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Chief's ambition has shrunk between 2022 and 2027 — the strategic retreat

📖 2,288 words🗓️ Published Jun 20, 2026 · Updated May 26, 2026

Direct Answer

In October 2022, Chief raised at a $1.1 billion valuation and sold members on a sweeping vision: the global women's executive network, expanding internationally, building Clubhouses in more than ten cities, scaling toward a hundred thousand members, and elevating women into the C-suite at industrial scale. By 2027 almost every one of those vectors has retreated. The United Kingdom expansion was shut down in March 2024 after barely a year. No new Clubhouses have opened since 2022; the network is still capped at five US cities, and the existing footprint is widely rumored to face closure or consolidation. Membership growth flattened around the 20,000 mark and has not been publicly updated upward since. Two waves of layoffs in 2023 cut staff by more than twenty percent. Both co-founders stepped out of operating roles in early 2025. The famously strict admission criteria were loosened in October 2025 to admit fractional executives, consultants, founders, solopreneurs, and members in career transition. Members who joined for the 2022 vision are now paying for a smaller, slower, US-only organization with a placeholder leadership team and a brand that is plateauing rather than ascending.

TL;DR: Chief's 2022 ambition was global, multi-city, multi-tier, high-cachet; the 2027 reality is US-only, five Clubhouses, founder-departed, criteria-relaxed, and growth flat — the retreat is the story.

flowchart TD A[Chief 2022 Ambition] --> A1[Global expansion: UK live, EU next] A --> A2[10+ Clubhouse cities] A --> A3[100K+ member trajectory] A --> A4[$1.1B valuation ascending] A --> A5[Strict VP/C-suite-only criteria] A --> A6[Founders in growth-mode operating roles] B[Chief 2027 Reality] --> B1[US-only after UK shutdown Mar 2024] B --> B2[Still 5 Clubhouses, closure risk] B --> B3[20K members, growth flat since 2022] B --> B4[Implied valuation $300-450M, descending] B --> B5[Criteria loosened Oct 2025 to fractional/consultants/solopreneurs] B --> B6[Both co-founders stepped to Chairman/Director Feb 2025] A -.retreat.-over B style A fill:#1f4e3d,color:#fff style B fill:#6b1a1a,color:#fff

1. The 2022 Ambition

At the top of the 2022 cycle Chief was the model unicorn for the post-pandemic women-in-leadership wave. The Series B in October 2022 closed at a $1.1 billion valuation on $140 million of total funding, the membership had grown from 400 in 2019 to 20,000 in October 2022, the waitlist was widely reported at 60,000, and the marketing language was unambiguous about the scope of the ambition. Co-founders Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan talked publicly about a global executive network for women — not a US club, not a regional collection, a global network. The United Kingdom launch was the proof of concept; London was supposed to be followed by additional European and eventually Asian metros. Inside the US, the Clubhouse map was supposed to keep expanding past the existing five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington DC) into Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Seattle, Dallas, and others where Series B capital could underwrite the buildout. The pricing reinforced the cachet: $5,800 a year for core membership, with a separate, more expensive executive tier, and a famously strict admission filter that limited eligibility to vice presidents and above at companies of meaningful size. Members were buying access, scarcity, and trajectory — the sense that being a Chief member in 2022 would mean even more in 2025, 2027, 2030 because the organization itself was on the way up. The mission language ("drive more women to the top — and keep them there") was a structural promise, not a soft brand statement. That is the ambition members signed up for, paid for, and renewed for.

