How This Unlikely Entrepreneur Went From Corporate to Founding a Billion-Dollar Business with Carolyn Childers, Co-Founder, Chief

Carolyn Childers is the CEO and co-founder of Chief, a
revolutionary private membership network designed to uplift,
empower and connect women executives. Chief has since achieved
unicorn status, holding members in over 77% of Fortune 100
companies with a $1.1 billion valuation. 


Although Carolyn never originally set out to become an
entrepreneur, her journey from investment banking to strategic
and business development positions at companies like Victoria's
Secret, Avon Products, and eventually her role as SVP of
Operations at Handy led her to a problem she wanted to solve:
supporting women executives. She teamed up with her co-founder
Lindsay and together they were committed to building a private
platform with community groups, member meetups, flagship
clubhouse access, and most importantly, a powerful, vetted
community. 


It’s said best by Carolyn herself, “It gets lonely at the top,”
but for women, it gets lonely a lot earlier.” Today, Chief holds
a wait list of tens of thousands of women and continues to
empower women at all stages through its educational blog,
podcast, and annual impact fund for female-focused causes. It’s
clear investing in women pays off. 


In our episode, Carolyn shares her unique journey to
entrepreneurship, how she evaluated the risks when leaving her
stable job that she was doing well in, and the many myths we all
have around entrepreneurship. She also shares how she built
momentum early in the business, how she dealt with rejections
from many investors, and the importance of having a laser focus
on community and building the best experiences. Carolyn also
provides her insights on finding co-founders and important
aspects to consider, how she's tackled perfectionism, imposter
syndrome, and so much more. 


In this episode, we’ll talk to Carolyn about:


* Myths about women in entrepreneurship. [03:26]


* Journey from investment banking to entrepreneurship. [06:72]


* Running operations at Handy, and how the idea for Chief came
about. [18:27]


* Carolyn's financial planning for startup risk. [25:03]


* Carolyn's alignment with co-founder Lindsey. [28:00]


* Building the early momentum and raising capital. [32:50]


* Pushing Chief through word of mouth and organic channels.
[36:30]


* Prioritizing essentials and community engagement. [41:52]


* Navigating entrepreneurship pressure. [41:52]


* Chief's focus and beneficiaries. [55:15]


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Follow Yasmin:


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* Website: https://www.behindherempire.com/


Follow Carolyn:


* CHIEF Website: https://chief.com/


* CHIEF Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chiefamongstus/


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