An ocean separates Chupi Sweetman-Durney, who lives in Dublin, and Lea Giovanniello of Vienna, Va., and they have never met. Yet their workplace experiences and career paths — at a time when women still struggle with both — are a testament to what’s possible. Here are their stories.

Chupi Sweetman-Durney ran away from home when she was 6. She wisely took along the duvet cover from her bed, her doll and a book. She found a nesting spot under a tree, about a half-mile from her home in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland. While her parents tracked her down in short order, it was her first overt action of independence.

But it was not her last.

After working as a women’s clothing designer for the British retailer Topshop for six years, Ms. Sweetman-Durney realized at 27 that she “just wasn’t in love with it anymore,” she said.