- Chief — a private women’s network — is opening a new 20,000 sq. ft. location in the Flatiron district of New York
In January 2019, Lindsay Kaplan and Carolyn Childers founded a private women’s network called Chief. According to Inc, Chief offers C-suite executives and rising VPs with mentorship opportunities across a variety of industries along with focused career coaching sessions and networking events. Membership to Chief also includes access to a clubhouse, workshops, and speaker sessions.
Kaplan previously worked as the VP of Communications & Brand at Casper. And Childers had worked as the SVP of Operations at Handy HQ and was an operating partner at Primary Venture Partners.
Back in July, Chief raised $22 million in Series A funding co-led by General Catalyst and Inspired Capital. Inspired Capital is a venture capital firm headed by LearnVest founder and CEO Alexa von Tobel. Some of Chief’s other investors include Accel, Primary Venture Capital, Flybridge Capital Partners, Able Partners, XFactor Ventures, Silas Capital, and BBG Ventures.
“I really spent more time mentoring younger women than I did looking for mentorship for myself,” said Kaplan via Inc. “We felt as we were climbing up the ladder, as many women feel, that there was nowhere for us to go.”
Groups at Chief are generally about eight to ten people and they are arranged based on career experience, life stage, and levels of responsibility. And these groups meet once per month at a clubhouse for discussions. The clubhouse features a leader with at least a decade of experience in executive coaching.
The membership for Chief costs $5,400 per year for VP-level and $7,800 for C-level executives. While this may sound like a lot, these levels of executives tend to spend less to attend conferences every year. And the value that Chief adds would likely lead to a substantial return-on-investment for its members.
Chief is currently available in New York City and the company already has over 1,500 members representing over 1,000 companies, including Nike, Apple, Amazon, Instagram, and Lyft. And there are another 7,000 on the waiting list. This is up from 1,100 members who represent 700 companies only two months ago.
Next year, Chief is opening a new five-story 20,000-square-foot location in the Flatiron district of New York. The new space will feature more conference rooms, phone booths, and outdoor terraces. Plus it will also have more event spaces for setting up exclusive workshops.
Featured image credit: Chief
