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How do you get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028?

📖 3,417 words🗓️ Published Jul 22, 2026

Direct Answer

To get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028, treat the membership like an operating system for your executive presence rather than a networking club: show up to your Core Group with real, unresolved problems, use the digital community and clubhouse events on a fixed weekly cadence, and convert every relationship into a specific ask or offer within the first 90 days. The members who report the highest return front-load their investment in the first quarter, define one measurable outcome they want from the year, and treat their executive coach and peer group as a standing board of advisors — not a nice-to-have they attend when their calendars happen to be light.

Chief is a private membership network built for senior women executives and VP-and-above leaders, and it is one of the few professional investments where the value is almost entirely determined by how you use it. The organization gives you the room, the peers, the coach, and the programming; whether that compounds into a promotion, a board seat, a career pivot, or simply a year of sharper decisions depends on the operating discipline you bring. Passive members get a pleasant, forgettable experience. Members who run the membership as a deliberate loop — surface a problem, pressure-test it with peers, act, report back, and reciprocate — turn it into the highest-leverage hour on their calendar. This guide breaks down how to run your first twelve months so the membership pays for itself many times over.

What should you actually expect from Chief membership in year one?

Chief's value proposition rests on a few pillars: a Core Group of roughly eight to ten peer executives at a similar level, facilitated by a trained executive coach who meets with the group on a recurring cadence; access to clubhouse spaces and digital community for informal connection and events; a speaker and programming calendar featuring executives, authors, and operators; and a member directory and community platform for one-to-one connection. The exact mix of in-person and digital access has shifted over the years, so your very first move in 2028 is to confirm what your specific tier includes rather than assuming the version a colleague described three years ago.

The mistake new members make is treating these as separate amenities to sample independently. They are not separate. The membership works when the pillars reinforce each other: a problem you surface in your Core Group becomes a question you research through a speaker session, which becomes a one-to-one conversation with a member who has already solved it, which becomes a decision you are accountable for reporting back on next month. Year one is about building that loop deliberately. If you only attend when it is convenient, you will get a pleasant but forgettable experience. If you build the loop, the membership becomes a compounding asset.

Set expectations honestly about the ramp. Trust inside a Core Group takes two to three sessions to form. The first meeting is introductions, the second is testing the waters, and only by the third or fourth does the group start doing the real work of pressure-testing each other's hardest calls. Members who quit at month two almost always quit right before the value inflects — they mistake the trust-building phase for the whole experience. Budget the first quarter as an investment period where you are spending time to earn a return that arrives later in the year.

How do you get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028 — figure 1

How do you set your one measurable outcome for the year?

Before you attend a single session, decide what a successful year actually looks like — in one sentence, with a way to know whether you hit it. This is the single highest-leverage decision you make, because every hour you invest afterward can be steered toward it or wasted away from it. A member who joins "to network" has no way to know, twelve months later, whether the year worked. A member who joins to "land a board seat by Q4," "make a confident decision about whether to take the CEO role," "build the peer relationships I need before I go out on my own," or "get board-ready so I'm a credible candidate when a seat opens" can evaluate every event, every conversation, and every Core Group session against that target.

Pair the outcome with a theme — the one capability or transition you most want to build this year. Common themes include getting board-ready, moving from a functional leader to a general manager, navigating a turnaround, preparing for a first CEO seat, or building an external network after years inside one company. The outcome is the destination; the theme is the lens you use to filter opportunities. Write both down where you will see them monthly. The discipline of revisiting them is what keeps the membership from drifting into a series of pleasant but unconnected experiences.

Make the outcome measurable even when the subject is soft. "Become a better leader" is not measurable; "get unsolicited feedback from two peers that my board presence has improved, and present to my own board with confidence twice this year" is. The point is not rigid metrics — it is having a standard you can honestly assess yourself against at renewal, so the decision to continue is made from evidence rather than vibes.

How do you get the most out of your Core Group?

Your Core Group is the single highest-value asset in the membership, and it operates on a simple economy: you get out what you put in, weighted by the quality of what you bring. The members who benefit most walk into each session with a specific, current, unresolved problem — a board dynamic they are navigating, a reorg they are second-guessing, a compensation negotiation, a co-founder conflict, a decision they are genuinely stuck on. Vague check-ins ("things are busy, lots going on") produce vague advice. A sharply framed dilemma produces a room full of senior operators who have each solved a version of it.

