Meskerem Mulugeta Beyene is a gender expert and peacebuilding advocate building a career grounded in compassion, curiosity, and a commitment to help create a future where women can see themselves reflected in power, dignity, and possibility.
As a Gender Consultant at CECOE, Meskerem leads a media-monitoring initiative that examines how women are represented across print, broadcast, and digital media. She also provides gender-mainstreaming support for CECOE’s programs and delivers GBV and women empowerment training in various regions. Her work further includes training and facilitating sessions on mediation, peacebuilding, and dialogue for regional women leaders with AWPSI.
Meskerem holds an MA in Gender Studies and a Certificate in Civic Leadership from the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI).
The Leader in Me
For a long while, I subscribed to the myth of the heroic leader: the unstoppable general, the flawless strategist, the person whose knowledge made them impervious to doubt. My goal for the year was simple—to become that person. I wanted to be hardened, polished, and handed a fresh identity along with a brand-new manual I could flip through whenever I lost my leadership spark.
The most profound lesson of this program, however, was not how to lead others, but how to stop trying to be an idealized, fictional version of myself. If leadership begins anywhere, it begins in the uncomfortable place where you stop pretending. Before I even thought of myself as a “leader,” I had to take an honest look inward. I had to learn myself—unearth the things I’ve avoided, ignored, or buried. The most important part of this journey then became building the world inside. As Pema Chödrön reminds us, “Don’t think about how to get where you want; it’s more important to build who you are, and the world around you will be built out of that.” That line captured exactly what my leadership journey became: not a set of instructions, but a continuous rewiring.
Through understanding my values and releasing a fixed mindset, I learned that leadership is less about direction and more about alignment—who you are, what you value, and how you show up when nobody is watching.
This internal shift also required me to confront my resistance to vulnerability, a leadership concept I resisted like the plague. I saw vulnerability as a risky exposure that invited judgment. But I learned that vulnerability is the capacity to be wounded.
Not self-exposure for the sake of exposure. Not emotional spillovers disguised as connection. But the courage to risk something for the sake of growth and connection. It is, ironically, the one thing every strong leader needs. It requires courage and discernment. It’s knowing who, when, how, and why to be vulnerable.
So why leadership? Well to be quite honest I am not interested in leadership for the sake of it. My interest lies more in building myself to become someone worth following, —someone capable of making a positive impact in the lives of women and people at the margins. For me, that means no longer searching for a perfect version of leadership, but instead building the world within myself.
The leader in me is shaped by radical self-acceptance, committed to learning, growing, and getting better by the minute. She knows who she is and she chooses everyday who she wants to become.