A collective of women bound by purpose and possibility (and their families and friends) gathered at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Midtown Manhattan in May for the 56th Annual Matrix Awards, which honored 7 trailblazing women and recognized 17 NYWICI Scholarship recipients. The 475 guests gathered at the sold-out event to hear the honorees share inspiring stories and advice to women at all stages of their careers. Their life stories and career paths were illustrated through opening videos, presenter introductions, and the honorees’ acceptance speeches.

This year’s theme was “The Butterfly Effect: Women Who Transform the World and Inspire the Future.” According to the women who spoke, the Butterfly Effect belongs to everyone in the room and can be many things:

• A single invisible moment that can ripple outward until it changes everything.
• It’s not about grand gestures; it’s about quietly compounding power.
• The slightest actions can have a massive impact, and that we’re all connected.
• It’s not about being the loudest voice in the room. It’s about being willing to be honest in a moment when honesty feels very, very risky.

The women honored that evening had several traits in common—many were immigrants or were children of immigrants; they worked in industries that were, and in many cases, still are dominated by white men; were the first people of color to work in media and advertising; and were not afraid to take career risks, take on roles of significance very early in their careers, and speak their truths.

Here are ten takeaways from the evening:

1. Always embrace change.

Change is a constant for all of us, as media is always evolving. But now it’s different and more complex than ever, with the pace of change accelerating and business models being rewritten overnight. Several honorees observed that the seismic shift created by the rise of AI isn’t slowing and it’s going to affect every corner of women’s professional and personal lives, so it is mission critical to help each other navigate and thrive in this environment. And don’t use AI as a replacement for people; embrace it as an empowerment tool for them.

2. No one does it alone. We all stand on someone’s shoulders.

One constant theme of the night was the importance of mentorship. Nearly all the honorees shared stories about learning from extraordinary leaders and then sharing that knowledge with others. One global leader at a technology company told a story about how her mentor meant everything to her career. “You don’t find your mentors. Your mentors find you,” she said. “My mentor found me when my altitude was changing and he expanded me. He put me in rooms and in conversations that changed the trajectory of my career. If you’re lucky, someone catches you mid-ascent and they say, ‘higher.”

3. Lead with kindness and leave people larger than you found them.

Multiple honorees and their presenters talked about how the women being honored always lead with their hearts. “The true measure of leadership is not only what you build, it’s who you built up along the way. And to me, that’s what real power is,” said one television news anchor as she introduced a media executive who always has a way of making people feel acknowledged, whether it’s a security guard in the lobby, an intern’s first day, or the president of a division. “She sees potential in others, sometimes before they even see it themselves. And then gives them the room and the confidence to flourish,” the presenter continued, before presenting the media executive with a Matrix Award.

Another honoree, a tech executive, told a story about a business trip to a client where she sat in the last row of economy writing pitches, while leadership sat in first class, and when the plane landed, no one waited for her. And then she had to attend the client meeting alone, in her early 20s. Because of this experience, she waits at the gate for the last person on her team to leave the plane, so no one has to do it alone. “Because I know how that feels,” she said.

4. Find your teachers and then become someone else’s.

One CEO of an advertising agency shared stories about pivotal career shifts where she first learned from others and later realized the curriculum had flipped. The first turning point was when she was promoted from reporter to editor. “Suddenly, it wasn’t about me. It was about, ‘How do you make the entire team better?’” she said. And she had to learn again when she left journalism for advertising. “When you make a transition from one industry to another, there’s a lot of relearning you have to do. I never went to business school.”

And she shared when she discovered others looking to her for guidance. Several years ago, the advertising industry created a Hall of Fame list, and someone had added her name, with the context of asking, “What would A do?” That was when she realized that people were looking to her and learning from her. “The student has become the teacher,” she said.

5. Be honest when being honest is risky.

One award recipient, who is a news anchor turned advocate, shared how she became the voice of women going through menopause when no one else was brave enough to discuss it. She talked about how she looked confident on the outside, but that her body was changing, her brain felt like it wasn’t working sometimes, and when she experienced her first hot flash right before going on air.