How do you get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028 — figure 2

Preparation is the differentiator. Before each session, spend fifteen minutes writing down the one thing you would pay to have eight peers help you think through. Bring the actual numbers, the actual email, the actual org chart if the group's confidentiality norms allow it. The more real the input, the more useful the output. And reciprocate with the same intensity: the group's trust is a shared account, and members who only take withdrawals get quietly deprioritized. When it is someone else's turn, be the person who asks the sharp clarifying question and follows up next month to see how it went.

Treat your executive coach as a distinct resource from the group itself. A skilled facilitator is not just keeping time — they are trained to surface the pattern underneath your presenting problem, and many members find that the between-session relationship with the coach becomes as valuable as the group meetings. Ask your coach directly, early: "What do the members who get the most out of this group tend to do differently?" They have watched many cohorts and will tell you.

The following loop is what a high-return member's Core Group cadence looks like across the year:

The reporting-back step is what separates a support group from a board of advisors. When you tell the group "I did the thing you suggested and here is what happened," you turn abstract advice into a real accountability system — and you signal that their time produced an outcome, which makes them invest more in you next time. Skip the report-back and the group slowly reverts to polite check-ins; keep it and the group compounds in usefulness across the year.

How do you get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028 — figure 3

Which programming and events are worth your limited time?

Chief's calendar in 2028 will offer far more than any member can attend — speaker sessions, workshops, clubhouse events, regional gatherings, and community-hosted meetups. The instinct to attend everything in month one is understandable and wrong. Time is your scarcest resource as an executive; spraying it across every event produces shallow exposure and burnout. Instead, run a simple filter built on the theme you already chose.

Evaluate programming against that theme. A session on board governance is a must-attend if board-readiness is your theme and a skip if it is not, no matter how impressive the speaker. This single filter will cut your event load by two-thirds and double the relevance of what remains. Protecting your calendar is not a failure to engage — it is the discipline that makes your engagement count.

For the events you do attend, the value is rarely the content — it is the room. Senior executives can get content anywhere. What Chief uniquely offers is a curated room of peers, and the return comes from the two or three conversations you have before and after the formal session, not the panel itself. Arrive early, stay late, and treat the speaker content as a shared reference point that gives you something specific to talk about with the person next to you. One good conversation that turns into an ongoing relationship is worth more than ten sessions attended silently.

How do you get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028 — figure 4

Be deliberate about in-person versus digital. If your tier and location give you clubhouse or regional access, the in-person events tend to convert to durable relationships at a higher rate than digital ones. Front-load those in your first quarter while you are building your network, then lean on digital programming for ongoing learning once your core relationships are established. The asymmetry matters: digital access is easy to catch up on later, but the early in-person moments where you meet people while everyone still expects introductions do not come back.

How do you turn the member network into real relationships and outcomes?

The member directory is where most of the latent value sits, and where most members never dig. A directory of thousands of senior executives across every industry and function is an extraordinary asset — but a directory is not a network. A network is a set of relationships you have actually built, and building them requires a deliberate outreach practice that most new members never start.

Run a structured one-to-one program in year one. The mechanics are simple: each week, identify one or two members whose experience maps to your theme or your current live problem, and send a specific, low-friction outreach. Specificity is everything. "Would love to connect!" gets ignored; "I saw you led the RevOps function through your company's PE transition — I am facing that now and would value fifteen minutes on how you handled the reporting cadence with the new board" gets a yes. You are not asking for mentorship in the abstract; you are asking a precise question of someone uniquely qualified to answer it.

Reciprocity makes this sustainable. Every time you take a conversation, offer one. Make your own expertise visible in the community — answer questions in the digital spaces, share a resource you built, volunteer to speak on the thing you know cold. The members who become hubs in the network are the ones who give first and give specifically. Over a year, this practice compounds into something no LinkedIn connection count can match: a set of peers who will take your call, make an introduction, or vouch for you when a board seat or a role opens up.

How do you get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028 — figure 5

Here is the flywheel that turns membership into outcomes over the first year:

The engine only turns if you have defined the outcome at the top. Everything downstream — which events you attend, which members you reach out to, what you bring to your Core Group — is a decision that gets easier and sharper when there is a destination to steer toward. Without one, the flywheel spins but never points anywhere.

What does a high-return first-year cadence look like month by month?

The members who report the strongest year one follow a rough arc rather than a flat pattern of occasional attendance. Front-load, then compound.

Months 1–3: Invest heavily and build the foundation. Attend every Core Group session without exception — this is the trust-building window, and missing early meetings sets you back a quarter. Complete your member profile thoroughly so others can find you. Define your year's theme and your one measurable outcome. Start your one-to-one outreach immediately, aiming for one or two conversations a week. Attend in-person events aggressively while you are new and everyone expects you to be introducing yourself. This quarter feels like a lot of time; it is the price of the flywheel spinning up.

