20 Most Inspiring European
Women Leaders 2025

In the world of design, where form often eclipses substance, and aesthetics flirt dangerously with excess, Alexandra de Garidel stands defiantly apart—composing symphonies not only for the eye, but for the soul. The founder and artistic director of AVILDA SA is not merely a designer. She is an orchestrator of elegance and emotion, a composer of atmosphere whose work reverberates far beyond the confines of polished marble and curated lighting. Her journey began in finance, but what could have been a stark juxtaposition became a quiet alchemy—a fusion of discipline and poetry that pulses through every AVILDA project.

Goal-oriented leadership involves setting clear and specific goals where possible, based on established experience, and which are purposeful and achievable. A goal-oriented leader is grounded in knowledge and a realistic outlook, being aware of the organization’s context, such as the traditions on which it is based, and the risks being taken.

Leadership with a sense of responsibility is a valuable trait. It is often associated with individuals who are accountable, reliable, and committed to their roles and the people they lead. Such leaders prioritize the well-being of their team members and strive to create a positive work environment that fosters growth, collaboration, and innovation. What motivated Ioanna Fergadiotou, Head of Athens Lab, Inlecom, to become a pioneering leader was a sense of responsibility to positively impact her country during the recession by creating new job opportunities and combating brain drain. Additionally, she was driven by a strong desire to lead a dynamic team towards excellence in applied research and innovation.

Jivka Ovtcharova, head of the Institute for Information Management in Engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), learned to take on a leadership role as a child. She had the advantage that her parents, who worked, gave Jivka the freedom to shape herself professionally and personally and decide which path she wanted to take. “The inner conviction to go one’s own way and the knowledge of what one must do for it made me naturally self-confident and strong,” says Jivka. “Whether in school or later in my professional life, I always took an active position; I wanted to push instead of being pooled. My initiative and decisiveness inspired the people around me; they respected me, which was extremely important.” The pioneering leader also quickly learned that leadership is about professional excellence, personal strength, and a sense of duty that others rely on and trust the leader. These simple leadership principles have stayed with Jivka throughout her life, contributing to her brilliant leadership traits.

Julia Martin has relentless energy and celebrates the benefits of her neurodiversity. She uses creative thinking and problem-solving to see the bigger picture and create smaller steps to realise those ambitions. She can fit double a normal workload into five days and motivate staff to achieve things they didn’t think were possible. She can see ways to do something quickly by breaking things down, which means her productivity is incredibly high. It also helps to love what you do and set a strategy you believe in wholeheartedly! She can trust staff to deliver and sees leadership as guiding and mentoring rather than micromanaging.

Harvard Business School Professor Amy Edmondson has found that a “psychologically safe work environment” – an environment in which teams feel free “to take risks, to express their ideas and concerns, [ask] questions, and to admit mistakes… without fear of negative consequences” – promotes team engagement and motivation.

A Chartered Accountant by profession and having worked close to two decades in the Finance sector, Manjula Basant Rai, Founder, and CEO of Spaanda, always felt something was missing and sometimes questioned the purpose of her journey. While at Tesco, she stumbled across sustainability by chance, and that was her light bulb moment. In a flash, she knew what she could do and what she had to do. “Spaanda was born in my thoughts and over time I gave it shape and form in my own head. I had a vision of what I wanted to offer and where we could add value to businesses and corporates. I launched Spaanda in August 2020, right in the middle of Covid but I knew deep down we had a solid proposition that would thrive in a world that was gearing up to face the challenges of climate change,” she explains. “When I was working in the corporate world I realised that navigating climate change and performing risk assessments could be tricky. Spaanda was born to address this gap.”

A strong sense of belonging and a deep love for her country led Paola Federico to incorporate Event Planet in Italy. She knew the difficulties she had to face when establishing a business, yet she surged ahead with her determination and started the company from scratch.

Sasha Jensen is the founder and CEO of Jensen Partners, a leading global executive search firm, and Jensen DiversityMetrics™, the enterprise software solution for workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion. As the woman at the helm of both organizations, Sasha is a leading expert on talent markets for capital raising and investment professionals across the alternative investment industry. Jensen Partners’ team of recruitment specialists and data scientists produce the industry’s most comprehensive human capital data and leverage that data to recruit candidates, track workforce trends and accelerate DEI progress industrywide.