An exclusive, member only private club for women in the United States has been slammed for being bias against women of colour, in a number of Linkedin posts from members and those who’ve attempted to become members, as well as a Forbes piece examining the issues.
Founder and CEO of coaching company, Themy, Denise Conroy wrote a blog post to mark International Women’s Day by announcing why she was cancelling her membership to Chief, the executive women’s networking organisation founded in 2019 by two white women — Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan.
Conroy, who was a founding member of the Boston branch of Chief, said she was quitting because she “had bigger hopes for this organisation,” and that “…mobilisation doesn’t seem to be on the agenda,” for the company — which has recently been valued at US$1 billion.
“Chief leadership seems to have chosen the performative over the meaningful – whether it’s reproductive rights or white supremacy,” she said. “There’s been a general avoidance of anything hard or controversial.”
In the post, Conroy unpacked the reasons she was no longer satisfied by the work of Chief — a network that asks its members for a yearly fee of AU$8642.
“It’s clear there is no appetite taking a stand on issues germane to all women or supporting those who would like to do more,” Conroy expressed.
“Members are supposed to be able to refer qualified women for membership. I’ve referred three … all women of colour. All three have been ghosted. Neither I nor they have received even any acknowledgment of their candidacy. I’ve learned from others this experience isn’t unique.”
Conroy explained that one qualified Black candidate, a Chief People Officer, “was asked to ‘substantiate’ her 15 yrs. of experience.”
“Let’s face it: Black, brown and AAPI women have been hit hardest by recent layoffs. Yet, when some women of colour have inquired about relief/scholarships, they’ve been ghosted.”
The 51-year old compared Chief to her own company, Themy, which had “given out $125k in scholarships in the last 16 months – largely to women of colour in career transition.”
“Whether it’s a gap in the process or intentional, the outcome is the same,” she continued. “The optics aren’t good. I want more…for myself and for ALL women.”
“My conscience will not allow me to be part of an organisation that has such seeming disregard for the very people it claims to serve — and pay $8k/year for the privilege.”
A Forbes investigation published last week claimed that women from marginalised backgrounds had previously called out Chief for being biased against them, but that those criticisms had not been publicly nor privately addressed.
“It wasn’t until Denise Conroy, a white woman, shared her experiences that a statement was made and actions were taken by Chief,” Forbes journalist Janice Gassam Asare wrote.
The incident is yet another unfortunate indication of the ways women of colour are diminished and depreciated in the corporate sector.
South Carolina-based leadership consultant Dr. Nika White told Forbes she’d recently canceled her membership for the same reasons as Conroy.
“Hearing stories from multiple Black women in my network…was off-putting to me,” she said. “As a Chief member making that hefty investment, I had to interrogate that further to learn for myself how my experience could be so vastly different from other Black women in and outside of my circle.”
Who are the founders of Chief?
Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan launched Chief in 2019, creating a community for top female executives to network and offer mentorship opportunities.
Carolyn Childers, a Harvard Business School graduate, began her career as an investment bank associate at Deutsche Bank before rising up the ranks across corporate ventures including Handy — where she became the SVP of Operations, launching the site Soap.com (Quidsi) and stepping in as General Manager through its acquisition by Amazon.
Lindsay Kaplan also attended Brandeis University, a private, liberal arts university in Boston, Massachusetts.
She began working as a publicist at Oxford University Press, before becoming a social media manager at Elle Magazine, a marketing specialist for various start-ups, and communications head at mattress company, Casper.
Kaplan and Childers released a joint email statement responding to the backlash their company has received since Conroy’s post went viral. It had garnered over 5,000 likes, 1000 comments and 210 reposts.
“Recently, there have been concerns and even some mischaracterizations raised about Chief and our values that we want to address—specifically how we think about building our community, the identity groups represented, our approach to intersectional feminism, and how we support the advancement of underrepresented groups in business,” the statement, cited by Forbes, read.
“We take all feedback we receive from members of our community very seriously, and we are providing a forum to have these important, honest conversations.”
“There is always more work that can be done, and this is an ongoing journey for all of us—something in which we’ll always be invested because it’s the foundation of the impact we want Chief to have in the world. We are committed to improving and building on our existing foundation.”
What’s the company all about?
The New York City-based private women’s membership start-up was named one of the 10 most innovative workplace companies by Fast Company in 2021 — within the following year, it raised over $100 million dollars in funding and reached unicorn status.
The organisation runs both digital and in-person meet-ups, with more than 20,000-members representing over 8000 companies and a waiting list of 60,000 people.
It has event spaces in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, where members with the same job level meet monthly with an executive coach for peer group mentoring.
These meet-ups are called “Core” — an “industry-agnostic, hyper-curated peer group” — which has, according to Kaplan, become a “…personal board of directors.”
“That goes back to those who are mentoring the mentors,” she said in an interview last year. “Members are pretty evenly split between C-Suite and VP level.”
According to its website, prospective members need to be at a C-level executive, accomplished VP, or equivalent executive leadership role within an organisation, have an established career with over fifteen years of experience, and demonstrate a “commitment to driving impact and supporting others to change the face of leadership.”
Several women of colour have shared fault in Chief’s recent joint email statement, telling Forbes magazine that the “blanked statement” fails to directly reach out to the community to fix the problem. One reported that she saw less qualified white women reaching being accepted for membership, after she had been personally told she did not reach the requirements.
Philadelphia-based marketing officer, Lola Bakare shared her mixed feelings about the company in a LinkedIn post, beginning her piece with, “Provocative question for my Chief peeps out there: Is there a “need a driver’s license to get a driver’s license” disconnect at play?”
“I’ve read that the mission is to help women reach the most senior levels of leadership,” she said. “I’ve also read that target members are women at the most senior levels of leadership. What am I missing?”
“I ask in public because I’m one of the many women who believes in the mission and is considering joining the ranks, but feels a little iffy about the inclusiveness of the approach. I do want to join a women’s advocacy group. I don’t want to join a women’s country club.”
In an interview with Brand Innovators last December, Kaplan addressed the issue of diversity and inclusion in her company, adding that 35 per cent of members identify as women of colour.
“We’ve had a commitment to inclusion since day one,” she said. “That is something that is important for us not just in terms of representation, but when we think through the programming we’re doing like operationalizing DE&I for others and also bringing those groups together to make sure that we have facilitated identity groups, that we have confidential places on our website for groups to get together and make sure that there’s a feeling of deep community within those groups within the subset of Chief.”
“It is really important for us to not just talk the talk, but really walk it through the DNA of our business, what we’re doing today and what we’re committing to tomorrow.”
“We hired our first VP of impact and inclusion, and are very excited to give her the charter of not just owning inclusion, both within Chief on our team, as well as all of our members, but also owning that remit of the $1 million spend. It’s not just somebody who’s overseeing inclusion, but also driving impact out into society.”