How do you get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028 — figure 6

Months 4–6: Convert exposure into relationships. By now your Core Group is doing real work and your outreach has produced a handful of genuine relationships. Deepen them — move from single conversations to ongoing check-ins with the three or four members who matter most. Start giving back: volunteer, share, host. Use programming selectively against your theme. This is where members who front-loaded start seeing the first concrete returns — an introduction that matters, advice that changed a decision.

Months 7–9: Compound and contribute. Your network is now an asset you can activate. Make asks that would have been impossible in month one. Become a visible contributor in the community, which pulls opportunities toward you. Revisit your year's outcome and course-correct if you are off track — a mid-year honest assessment is far more useful than a surprised one at renewal.

Months 10–12: Harvest and renew intentionally. Assess honestly against the measurable outcome you set. Cash in the relationships — the board introduction, the reference, the door-opener. And make your renewal decision from evidence, not vibes: if you ran the loop and can point to what changed, the value is self-evident; if you cannot, diagnose whether you under-invested before you blame the membership.

Members transitioning between roles or into fully remote executive work should weight the in-person and clubhouse access even more heavily in the first two quarters — the informal, high-bandwidth relationship-building that happens in person is the hardest thing to replicate digitally, and it is precisely what a solo or newly appointed executive most lacks.

FAQ

What is Chief?

Chief is a private membership network created to connect and support senior women executives and leaders at the VP level and above. Its core offerings include coach-led peer Core Groups, executive programming and speakers, clubhouse and digital community access, and a member directory for one-to-one connection.

Who is eligible for Chief membership?

Chief is designed for executives at the VP level and above, with distinct tiers historically differentiating VP-level leaders from C-suite executives. Eligibility and tier definitions have evolved over time, so confirm the current criteria directly rather than relying on older descriptions.

How much does Chief cost in 2028?

Membership pricing varies by tier and has changed over time, and some employers sponsor membership as a leadership-development benefit. Because pricing is set by the organization and subject to change, verify the current rate and any sponsorship or financing options directly with Chief rather than trusting secondhand figures.

What is a Core Group in Chief?

A Core Group is a small, curated peer group of roughly eight to ten executives at a similar level, guided by a trained executive coach who facilitates recurring sessions. It functions as a confidential board of advisors where members pressure-test their hardest professional decisions.

How often does a Chief Core Group meet?

Core Groups meet on a recurring cadence set by the group and coach. Consistent attendance — especially in the first few sessions — is the strongest predictor of value, because group trust takes two to three meetings to form before the deep work begins.

Do you have to attend in person to benefit from Chief?

No — Chief offers substantial digital community, programming, and one-to-one connection that deliver value entirely remotely. That said, if your tier and location include clubhouse or in-person access, those events tend to convert to durable relationships faster, so front-loading them in your first quarter is worthwhile.

How do you measure ROI on a Chief membership?

Set one measurable outcome at the start of the year — a board seat, a promotion, a specific decision, a defined relationship goal — and assess against it at renewal. Members who define the outcome up front can judge the return objectively; those who join "to network" have no way to know if it worked.

Should you renew after year one?

Base the decision on evidence. If you ran the loop — active Core Group participation, theme-filtered programming, and consistent one-to-one outreach — and can point to concrete outcomes, renewal is easy. If you cannot, first diagnose whether you under-invested before concluding the membership lacks value.

Sources

flowchart TD S["How do you get the most out of your fi"] S --> N0["What should you actually expect from C"] N0 --> N1["How do you set your one measurable out"] N1 --> N2["How do you get the most out of your Co"] N2 --> N3["Which programming and events are worth"]

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Download:

## Direct Answer

To get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028, treat the membership like an operating system for your executive presence rather than a networking club: show up to your Core Group with real, unresolved problems, use the digital community and clubhouse events on a fixed weekly cadence, and convert every relationship into a specific ask or offer within the first 90 days. The members who report the highest return front-load their investment in the first quarter, define one measurable outcome they want from the year, and treat their executive coach and peer group as a standing board of advisors — not a nice-to-have they attend when their calendars happen to be light.

Chief is a private membership network built for senior women executives and VP-and-above leaders, and it is one of the few professional investments where the value is almost entirely determined by how you use it. The organization gives you the room, the peers, the coach, and the programming; whether that compounds into a promotion, a board seat, a career pivot, or simply a year of sharper decisions depends on the operating discipline you bring. Passive members get a pleasant, forgettable experience. Members who run the membership as a deliberate loop — surface a problem, pressure-test it with peers, act, report back, and reciprocate — turn it into the highest-leverage hour on their calendar. This guide breaks down how to run your first twelve months so the membership pays for itself many times over.

