Ann Hummond knew the office software like the back of her hand. Based in Yorkshire, England, she could untangle any spreadsheet snafu in her sleep.

Over the past 23 years, she had worked her way up from a data entry clerk to her finance company’s administrative director, quietly becoming the person everyone relied on when things went sideways.

She was, in short, indispensable.

And then, one Tuesday morning last year, during a quarterly team meeting attended by directors, colleagues, and a team leader, her boss—who is nearly 10 years her senior—told her publicly, in a roomful of people: “You’re too old to do this job.”

“I must have looked like a goldfish with my mouth open,” says Hummond, whose name and location have been changed for job security reasons.

“I felt like I had been hit on

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