“Some people had a specific idea of what women over 40 were supposed to be. And women were silent about it, because they were taught that it was something to be managed quietly,” she said. It was then she decided she wasn’t going to remain silent and started talking about it on TikTok and television, unsure of how

it would be received. Afterwards, women reached out to her, and she realized there was a need for more public discussion about menopause, so she made a documentary, started a podcast, and published a book about it.

“To me, the butterfly effect is not about being the loudest voice in the room. It’s about being willing to be honest in a moment when honesty feels very, very risky,” she said.

6. Be unapologetically yourself.

The founder and CEO of a packaged goods product shared how she had immigrant parents and was sometimes told she was too passionate, too loud, too ambitious, and too Black. And, she said “all that too muchness” accelerated a spark in her to consider all of those traits to be privileges, which helped her get ahead and take risks.

“Embrace your privilege as a superpower, especially in this moment, where humanity seems to be up for debate, and our civil rights continue to be eroded,” she said. “I challenge all of us to be more human and to leverage your privilege to be on the right side of history, and our collective humanity.”

7. Have nerve and grit.

Another common theme was putting one’s heart and mind into every you do, not apologizing for taking up and space, and that transformation doesn’t happen by chance—it happens when you do the work.

One agency CEO shared how she was a “kid from Mississippi” who wrote handwritten notes to people on magazine mastheads asking for an internship and only one person replied (she got the internship), she missed her college graduation to start her career at a magazine, and in her early 20s “had the audacity” to call a top executive at cosmetics company to collaborate on a project.

She had no fear, which was illustrated by a story about an incident that happened early in her career, but that she never disclosed until her acceptance speech: She grew up as a competitive equestrian rider who fell off horses all the time, so she thought nothing of it when she was hit by a cab getting coffee for her bosses at the magazine. “Riding horses taught me everything about having nerve and grit,” she said.

8. Embrace differences.

Being different is what helped many of these women succeed and helped define their leadership philosophies. “As the daughter of a Syrian immigrant parents, growing up in the South, I certainly knew what it felt like to be different. That feeling taught me genuine compassion for others,” the CEO and founder of one agency said. “And to prioritize making people feel seen and heard.” She said it

also taught her the importance accessing different perspectives to solve hard business problems.

9. Don’t let the media industry edit women out.

Honorees also shared stories about what it was like to work in a male-dominated industry where the men golfed on Friday afternoons while the women stayed in the office working.

One honoree, a chief strategy officer at an agency, observed an alarming trend—a return to the male-dominated days. She recently watched a competitor’s investor day where the vision of the future was delivered by six white men and a few weeks ago, she pitched a new piece of business to ten executives, all of whom were men. She also quoted a recent report that found 60 percent of Gen Z men thought women’s equality has gone too far. “These aren’t old men in history books,” she said. “These are the young men we are hiring today.”

And she said to we all have to make sure the door for women never closes again. “It’s tempting to think that progress is a one-way street. But if we don’t sound the alarm now, we’re going to wake up in an industry that’s been optimized right back to Mad Men days,” she said. “Don’t let them squeeze us out of the boardrooms, the C suite, or out of the big decisions.”

10. Advice from the honorees:

The honorees also shared the lessons they learned along the way:

• Take advantage of every opportunity and learn from each one of them.
• Remember to always embrace change, and that life begins at the end of your comfort zone.
• Always throw kindness like confetti.
• Take ownership if your life.
• Never sacrifice your values.
• You can have it all. It’s not just about career success. So really figure out what your core priorities are and your passions and figure out how they all work together.
• Lead your life unapologetically. Your authenticity is magnetic.
• Move with purpose and passion.
• Speak kindly.
• Live intentionally.
• Remember that success favors the imaginative.
• Trust that everything is unfolding for you.
• Anything is possible.
• The more things change, the more we need to get back to basics. Look people in the eye, deliver what you say you’re going to deliver, and always rise up and reach back.
• See what’s coming and shape what’s next.
• Don’t let things happen to you.
• Find your inner bold, use your voice.
• Be a relentless student of your craft.
• Take a seat at the table to build a better table.