Who Leads the Next? Intergenerational Perspectives on Women in Global Leadership

Global governance structures are under increasing pressure to adapt to a more complex, fragmented, and unequal world, raising urgent questions about their legitimacy, effectiveness, and inclusiveness. Evidence from the Women in Multilateralism 2026 report highlights persistent gaps in representation and structural barriers that continue to shape who participates in decision-making at the international level—and how that participation is valued.

Against this backdrop, the forthcoming selection of the next UN Secretary-General offers a critical opportunity to move beyond default assumptions of leadership and instead define what credible, representative, and future-fit global leadership should look like. Co-hosted by Griffith University, the United Nations Association of Australia, and GWL Voices, this event brings together students, academics, and practitioners to reflect on how younger generations are interpreting these shifts—and what they expect from global institutions that claim to represent them.

Through the Her Turn initiative, GWL Voices aims to open space for intergenerational dialogue that connects evidence, lived experience, and political imagination, placing youth perspectives at the centre of the conversation on leadership, power, and participation in multilateralism.