"GO GIRL GO!" PODCAST - EPISODE 7 DAGMAR WÖHRL

Entrepreneur Dagmar Wöhrl is a guest on the “GO GIRL GO!” podcast! The "Lion's Den" juror talks about her unique career, which has taken her into showbiz, politics and business. In the new episode, she reveals what hurdles she had to overcome to achieve this: What is it like, for example, studying for the state exam at night while you have just become a mother? A conversation about female assertiveness!

If you want to at least roughly outline what Dagmar Wöhrl has done in her career so far, you start with a long monologue.  Because the Bavarian's life path is impressive: she is a lawyer, entrepreneur, investor, juror in "The Lion's Den", sat in the Bundestag until 2017 - and in 1977 she took the title "Miss Germany" with her.

I was all the more pleased to speak with Dagmar on my podcast “GO GIRL GO!” to delve deeper into all these facets of this special career. How did she get into politics and entrepreneurship in the first place, even though she didn't experience either at home? And how did she prevail against resistance in the male-dominated world?

What she makes clear: standing on her own two feet has always been important to her. Her first job – while still at school – took her to a bank. For 3 marks per hour she was primarily responsible for fetching bread rolls. Although she was later offered a salary increase of 10 pfennigs, she politely declined, as she laughs in the podcast. After school she studied law and became a mother while she was still studying. She passed her state exam with a baby bouncer on her desk. And when the children were in bed, they continued. “Midnight, one o’clock, that was usual for me to still be working there.”

Ambition, talent, persistence and assertiveness ultimately led her from heading the legal department in her own family business to politics. At a time when the parties were already recruiting women, but their proportion was still negligible. When she wanted to get involved with the Economic Committee, she was encouraged to focus more on families or health - supposedly soft, feminine topics. But Dagmar remained stubborn – and even became economics spokeswoman for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. And it continued from there: She was State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology for four years.

She sees the reason why men still set the tone in many areas to this day not only in the fact that classic role models often still predominate in society. Women sometimes get in their own way.

"If something doesn't work for a man, he says: Oh, those were the circumstances. A woman first looks for the fault in herself. We have some catching up to do. Women have skills that men have to acquire in very expensive management seminars."

Also in the podcast: Dagmar reports about her own wonderful foundation, which supports disadvantaged children, tactical games in the lion enclosure (yes, they exist!) and her criteria for start-up investments. Curious? Then quickly press “Play”!