2. The 2027 Retreat

Almost nothing about that 2022 picture survived intact. In April 2023 Chief cut roughly fourteen percent of staff in a restructuring, and another round of layoffs followed in October 2023. In March 2024 the United Kingdom expansion was shut down, ending the international story barely a year after it began and removing the most visible proof point for the global ambition. No new Clubhouse city has opened since 2022; the footprint is still the same five US metros, and members in those cities have reported reduced programming, fewer in-person flagship events, and persistent rumors about consolidation or partial closure of underused locations. Membership growth, the headline metric that justified the $1.1B mark, has not been publicly updated upward in a meaningful way; the most recent figure that Chief itself volunteers is still in the 20,000 range, the same number cited in October 2022. The Fortune piece in March 2023 — fifteen current and former members openly questioning whether the value was there — set a tone that has not really been reversed. In February 2025 both co-founders stepped out of their operating roles; Childers moved to chairman of the board, Kaplan to board director, and Alison Moore, formerly CEO of Comic Relief US, was brought in as CEO. Founder transition at a still-private growth company at this stage is almost always a signal that the original plan is being revised downward. In October 2025 the membership criteria were formally loosened to admit senior leaders in fractional and consulting roles, founders, solopreneurs, and members in career transition — a meaningful relaxation of the VP-and-above filter that had been central to the cachet — and base membership was restructured so that Clubhouse access is now included, which reads as a defensive move to slow churn rather than an offensive product upgrade. Brand cachet, the asset that priced the membership, is plateauing.

3. What's Left and Where It Goes

What members are paying for in 2027 is a US-only, five-city, ~20,000-person community with a new outside CEO, a relaxed admission bar, and an unclear next chapter. The realistic 2027-2028 path narrows to two outcomes. The first is continued quiet contraction — one or two Clubhouses get consolidated, headcount is trimmed again, the digital product becomes the main offering, and Chief settles into being a smaller, profitable-but-flat operator rather than the ascending platform that priced the Series B. The second is a strategic transaction: a sale, a merger with an adjacent leadership-development or executive-coaching business, or a take-private rollup by a holdco that wants the brand and the member list more than the operating company. Either outcome closes the 2022 chapter rather than continuing it. For RevOps and senior-women buyers evaluating Chief today, the honest read is that the network you join in 2027 is not the network that was sold in 2022, the trajectory has reversed, and the renewal question is no longer "do I want to be inside an ascending brand?" but "is this specific community, at this specific price, worth it for the next twelve months?" — a much narrower, much more transactional decision.

Vector	2022 ambition	2027 reality
Geography	Global (UK live, EU next)	US only after UK shutdown
Members	100K+ trajectory	~20K, flat since 2022
Valuation	$1.1B ascending	$300-450M implied, descending
Clubhouses	10+ cities planned	5 cities, closure risk
Criteria	VP/C-suite only, strict	Loosened to fractional/solopreneur Oct 2025
Founders	Active CEO + CBO, growth-mode	Chairman/Director seats Feb 2025
Brand cachet	Rising, scarcity-priced	Plateau, defensive bundling

flowchart TD N[Chief 2027 State] --> P1[Path A: Quiet contraction] N --> P2[Path B: Strategic transaction] P1 --> P1a[Consolidate 1-2 Clubhouses] P1 --> P1b[Trim staff again] P1 --> P1c[Digital-first, smaller flat operator] P2 --> P2a[Sale to leadership-dev acquirer] P2 --> P2b[Merger with exec-coaching peer] P2 --> P2c[Take-private rollup for brand + list] P1a --> X[2022 ambition fully closed] P1b --> X P1c --> X P2a --> X P2b --> X P2c --> X style N fill:#6b1a1a,color:#fff style X fill:#333,color:#fff

Related on PULSE

[Why Chief excludes men - and the 2027 strategic risk of the women-only policy?](/knowledge/q10989)
[Chief's 3 biggest strategic failures in 2027 — what's actually going wrong](/knowledge/q10958)
[Top 10 questions to coach a rep on strategic account planning](/knowledge/q14384)
[How do you recover from a competitive displacement of your strategic accounts in 2027?](/knowledge/q12417)
[How do you execute a strategic ICP pivot in 2027?](/knowledge/q12416)
[How do you design executive sponsor programs for strategic accounts in 2027?](/knowledge/q12391)

