92NY’s Women inPower fellowship for rising leaders is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a cohort for neurodivergent women in the workplace. (Neurodivergence can be understood as variations in the human brain that result in differences in how people think, learn, and behave.) The neurodivergent cohort is the first known program to focus on helping mid-career neurodivergent women learn more about their identities and strategize with peers about using their strengths to move into higher leadership positions at work and within their communities.
“All marginalized groups are under attack,” Filippa Christofalou, founder of The Drama Science Lab and a neurodivergent fellow, expressed to Able News when asked about why it’s important that 92NY was focusing on neurodivergent women in 2025. “Now is a time [marginalized] groups [need] to be supported in any way.”
Over the course of a year, Women inPower’s cohort members meet at least once a month to have discussions and attend programming designed to help them understand their neurodivergent identities, examine how their identities might appear to neurotypical co-workers, leverage their strengths for maximum impact, and advance to higher levels of leadership within their communities and professional fields. Workshops within the program are tailored to help neurodivergent women build confidence and lead others while embracing their neurodivergence.
Members bond, support, and strategize with each other about topics like how to manage burnout, self-advocating from a place of strength, navigating their identities within the current political climate, and in some cases, embracing their newfound identities after masking their challenges for many years.
According to UCLA Healthand Frontiers in Global Women’s Health, women are often diagnosed with neurodivergent conditions like ADHD and autism later in life than men, who are more frequently diagnosed in childhood.
“There are many, many women leaders who suddenly have this new identity that they’re navigating and this new way of thinking about their leadership and thinking about their career and thinking about their lives that they’re now navigating in their late thirties, forties, fifties,” Rebekah Shrestha, who leads the Belfer Center for Innovation & Social Impact and the Office of Strategic Planning at 92nd Street Y, told Able News. “And we felt like that was just a moment that this fellowship was so well-suited to support.”
The fellowship began a decade ago to help women address what Shrestha called the “mid-career drop-off point.” She explained that research indicates that women enter selective fields at higher rates than men and even enter management positions at comparable rates to men, but often struggle to move from middle management to senior leadership positions.
Having a community that encourages them to explore their neurodivergent identities while also helping them navigate workplace challenges and goals has been transformative for cohort members.
“I felt seen and understood by complete strangers. And then I was also able to provide that same feeling to others. I was able to provide genuine understanding and validation back to complete strangers,” Vishney Ambalavar, a senior investigator at the U.S. Department of Labor, told Able News of her experience on the cohort’s first virtual call.
Ambalavar received her ADHD diagnosis last year and is in her mid-30s. She said that thanks to the conversations and activities she’s doing in the cohort, she now understands the characteristics of ADHD that started significantly impeding her in law school—issues with time management, focusing, and staying organized—don’t make her a failure.
“The story I was telling myself is something that society tells people like us, but that doesn’t mean it’s true,” she said. “I am not some singular failure [while] everybody else can somehow handle life…look at all these people who were moving through life being told the same things.”
Ambalavar and other cohort members who spoke to Able News need support and understanding from their peers and bosses at work, which American workplaces often don’t know how to provide.
“Throughout my whole career, I’ve delivered consistently excellent results, focused on streamlining systems, created sustainable improvements, [and] solved problems,” Mary Kate Boughton, a digital strategist who was diagnosed with ADHD and autism in adulthood, told Able News. “I often feel overlooked, and I think it might be because I don’t perform leadership in conventional ways. And the bigger point there isn’t just about me being misunderstood. It’s about the value the organizations are missing out on when they don’t make space for neurodivergent ways of thinking.”
Boughton explained that her neurodivergence requires her to perform socially in the workplace so colleagues don’t label her as too direct or mean, which is tiring. She’d much rather they know she has ADHD and autism, which impact the way she communicates and completes tasks.
All of the fellows who spoke to Able News think that workplaces and communities would thrive under leaders who are allowed to be human and have differences, rather than those who perform traits of a conventional leader.
“I see [disclosing my neurodivergent identity] as an act of resistance, of resilience and vulnerability because I set the tone,” said Christofalou. Telling her employees about her neurodivergence creates a safe space and has often inspired them to disclose challenges and ask for support.
“So much of what I actually love about myself comes from my ADHD,” said Ambalavar. “I think I am creative and vibrant. I see unique patterns and solve problems in a way that I think is coming from the way my brain is making connections. I am sometimes in awe of what my ADHD has given to me.”