Ana Estrada
Hey! I'm Ana. A strategist, speaker, and former Goldman Sachs private equity investor and leader dedicated to helping high-performing women build a career and a life they refuse to choose between.
Raised in a middle-class family in Barcelona, with nothing but ambition and no map for how to use it, I'm proud to have spent two decades inside one of the most demanding institutions in the world… and come out more myself, not less. Through my keynote, I Refuse to Choose, my private board & advisory work, and Majesta (the leadership platform I have founded to teach the method I proved on myself), I help high-performing women dream bigger than the trade-off they've been sold, and back it up with a way of leading that actually works.
None of this came naturally to me. I didn't have an inherited gift for leadership, and I certainly didn't have a family connection that opened the door to the highest ranks of Goldman Sachs' real estate private equity division. I went to a public university in Barcelona, one Goldman didn't even recruit from!
I grew up believing something simple, taught to me without a single word ever needing to be said out loud: my mother taught me to sacrifice, to serve, and to always find a solution. My father taught me that you are rewarded for what you do. So naturally, I became the kind of woman who believed that if she just achieved enough, and served enough, she would finally feel safe, loved, and enough.
For twenty years, that belief built me an extraordinary career. And it very nearly cost me everything else.
Then I hit a real rock bottom, the kind that makes you rebuild from the ground up, and on the other side of it, I found the phrase that has defined my life since.
"I refuse to choose."
There is no version of success worth having if it requires leaving yourself behind to get it. You can have the career and the life. The ambition and the joy. The boardroom and the woman who walks into it. As long as you're willing to stop adapting, and start leading.
"I Refuse to Choose" is the title of my signature keynote… but it's bigger than that. It's become the mantra that runs underneath everything I do, and the entire reason Majesta exists.
The question I get asked most, in some form or another, is: how does a Goldman Sachs senior executive end up here?
Human potential has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. What actually makes people thrive, not just perform? Why do some extraordinarily capable women plateau or burn out, while others keep growing, decade after decade, without losing themselves along the way?
I was also pulled toward a strange mix of interests that never seemed to sit comfortably together: investing, human behaviour, movement and physical training, inner work, building things from scratch.
I spent years believing I had to choose a single identity and bury the rest, just to be taken seriously in a room like Goldman Sachs. Eventually I understood that mix wasn't holding me back. It was actually my edge.
So instead of leaving, I stayed… and I brought all of it with me. I built a way of leading that let me be a rigorous investor and an intuitive one. A demanding boss and a deeply human one. And it worked far beyond what I expected: my income tripled, my team became the most engaged people in the business, and I was put up for partner. And the best part… it became effortless…
A public university in Barcelona that Goldman Sachs never recruited from. Managing Director and CIO of multi-billion-dollar real estate funds. A seat on the firm's Global Real Estate Investment Committee. A certified Kundalini yoga teacher. Founder of Majesta.
Put it all together, and it proves one thing:
The old rules about what a "serious" leader looks like don't apply anymore. Not to me, and not to the women I work with.
Here's why I'm actually doing this. Two things got me here.
The first was a sadness that built up over years at Goldman Sachs. I watched genuinely extraordinary women, best schools, real top performers, slowly plateau. Burn out. I watched friends walk away from jobs they were brilliant at. And underneath the sadness, honestly, there was some anger too. Why does this keep happening to women this good?
The second was the coach in me. I'd always had it, but I finally got to actually use it in my last five years at Goldman, when I started really leading a team. And I proved two things.
One, I could genuinely develop people. Turns out that's kind of my superpower.
Two, and this is the one that really mattered. Leading a different way, heart-led, whole, sustainable, didn't just get better results. It got extraordinary engagement. My team didn't just perform. They became raving fans of what we were building. A few of them told me they'd come to work even if they weren't getting paid.
I felt a calling I couldn't shake: these women shouldn't have to figure this out alone. I know how to help them win at this, and actually enjoy the process while they're doing it. So that's what I want to teach them. And, honestly, the world.
Because here is what I truly believe.
So many women are leaving the corporate world right now. And so many institutions want more diversity at the top. That's a golden opportunity for the women who decide to stay and lead with their full power.
Because those women don't just win for themselves. They evolve the system behind them. They make it more accessible for the next generation of women coming up.
My job will be done when we reach 50% women in revenue-generating leadership at the top of these institutions, and when they got there by becoming more of themselves, not less.
I don't stand on stages pretending to have every answer. I get things wrong plenty. There are still days when the old conditioning, the good girl, the people-pleaser, the woman who apologises for wanting more, slips back in, exactly the way it does for everyone.
What I promise you is this: I will always share the most useful of what I am figuring out and living through, in real time, without dressing it up. So skip the expectation of a polished show. Come instead for genuine thinking, real evidence, and a conviction that won't waver: you can build an extraordinary career and an extraordinary life. Not one or the other.
If you've made it this far, thank you for staying with me. I hope this is only the start. The easiest way to keep in touch is to join the Majesta community. Pop your name and email in below. Social media is something I am still learning to use well as it never used to be part of my life… but you'll find me on LinkedIn and Instagram, where I write and speak about all of this every week.
You'll also get immediate access to my free masterclass, a first real taste of the Whole Power Method, and the fastest way to know if this work is for you.
Thank you for being here. I'm genuinely glad our paths crossed, and I cannot wait to see what you build the moment you stop choosing.
Values & Beliefs
Lead With Your Whole Self & We Refuse To Choose & More You. More Joy. More Success & Excellence That Energises & Individual & Corporate Win Together & Own It. All Of It & Disrupt, Don't Destroy & Power For Decades, Not Years & Heart-Led. Results-Driven & Leaders With Raving Fans, Not Reluctant Followers
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