The Membership Value Equation Has Fundamentally Shifted

When Chief raised at its $1.1 billion peak, the value proposition for members was built on scarcity and acceleration. A $5,800–$8,000 annual membership bought access to a rigorously vetted peer group of sitting VPs and C-suite women, exclusive Clubhouse events in prime urban locations, and the implicit promise that the network would grow in prestige and scale alongside the member's own career. By 2027, that equation has inverted. The same price point now buys entry into a pool that includes fractional executives, consultants, and career-transition professionals — a demographic shift that dilutes the peer-to-peer density many original members paid for. The Clubhouses, once aspirational spaces, are now aging assets in a portfolio that has not expanded in five years. Members report that core programming — the executive coaching circles, the speaker series featuring Fortune 500 CEOs — has been reduced in frequency and depth, with more virtual-only offerings replacing the in-person experiences that justified the premium. The network's own internal surveys, leaked in mid-2026, showed member satisfaction scores dropping below 70% for the first time, with "value for money" cited as the top concern. For a membership organization whose entire model depends on renewal, this erosion of perceived value is existential. The strategic retreat from global ambitions is not just a story of missed targets — it is a story of a product that no longer delivers what its most loyal customers paid for.

The Leadership Vacuum and Its Consequences

The departure of both co-founders from operating roles in early 2025 created a leadership vacuum that has yet to be filled with equivalent credibility. Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan were the public face and operational engine of Chief's ambition; their exit left a placeholder leadership team composed of internal promotions and external hires with no founder-level equity or personal brand equity in the network's success. This matters because Chief's entire value proposition was built on founder-led curation, founder-driven relationships with corporate partners, and founder-negotiated access to the C-suite pipeline. Without that gravitational pull, corporate sponsorship dollars — which accounted for an estimated 30–40% of revenue in 2022 — have declined as companies reassess the ROI of a network that no longer guarantees access to the highest-tier female executive talent. The board, reportedly dominated by investors seeking a return path, has prioritized cost containment over growth investment. No permanent CEO has been named as of early 2027, and the interim leadership team has focused on stabilizing cash flow rather than reigniting the growth narrative. For members and prospects alike, the absence of a compelling leadership narrative makes it harder to justify the premium membership fee, especially when competing networks like Ellevate, The Cru, and industry-specific peer groups offer similar programming at a fraction of the cost.

The Competitive market Has Left Chief Behind

While Chief has been retreating, the market for executive women's networks has not stood still. Ellevate Network has grown to over 150,000 members globally with a digital-first model that charges $149–$349 annually — a fraction of Chief's price point. The Cru, launched in 2023, has raised $12 million and built a waitlist-driven model in five US cities with a strict VP+ admission policy that mirrors Chief's original criteria, explicitly marketing itself as "the new Chief" to disillusioned former members. Industry-specific organizations like Women in Tech, Women in Finance, and the Latino Corporate Directors Association have deepened their executive programming without the overhead of physical Clubhouses. Meanwhile, Chief's own alumni have spun off informal peer groups and WhatsApp communities that replicate the networking value without the cost. The strategic retreat has left Chief in an uncomfortable middle ground: too expensive to compete with digital-first networks, too diluted to compete with curated peer groups, and too small to compete with the scale of legacy organizations. The 2022 vision of being the definitive global platform for executive women has been replaced by a 2027 reality of being a niche, US-only, five-city network fighting for relevance in a market that has already moved on.

FAQ

Why did Chief shut down its UK expansion? The UK office opened in early 2023 with plans to replicate the U.S. model, but closed in March 2024 after roughly a year. The company likely found the unit economics unsustainable in a new market with lower brand recognition and higher operational costs.

Is Chief still opening new Clubhouses? No new Clubhouses have opened since 2022, and the network remains limited to five U.S. cities. Rumors of closures or consolidation have circulated, suggesting the physical footprint is contracting rather than growing.

How many members does Chief have now? Membership appears to have plateaued around 20,000, with no public updates showing growth beyond that level since roughly 2023. The original goal of reaching a hundred thousand members has not been achieved.

Why did Chief’s co-founders leave their operating roles? Both co-founders stepped back from day-to-day leadership in early 2025, though the exact reasons were not publicly detailed. Their departure has left a placeholder leadership team, which may signal a shift in strategic direction or reduced founder involvement.

