GeoWomen Virtual Roundtable | You Do Not Have to Carry the Map Alone
Tuesday, September 1: 1:00 – 2:30 pm ET
Most GIS professionals have been promoted for their technical excellence and then quietly left to figure out leadership on their own. No path. No mentor. No curriculum. Just the assumption that if you were good at the work, you would eventually become good at leading the work.
That assumption has produced a generation of GIS leaders who are brilliant, exhausted, and quietly wondering if they are the only one carrying this much alone.
They are not. You are not.
This 30-minute talk names three patterns that show up in every GIS leader’s career — patterns nobody warned us about because the field has never formally trained its leaders. Each pattern is paired with a specific principle attendees can begin practicing the following Monday. Built from more than sixty interviews with GIS leaders across government, private sector, and consulting, this talk gives language to what many women in GIS have been carrying without a name for it — and offers a path forward that does not require waiting for a bigger title or someone else’s permission.
Attendees will leave with:
- The three patterns that keep GIS professionals invisible in the rooms where their programs get decided.
- The three principles that answer them — practical, specific, usable the following Monday.
- Permission to stop carrying the map alone.
This talk is for mid-career GIS professionals, managers, directors, and coordinators who have been promoted for their technical excellence and now find themselves navigating leadership challenges nobody prepared them for. Especially resonant for women in the field who have been quietly asking “who am I to lead?” while already leading.
Speaker: Izabela Miller
Speaker Bio:
Izabela Miller is the founder of Growing Curiosity and author of The Science of GIS Leadership, built from more than sixty interviews with GIS leaders navigating the shift from technical expert to strategic voice. A 20-year GIS professional who climbed from intern to IT Director in state government, Izabela knows both sides of the leadership transition the field never formally teaches. She keynoted the 2026 ESRI GIS Leadership Summit and speaks regularly on the identity shift technical professionals are navigating in the AI era. She is a certified DreamBuilder Coach and hosts the Firechat: Leaders in Conversation series. Originally from Poland, she now lives in Salt Lake City with her family.