what the program starts.
Truly effective professional development happens when it's scaffolded, not delivered in a single session and left to fade. Every part of the program reinforces the next, so participants, managers, and organisations are all moving in the same direction at once.
The result is a foundation that holds: for the participant navigating what comes next, and for the organisation counting on her to stay, grow, and lead.
Retention. Participation. Progression. Delivered.
Some of the strongest opportunity for an organisation's gender diversity and inclusion sits at the very start of the pipeline. When early-career women don't just stay, but actively contribute and grow, organisations build a genuine foundation for future leadership.
Gen Z in a Gen X World
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Gen Z in a Gen X World
What is Lorem Ipsum?
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Gen Z in a Gen X World
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Over 350 early career women across 50+ companies internationally:
Who is this program for?
Gen Z in a Gen X World
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Gen Z in a Gen X World
What is Lorem Ipsum?
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been
Gen Z in a Gen X World
What is Lorem Ipsum?
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When early career women have the self-concept, skills, and peer support they need to own their role, they do.
That's what the First Five Program facilitates.
THE FIRST FIVE EXPERIENCE
TheFirst Five Program is a structured, cohort-based development experience designed to build early-career capability, confidence, and progression readiness over time.
10 WEEK GROUP INTERACTIVE PROGRAM (VIRTUAL)
- Live, facilitated, practical, applied curriculum Industry guest speakers
- Small-group mentoring session
- Participant workbook and activities
ACCELERATION DAY (IN-PERSON)
- Immersive experience focused on confidence, connection, and application
- Peer networking and shared learning
- Designed to accelerate impact and engagement
12 MONTHS' ACCESS TO THE VAULT
- Ongoing access to short, practical tools aligned to real workplace challenges
- Reinforcement of learning beyond the formal program
- Supports continued development and application
EMPLOYER DATA & INSIGHTS
- Pre- and post-program data featuring qualitative and quantitative insights
- Aggregated employer reporting
- Evidence to support internal evaluation and decision-making
MANAGER TRAINING
- Pre- and post-program data featuring qualitative and quantitative insights
- Aggregated employer reporting
- Evidence to support internal evaluation and decision-making
CURRICULUM OVERVIEW
For early-career women, participation at work is shaped by more than capability alone.
Confidence, influence, and progression are affected by context, power dynamics, and lived experience - making deliberate, applied skill-building essential.
Observable program outcomes
Designed to create observable, progressive change over ten weeks - translating early-career capability into behaviours and outcomes organisations can see, support and retain.
Phase 1: Confidence & Decision-Making
Phase 2: Participation & Influence
Phase 3: Communication & Boundaries
Phase 4: Progression & Retention
Hear Success Stories From Business Leaders & Program Participants
Mike Morgan, Senior Vice President and Managing Director APAC at Insight speaks about the impact that our programs have had in their organisation. Mike shares how their game-changing transformation came from including team members across the whole organisation in the Women Rising development journey.
Michelle Markham, ANZ K12 Education Director, Kushani Sriwardene, Channel Sales Manager and Gina Willard, Head of Enterprise Channel Sales for Microsoft also share their transformative experiences.
Key 2027 Cohort Dates
Each cohort is intentionally capped at 30 participants. This size is small enough to foster trust, psychological safety, and meaningful participation, yet large enough to bring together a mix of perspectives and experiences. This allows participants to engage actively, build trusted peer relationships, and receive practical, applied support throughout the program
1st Oct 2026
Registrations Open
29th Jan 2027
Registrations Close (or when capacity reached)
23rd Feb 2027
10-week Program Commences
1st March 2027
Registrations Open
3rd May 2027
Registrations Close (or when capacity reached)
1st June 2027
10-week Program Commences
24th May 2026
Registrations Open
30th July 2027
Registrations Close (or when capacity reached)
24th Aug 2027
10-week Program Commences
More women means better business.
The pursuit of gender equality is complex - from recruitment challenges to successfully getting women back from maternity leave to historical glass ceilings.
However, when leaders ask me what will create the strongest long-term change within their organisation, my answer never varies:
Focus on keeping and empowering the young women you already have.
The truth is, a large reason we're in this position (still 100 years to equality!) is because we tend to take the earliest part of the pipeline for granted. When women who are new to their careers feel like valued contributors, they'll stay long enough to be promoted into leadership positions, they'll attract other women, and they'll want to come back from mat leave.
Is it really that simple? I believe it is. And when you see what your early career women can really do with the support of the First Five Program, you'll believe it, too.
Tanya Andrews, First Five Program Lead Facilitator
Founder of Trellis Collective, Girl Shaped Flames, and UNIQ You
Trellis Collective acknowledges and pays respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of this nation and the continuation of cultural, spiritual and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