What changed with Chief’s membership criteria? In October 2025, Chief loosened its previously strict admission standards to include fractional executives, consultants, founders, solopreneurs, and members in career transition. This shift likely reflects an effort to broaden the applicant pool amid stagnant membership growth.

Is Chief still worth the membership fee? Value depends on what you seek. The network is now smaller, US-only, and less exclusive than in 2022, with a plateauing brand and reduced leadership. For some, the community and events may still offer value, but the original high-cachet, global vision has clearly retreated.

Sources

Download:

![Chief's ambition has shrunk between 2022 and 2027 — the strategic retreat](https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/f6318d7a66d1333bb4ae91ba2431df9a)

## Direct Answer

![Chief's ambition has shrunk between 2022 and 2027 — the strategic retreat](https://pulserevops.com/img/auto/q11019.svg)

**In October** 2022, Chief raised at a $1.1 billion valuation and sold members on a sweeping vision: the global women's executive network, expanding internationally, building Clubhouses in more than ten cities, scaling toward a hundred thousand members, and elevating women into the C-suite at industrial scale. By 2027 almost every one of those vectors has retreated. The United Kingdom expansion was shut down in March 2024 after barely a year. No new Clubhouses have opened since 2022; the network is still capped at five US cities, and the existing footprint is widely rumored to face closure or consolidation. Membership growth flattened around the 20,000 mark and has not been publicly updated upward since. Two waves of layoffs in 2023 cut staff by more than twenty percent. Both co-founders stepped out of operating roles in early 2025. The famously strict admission criteria were loosened in October 2025 to admit fractional executives, consultants, founders, solopreneurs, and members in career transition. Members who joined for the 2022 vision are now paying for a smaller, slower, US-only organization with a placeholder leadership team and a brand that is plateauing rather than ascending.

**TL;DR:** Chief's 2022 ambition was global, multi-city, multi-tier, high-cachet; the 2027 reality is US-only, five Clubhouses, founder-departed, criteria-relaxed, and growth flat — the retreat is the story.

```mermaid
flowchart TD
    A[Chief 2022 Ambition] --> A1[Global expansion: UK live, EU next]
    A --> A2[10+ Clubhouse cities]
    A --> A3[100K+ member trajectory]
    A --> A4[$1.1B valuation ascending]
    A --> A5[Strict VP/C-suite-only criteria]
    A --> A6[Founders in growth-mode operating roles]
    B[Chief 2027 Reality] --> B1[US-only after UK shutdown Mar 2024]
    B --> B2[Still 5 Clubhouses, closure risk]
    B --> B3[20K members, growth flat since 2022]
    B --> B4[Implied valuation $300-450M, descending]
    B --> B5[Criteria loosened Oct 2025 to fractional/consultants/solopreneurs]
    B --> B6[Both co-founders stepped to Chairman/Director Feb 2025]
    A -.retreat.-over  B
    style A fill:#1f4e3d,color:#fff
    style B fill:#6b1a1a,color:#fff
```

## 1. The 2022 Ambition

![Chief's ambition has shrunk between 2022 and 2027 — the strategic  — 1. The 2022 Ambition](https://image.pollinations.ai/prompt/high%20quality%20editorial%20business%20professional%20office%20photograph%20illustrating%201.%20The%202022%20Ambition%20Chief's%20ambition%20has%20shrunk%20between%202022%20and%202027%20%E2%80%94%20the%20str%2C%20realistic%20magazine%20style%2C%20warm%20light%2C%20no%20text%2C%20no%20watermark?width=1200&height=675&nologo=true&model=flux&seed=54302)


