Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan want women in leadership positions to receive more support than they ever did.
That’s why the former executives have launched Chief, an exclusive women’s network in New York that provides mentorship opportunities, career coaching sessions and networking events.
“We felt, as many women feel, as we were climbing up the ladder that there was nowhere for us to go,” Kaplan recently told Inc.
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Childers had a high-level job at home-improvement marketplace Handy while Kaplan worked as an executive at mattress startup Caspar.
The pair raised $3 million dollars to start Chief in January 2019 and recently raised $22 million series this past July from an investment fund sponsored by General Catalyst and Inspired Capital.
Membership to Chief is $5,400 a year for VP level executives and $7,800 for those in the C-suite. Curated groups of eight to 10 members meet once a month and follow discussions led by a guide.
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“These core groups allow people to have sessions where they can really use each other as support and advice and have that private space to unwind, but also really tackle their biggest challenges,” Childers told Inc.
While Chief’s services are currently only located in New York City, the founders are looking to expand to bigger cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington and Boston.
Chief already has 1,500 members from a wide variety of companies, including Hulu, HBO, WeWork, Spotify and Instagram.
Despite having executives from Instagram using its service, Chief isn’t on any social media except LinkedIn.
“We really want to make sure that the space feels sacred because the community, the network, the confidentiality, the conversations are so important,” Kaplan told Inc.
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