Members are telling us that they want greater access to visibility opportunities such as speaking engagements, opportunities to network with investors, to serve as advisors, panelists, and event attendees. We’ve delivered.
For more than three years, Athena Alliance has built a reputation for delivering board opportunities to our members and supplying our investor partners with a pipeline of executive women for board positions, voice of the customer, event attendees, and more. We’re proud to say that we’ve become very good at responding to partner requests and connecting them to the members they need to be connected to. However, it’s been mostly reactive: we’ve been operating from requests—until now.
Members are telling us that they want greater access to visibility opportunities such as speaking engagements, opportunities to network with investors, to serve as advisors, panelists, and event attendees. And from our partners and others within our network, we’re increasingly receiving requests for not only these types of “visibility opportunities” mentioned above but also capable women for C-suite roles like CEO, COO, and beyond. We would be doing our community a disservice if we didn’t serve as a broader marketplace of opportunity in every realm.
Going forward, you’ll notice that we’re testing Visibility and Executive Opportunities. You’ll see them listed in addition to the board opportunities that we’ve built a reputation on. These opportunities will be sourced from investor partners, corporate partners, within our very own network (including members themselves), as well as outside resources such as conferences and investor groups.
For our members, the goal is to offer concrete paths to expanding your network. Too often, we see women presenting and networking, but only with those they’re already comfortable with and known by—typically other women or women’s networking groups. We want to help members remove barriers to real network expansion, allowing you to step in front of broader groups and onto stages that can alter your career trajectory and vastly enhance your boardroom potential.
As for our wider community, feel free to come along for our beta test and share your opportunities with the Opportunities Team. (For example, Athena Pioneer and CEO of Puppet, Yvonne Wassenaar, is making a call to add a CMO to her team; members can view the opportunity here.) We’ll first vet it to make sure it’s appropriate for our community, and then work to get it listed in our members-only Portal.
If you’re a member who sees a Visibility Opportunity that you’re interested in, you can apply like you do today for a board opportunity. Instead of only listing “Board Opportunities”, we’ve expanded the Portal to include Visibility Opportunities and Executive Opportunities. Simply select the type of opportunity you’re interested in and walk through the application steps. Your information will get funneled to the Opportunities Team.
Note: Athena will simply serve as a marketplace. We will not be recruiting for executive roles, for example. We’ll simply be acting as a liaison between a member and an opportunity.
Have a C-suite role you’re looking to fill, a speaking opportunity, or an exclusive event? Share it with [email protected]. They will be in touch on next steps.
Join us as we experiment and look to support you at every level of your senior career. We often tell you to “think bigger” about yourself and your career; we’re going to do the same. That means you’ll see more announcements like this from me as we experiment with exciting product enhancements.
We’re excited to deliver more opportunities. We’re excited to evolve and grow, right alongside you. We’re excited to get one step closer to what I find myself increasingly referring to as “the golf course in the cloud.”
I’m looking forward to hearing what you think.
© Athena Alliance 2024