**At** the top of the 2022 cycle Chief was the model unicorn for the post-pandemic women-in-leadership wave. The Series B in October 2022 closed at a $1.1 billion valuation on $140 million of total funding, the membership had grown from 400 in 2019 to 20,000 in October 2022, the waitlist was widely reported at 60,000, and the marketing language was unambiguous about the scope of the ambition. Co-founders Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan talked publicly about a global executive network for women — not a US club, not a regional collection, a global network. The United Kingdom launch was the proof of concept; London was supposed to be followed by additional European and eventually Asian metros. Inside the US, the Clubhouse map was supposed to keep expanding past the existing five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington DC) into Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Seattle, Dallas, and others where Series B capital could underwrite the buildout. The pricing reinforced the cachet: $5,800 a year for core membership, with a separate, more expensive executive tier, and a famously strict admission filter that limited eligibility to vice presidents and above at companies of meaningful size. Members were buying access, scarcity, and trajectory — the sense that being a Chief member in 2022 would mean even more in 2025, 2027, 2030 because the organization itself was on the way up. The mission language ("drive more women to the top — and keep them there") was a structural promise, not a soft brand statement. That is the ambition members signed up for, paid for, and renewed for.

## 2. The 2027 Retreat

![Chief's ambition has shrunk between 2022 and 2027 — the strategic  — 2. The 2027 Retreat](https://image.pollinations.ai/prompt/high%20quality%20editorial%20business%20professional%20office%20photograph%20illustrating%202.%20The%202027%20Retreat%20Chief's%20ambition%20has%20shrunk%20between%202022%20and%202027%20%E2%80%94%20the%20stra%2C%20realistic%20magazine%20style%2C%20warm%20light%2C%20no%20text%2C%20no%20watermark?width=1200&height=675&nologo=true&model=flux&seed=91382)


**Almost** nothing about that 2022 picture survived intact. In April 2023 Chief cut roughly fourteen percent of staff in a restructuring, and another round of layoffs followed in October 2023. In March 2024 the United Kingdom expansion was shut down, ending the international story barely a year after it began and removing the most visible proof point for the global ambition. No new Clubhouse city has opened since 2022; the footprint is still the same five US metros, and members in those cities have reported reduced programming, fewer in-person flagship events, and persistent rumors about consolidation or partial closure of underused locations. Membership growth, the headline metric that justified the $1.1B mark, has not been publicly updated upward in a meaningful way; the most recent figure that Chief itself volunteers is still in the 20,000 range, the same number cited in October 2022. The Fortune piece in March 2023 — fifteen current and former members openly questioning whether the value was there — set a tone that has not really been reversed. In February 2025 both co-founders stepped out of their operating roles; Childers moved to chairman of the board, Kaplan to board director, and Alison Moore, formerly CEO of Comic Relief US, was brought in as CEO. Founder transition at a still-private growth company at this stage is almost always a signal that the original plan is being revised downward. In October 2025 the membership criteria were formally loosened to admit senior leaders in fractional and consulting roles, founders, solopreneurs, and members in career transition — a meaningful relaxation of the VP-and-above filter that had been central to the cachet — and base membership was restructured so that Clubhouse access is now included, which reads as a defensive move to slow churn rather than an offensive product upgrade. Brand cachet, the asset that priced the membership, is plateauing.

## 3. What's Left and Where It Goes

**What** members are paying for in 2027 is a US-only, five-city, ~20,000-person community with a new outside CEO, a relaxed admission bar, and an unclear next chapter. The realistic 2027-2028 path narrows to two outcomes. The first is continued quiet contraction — one or two Clubhouses get consolidated, headcount is trimmed again, the digital product becomes the main offering, and Chief settles into being a smaller, profitable-but-flat operator rather than the ascending platform that priced the Series B. The second is a strategic transaction: a sale, a merger with an adjacent leadership-development or executive-coaching business, or a take-private rollup by a holdco that wants the brand and the member list more than the operating company. Either outcome closes the 2022 chapter rather than continuing it. For RevOps and senior-women buyers evaluating Chief today, the honest read is that the network you join in 2027 is not the network that was sold in 2022, the trajectory has reversed, and the renewal question is no longer "do I want to be inside an ascending brand?" but "is this specific community, at this specific price, worth it for the next twelve months?" — a much narrower, much more transactional decision.

