The New Perk For Women Executives: Membership In This Exclusive Group

Chief, the exclusive women’s network open only to female VPs and above, has been called the “club with the 60,000-woman wait list.” For individuals, its peer-based mentoring groups and online workshops with the likes of Amal Clooney or Michelle Obama come with a $5800-and-up annual price tag. Access to its glam “clubhouses” in cities like San Francisco and New York runs even more.

But now, the executive women’s network is launching a new offering aimed at corporate customers that will not only fast-track membership review of employers’ eligible women leaders, but also automatically have companies footing the bill. Called Chief Enterprise, the new service could lead to substantial growth at the Series B-funded membership network—as long as employers don’t pull back their spending on diversity commitments or funding of leadership initiatives amid an economic downturn. (Chief says eligible members can typically join between four and six weeks after application; many who’ve applied but haven’t been accepted don’t meet seniority or geographical requirements.)

While companies have long reimbursed executives for their membership in Chief, they’ve typically done so “reactively,” says Carolyn Childers, Chief’s co-founder and CEO, sponsoring executives who’ve joined upon request.

By offering the network as a perk instead, Childers told Forbes in an exclusive interview, the company is able to show “‘I want to support you, I want to invest in you’ at a time when women are leaving the workplace more than ever.” She says “over 90% of women say that they would stay at a company if they were just invested in. Just switching from a reactive to a proactive [approach] gives such a great signal.”

The enterprise product, which launches Tuesday, has been piloted with a handful of major employers, including UnitedHealth Group, Morgan Stanley and IBM. Women leaders who become members through their companies will get access to the same benefits as regular members, which include a small group of vetted peers that meets monthly, workshops with high-profile names like Melinda French Gates or former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi and access to physical clubhouses in four major cities.

Childers says women will not be placed in peer groups—Chief’s “core” mentoring groups of women at similar levels of their careers—with people who work for the same company, in order to allow women to share openly about the professional and personal struggles they face. Indeed, Chief’s external network could be more appealing to women executives than current internal leadership development initiatives where concerns or struggles could get back to top executives.

“It's really hard to talk about your leadership challenges confidentially in the company,” Childers says. “It's almost impossible to really feel like you can have that authentic conversation about what you're struggling with.”

Companies, meanwhile, will receive quantitative information about how much its women leaders are using the network, the ability to suggest activities from Chief that are tied to company goals and eventually, the possibility of tailored programming. For the largest employers, Chief will offer price breaks.

Chief launched in 2019, pivoting during the pandemic to be less focused on physical spaces and taking its membership national earlier this year. With investments from General Catalyst and CapitalG, its membership grew 100% between January and December of 2022, even as co-working spaces like the Wing shut its doors in August. A company spokeswoman would not comment on Chief’s financials.

Asked about launching a corporate offering amid a slowdown—a time that usually hits employee training and development budgets—Childers suggests she isn’t concerned. “We have seen that investment continue,” she says. “Companies are still really wanting to make sure that they're investing in their leadership. Even when they have had to make tough decisions, it’s actually more important than ever to support those that remain as they're taking on incremental challenges.”

Rather, Chief’s biggest challenge will be making sure the diversity members expect in their “core” peer groups remains high as it adds in, say, hundreds of new female members from a single employer. “That is the thing that we are spending the most time on,” says Childers. “It's why we are very methodically trying to build Chief and not just open it for anyone.”

Morgan Stanley managing director Penny Novick, who became a member less than a year ago—the firm has sponsored more than two dozen women as Chief members—says that’s one of the network’s biggest advantages. Being in a peer group with people outside her firm or industry is “really needed,” she says. “I think if I was in a group and there were others I knew directly or indirectly, I probably would be less willing to be so open.”

Joining through Morgan Stanley, rather than having to seek out the membership herself, Novick says, has been a nice perk, one that “is saying to their employees ‘here is another way we will help you effectively invest in yourself.’ I think that’s really important.”