Intrepid Woman: Helping Women Connect and Create Opportunities

Contributed by Vanessa Vallely, Founder of We Are The City

Back in 2008, I was a frustrated career orientated mum of 2. I realised that if I wanted to move on in my career I needed to seek other development opportunities outside of my Corporate environment. It only took me a year or so to work out that developing my career was not at the top of my bosses’ agenda and that my boat wasn’t going to come in, I had to swim out to it.

I had heard of women’s networking groups before, but, to be honest I had bought in to the stereotype that these were feminist gatherings where they burned bras and effigies of men. How wrong could one be?! And who would have thought that my frustration would not only lead me to create a solution to the problem, but through that process I would become such a huge advocate of women’s networks.

Despite my original preconception about their value, researching women’s networks in more detail felt like a sensible place to start. I reverted to the old fashioned Google search, and what appeared was nothing short of information overload. There were multiple groups offering all different kinds of support. Some were industry specific, some were senior Women only, others wanted hard cash for what I could see was little in return. My frustration was the amount of information I would have to wade through in order to make an informed decision about where I invested my time and what I would get in return.

What I actually wanted was a one stop shop that could provide me with a synopsis of all of the City Women’s networks, a centralized place where I could see what events were running in my area, a place where I could read articles written by experts that would contribute to my development or spark my creative juices and if possible (as we are women after all) provide me with a bit of City lifestyle guidance, e.g. where to entertain my clients, where to drink with my colleagues, where to shop in the concrete jungle and perhaps even where to get my nails done!

Despite searching, I quickly found no such website existed. So after a bit of convincing from my husband and friends that this was a good idea, coupled with the results of our market research, www.wearethecity.com was born.

Humble Beginnings

From the very first scribble as to what the site would look like to the websites launch took approximately 5 months. My husband and I went for our annual weekend away without the children in April 2008 and by the first week of September we were live on the Internet with 10 signed up members. I remember we opened a bottle of Champagne to celebrate the fact that 10 people had joined the site after the 1st week.

It didn’t matter that most of the members were in fact our family or those that had helped us with our market research, we had our own website and we were out there for all to see on the big World Wide Web. I was also proud that we hadn’t borrowed money from the bank to create our dream, in fact to the contrary, we actually built the first WeAreTheCity website on a cheap Internet web builder which cost us £8 per month. It wasn’t fancy by any means, but it was functional and a risk free way of running a proof of concept.

When I look at how the website has developed over the past 2 years, I find it hard to believe how far we have come. We have well over 150,000 hits per month and a signed up membership of 6,500 City Women. We have run 8 successful events and have partnered with some of the City’s largest corporates. We have had media coverage and been given the opportunity to run advertising campaigns for a number of leading brands. We have rebuilt the website with state of the art functionality and thanks to our 50+ writers we now offer a whole host of articles on a myriad of development orientated subjects. Most recently we launched our own TV channel as an alternative way of communicating and inspiring our members, and the story doesn’t end there – I can assure you.

What I find hard to believe is how an idea that started so small has gone on to benefit so many City Women. Be it our readers who benefit from the donated articles of our writers, or the writers themselves who now have a platform to publish their content. To the Women’s networks who now have a centralized channel to publish their events to the Women that go along to these events and broaden their skills and networks.

Value to Members

True to our values, we still continue to provide a route to market for entrepreneurs and small businesses and much needed service for charities to engage with City Women.

Thanks to the women’s networks engaging with WeAreTheCity, we are also able to provide visibility to learning opportunities and events that you wouldn’t normally see as part of a Corporate Learning and Development programme. Events such as “How to prepare yourself for a Board position”, “How to raise your Profile” or even “How to Network”.

It is fair to say that WeAreTheCity would not be so successful if it wasn’t for our members, our writers or the many City Women’s networks that partner with us across the City. The likes of Women in Banking and Finance, The European Women’s Network, City Women’s Network and Women in Technology, all of which provide a myriad of events to support and promote female development. A majority of these networks are staffed by volunteers, all of which share a desire to give up their time to ensure that Women have access to the opportunities that they need to enhance their skills, fulfill their career ambitions and aspirations. There is such power in these networks and WeAreTheCity are extremely proud to be a conduit to help them to help others to fulfill their potential and gain new skills.

The fact my husband and I have created something that helps Women, most of whom are like us, just trying to get ahead, hold down our day jobs and manage our families and outside commitments – I can’t help but be proud of the fact we are contributing in some way. Be it by providing a support group or by inspiring our readers with ideas, I know we are making a difference, and for that reason alone, long may it continue.

The website now provides the exact information I once sought as a frustrated professional, and then some. We serve an audience of over 70,000 City Women, we have raised over £10,000 for various charities plus we have provided a start for many small businesses and entreprenuers. In addition, WeAreTheCity has become the little black book for City Women we set out for it to be.

Looking Ahead

We have also fulfilled a number of our social responsibility goals, when we first started WeAreTheCity, we pledged that joining WeAreTheCity would always be free, therefore accessible to every Woman who sets foot in the City. We also committed to giving free advertising space to all charities and for those who could not afford advertising fees. This still holds firm today whereby over 40% of our site’s content is devoted to these causes and our website is still free from membership fees.

We also created WeAreTheCity because women are increasingly time constrained. We are still trying to balance jobs, careers, and families as well as trying to steal a little time for ourselves. As women, we want information and we want it provided in the quickest and most easily absorbed form as possible. We also want recommendations – it saves us time.

We wanted to raise awareness of what the City had to offer females both professionally and socially. We also wanted to convey a message that there are many female support groups for Women to arm themselves with additional skills – they just need to take a leap of faith and use these groups to supplement their development and broaden their network.

WeAreTheCity will hopefully continue in this guise for years to come. A big intention of ours to help build the pipeline of future talent in order to arm Women with the skills they need to progress in to senior positions and to become “Board ready”. If we can help in someway then the journey has been a worthwhile endeavor. We believe we are already on the right path.

Vanessa Vallely created leading women’s website, www.wearethecity.com three years ago to provide City and female-centric information to Women in the Square Mile and Canary Wharf. The purpose of the site was to aid its member’s development through the promotion of learning events and professional and lifestyle advice. Vanessa has worked in Financial Services for 23 years. She has recently won the Women’s Champion Award from Women in Banking & Finance and has also been recognized as one of Financial’s News’ top 100 Rising Stars in Financial Services across EMEA and Africa. By day, Vanessa works as Head of Business Management for Aviva Investors, and by night she runs www.wearethecity.com as well as her own coaching company www.TheProfileCoach.co.uk. She is also a trustee for 2 charities, a School Governor, and working mum to 2 young girls.