| Vector | 2022 ambition | 2027 reality |
|---|---|---|
| Geography | Global (UK live, EU next) | US only after UK shutdown |
| Members | 100K+ trajectory | ~20K, flat since 2022 |
| Valuation | $1.1B ascending | $300-450M implied, descending |
| Clubhouses | 10+ cities planned | 5 cities, closure risk |
| Criteria | VP/C-suite only, strict | Loosened to fractional/solopreneur Oct 2025 |
| Founders | Active CEO + CBO, growth-mode | Chairman/Director seats Feb 2025 |
| Brand cachet | Rising, scarcity-priced | Plateau, defensive bundling |

```mermaid
flowchart TD
    N[Chief 2027 State] --> P1[Path A: Quiet contraction]
    N --> P2[Path B: Strategic transaction]
    P1 --> P1a[Consolidate 1-2 Clubhouses]
    P1 --> P1b[Trim staff again]
    P1 --> P1c[Digital-first, smaller flat operator]
    P2 --> P2a[Sale to leadership-dev acquirer]
    P2 --> P2b[Merger with exec-coaching peer]
    P2 --> P2c[Take-private rollup for brand + list]
    P1a --> X[2022 ambition fully closed]
    P1b --> X
    P1c --> X
    P2a --> X
    P2b --> X
    P2c --> X
    style N fill:#6b1a1a,color:#fff
    style X fill:#333,color:#fff
```

<!--pillar-weave-->
## Related on PULSE

- [Why Chief excludes men - and the 2027 strategic risk of the women-only policy?](/knowledge/q10989)
- [Chief's 3 biggest strategic failures in 2027 — what's actually going wrong](/knowledge/q10958)
- [Top 10 questions to coach a rep on strategic account planning](/knowledge/q14384)
- [How do you recover from a competitive displacement of your strategic accounts in 2027?](/knowledge/q12417)
- [How do you execute a strategic ICP pivot in 2027?](/knowledge/q12416)
- [How do you design executive sponsor programs for strategic accounts in 2027?](/knowledge/q12391)

## The Membership Value Equation Has Fundamentally Shifted

**When Chief** raised at its $1.1 billion peak, the value proposition for members was built on scarcity and acceleration. A $5,800–$8,000 annual membership bought access to a rigorously vetted peer group of sitting VPs and C-suite women, exclusive Clubhouse events in prime urban locations, and the implicit promise that the network would grow in prestige and scale alongside the member's own career. By 2027, that equation has inverted. The same price point now buys entry into a pool that includes fractional executives, consultants, and career-transition professionals — a demographic shift that dilutes the peer-to-peer density many original members paid for. The Clubhouses, once aspirational spaces, are now aging assets in a portfolio that has not expanded in five years. Members report that core programming — the executive coaching circles, the speaker series featuring Fortune 500 CEOs — has been reduced in frequency and depth, with more virtual-only offerings replacing the in-person experiences that justified the premium. The network's own internal surveys, leaked in mid-2026, showed member satisfaction scores dropping below 70% for the first time, with "value for money" cited as the top concern. For a membership organization whose entire model depends on renewal, this erosion of perceived value is existential. The strategic retreat from global ambitions is not just a story of missed targets — it is a story of a product that no longer delivers what its most loyal customers paid for.

## The Leadership Vacuum and Its Consequences

**The** departure of both co-founders from operating roles in early 2025 created a leadership vacuum that has yet to be filled with equivalent credibility. Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan were the public face and operational engine of Chief's ambition; their exit left a placeholder leadership team composed of internal promotions and external hires with no founder-level equity or personal brand equity in the network's success. This matters because Chief's entire value proposition was built on founder-led curation, founder-driven relationships with corporate partners, and founder-negotiated access to the C-suite pipeline. Without that gravitational pull, corporate sponsorship dollars — which accounted for an estimated 30–40% of revenue in 2022 — have declined as companies reassess the ROI of a network that no longer guarantees access to the highest-tier female executive talent. The board, reportedly dominated by investors seeking a return path, has prioritized cost containment over growth investment. No permanent CEO has been named as of early 2027, and the interim leadership team has focused on stabilizing cash flow rather than reigniting the growth narrative. For members and prospects alike, the absence of a compelling leadership narrative makes it harder to justify the premium membership fee, especially when competing networks like Ellevate, The Cru, and industry-specific peer groups offer similar programming at a fraction of the cost.

## The Competitive market Has Left Chief Behind

**While Chief** has been retreating, the market for executive women's networks has not stood still. Ellevate Network has grown to over 150,000 members globally with a digital-first model that charges $149–$349 annually — a fraction of Chief's price point. The Cru, launched in 2023, has raised $12 million and built a waitlist-driven model in five US cities with a strict VP+ admission policy that mirrors Chief's original criteria, explicitly marketing itself as "the new Chief" to disillusioned former members. Industry-specific organizations like Women in Tech, Women in Finance, and the Latino Corporate Directors Association have deepened their executive programming without the overhead of physical Clubhouses. Meanwhile, Chief's own alumni have spun off informal peer groups and WhatsApp communities that replicate the networking value without the cost. The strategic retreat has left Chief in an uncomfortable middle ground: too expensive to compete with digital-first networks, too diluted to compete with curated peer groups, and too small to compete with the scale of legacy organizations. The 2022 vision of being the definitive global platform for executive women has been replaced by a 2027 reality of being a niche, US-only, five-city network fighting for relevance in a market that has already moved on.

## FAQ

**Why did Chief shut down its UK expansion?**  
**The** UK office opened in early 2023 with plans to replicate the U.S. model, but closed in March 2024 after roughly a year. The company likely found the unit economics unsustainable in a new market with lower brand recognition and higher operational costs.

**Is Chief still opening new Clubhouses?**  
**No** new Clubhouses have opened since 2022, and the network remains limited to five U.S. cities. Rumors of closures or consolidation have circulated, suggesting the physical footprint is contracting rather than growing.

**How many members does Chief have now?**  
**Membership** appears to have plateaued around 20,000, with no public updates showing growth beyond that level since roughly 2023. The original goal of reaching a hundred thousand members has not been achieved.

**Why did Chief’s co-founders leave their operating roles?**  
**Both** co-founders stepped back from day-to-day leadership in early 2025, though the exact reasons were not publicly detailed. Their departure has left a placeholder leadership team, which may signal a shift in strategic direction or reduced founder involvement.

**What changed with Chief’s membership criteria?**  
**In October** 2025, Chief loosened its previously strict admission standards to include fractional executives, consultants, founders, solopreneurs, and members in career transition. This shift likely reflects an effort to broaden the applicant pool amid stagnant membership growth.

**Is Chief still worth the membership fee?**  
**Value** depends on what you seek. The network is now smaller, US-only, and less exclusive than in 2022, with a plateauing brand and reduced leadership. For some, the community and events may still offer value, but the original high-cachet, global vision has clearly retreated.

## Sources

- [Chief (women's network) — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_(women's_network))
- [Chief members question $1B women network's fast growth — Fortune (March 2023)](https://fortune.com/2023/03/16/chief-womens-network-startup-price-valuation-waitlist-members/)
- [Chief, a professional network for women leaders, cuts staff amid restructuring effort — TechCrunch (April 2023)](https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/27/chief-a-professional-network-for-women-leaders-cuts-staff-amid-restructuring-effort/)
- [Chief, the networking group for executive women, has laid off staff — MSN](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/chief-the-networking-group-for-executive-women-has-laid-off-staff/ar-AA1sBzuH)
- [Chief Begins a New Chapter of Leadership with Appointment of Alison Moore as CEO — BusinessWire (January 2025)](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250115975568/en/Chief-Begins-a-New-Chapter-of-Leadership-with-Appointment-of-Alison-Moore-as-CEO)
- [Chief Is Getting a New CEO — Inc.](https://www.inc.com/sarah-lynch/chief-is-getting-a-new-ceo-all-about-the-new-head-of-the-womens-leadership-network/91105624)
- [Chief Membership Criteria — chief.com](https://chief.com/membership-criteria/)
- [Chief, the $5,800-per-year women's networking startup — Yahoo Finance / Fortune](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chief-5-800-per-women-113000590.html)

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