## What should you actually expect from Chief membership in year one?

```mermaid
flowchart TD
  S["How do you get the most out of your fi"]
  S --> N0["What should you actually expect from C"]
  N0 --> N1["How do you set your one measurable out"]
  N1 --> N2["How do you get the most out of your Co"]
  N2 --> N3["Which programming and events are worth"]
```


Chief's value proposition rests on a few pillars: a **Core Group** of roughly eight to ten peer executives at a similar level, facilitated by a trained executive coach who meets with the group on a recurring cadence; access to **clubhouse spaces and digital community** for informal connection and events; a **speaker and programming calendar** featuring executives, authors, and operators; and a **member directory and community platform** for one-to-one connection. The exact mix of in-person and digital access has shifted over the years, so your very first move in 2028 is to confirm what your specific tier includes rather than assuming the version a colleague described three years ago.

The mistake new members make is treating these as separate amenities to sample independently. They are not separate. The membership works when the pillars reinforce each other: a problem you surface in your Core Group becomes a question you research through a speaker session, which becomes a one-to-one conversation with a member who has already solved it, which becomes a decision you are accountable for reporting back on next month. Year one is about building that loop deliberately. If you only attend when it is convenient, you will get a pleasant but forgettable experience. If you build the loop, the membership becomes a compounding asset.

Set expectations honestly about the ramp. Trust inside a Core Group takes two to three sessions to form. The first meeting is introductions, the second is testing the waters, and only by the third or fourth does the group start doing the real work of pressure-testing each other's hardest calls. Members who quit at month two almost always quit right before the value inflects — they mistake the trust-building phase for the whole experience. Budget the first quarter as an investment period where you are spending time to earn a return that arrives later in the year.

![How do you get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028 — figure 1](/assets/qa/q19021-b1.jpg)


## How do you set your one measurable outcome for the year?

Before you attend a single session, decide what a successful year actually looks like — in one sentence, with a way to know whether you hit it. This is the single highest-leverage decision you make, because every hour you invest afterward can be steered toward it or wasted away from it. A member who joins "to network" has no way to know, twelve months later, whether the year worked. A member who joins to "land a board seat by Q4," "make a confident decision about whether to take the CEO role," "build the peer relationships I need before I go out on my own," or "get board-ready so I'm a credible candidate when a seat opens" can evaluate every event, every conversation, and every Core Group session against that target.


Pair the outcome with a **theme** — the one capability or transition you most want to build this year. Common themes include getting board-ready, moving from a functional leader to a general manager, navigating a turnaround, preparing for a first CEO seat, or building an external network after years inside one company. The outcome is the destination; the theme is the lens you use to filter opportunities. Write both down where you will see them monthly. The discipline of revisiting them is what keeps the membership from drifting into a series of pleasant but unconnected experiences.

Make the outcome measurable even when the subject is soft. "Become a better leader" is not measurable; "get unsolicited feedback from two peers that my board presence has improved, and present to my own board with confidence twice this year" is. The point is not rigid metrics — it is having a standard you can honestly assess yourself against at renewal, so the decision to continue is made from evidence rather than vibes.

## How do you get the most out of your Core Group?

Your Core Group is the single highest-value asset in the membership, and it operates on a simple economy: you get out what you put in, weighted by the quality of what you bring. The members who benefit most walk into each session with a **specific, current, unresolved problem** — a board dynamic they are navigating, a reorg they are second-guessing, a compensation negotiation, a co-founder conflict, a decision they are genuinely stuck on. Vague check-ins ("things are busy, lots going on") produce vague advice. A sharply framed dilemma produces a room full of senior operators who have each solved a version of it.

![How do you get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028 — figure 2](/assets/qa/q19021-b2.jpg)


Preparation is the differentiator. Before each session, spend fifteen minutes writing down the one thing you would pay to have eight peers help you think through. Bring the actual numbers, the actual email, the actual org chart if the group's confidentiality norms allow it. The more real the input, the more useful the output. And reciprocate with the same intensity: the group's trust is a shared account, and members who only take withdrawals get quietly deprioritized. When it is someone else's turn, be the person who asks the sharp clarifying question and follows up next month to see how it went.


Treat your **executive coach** as a distinct resource from the group itself. A skilled facilitator is not just keeping time — they are trained to surface the pattern underneath your presenting problem, and many members find that the between-session relationship with the coach becomes as valuable as the group meetings. Ask your coach directly, early: "What do the members who get the most out of this group tend to do differently?" They have watched many cohorts and will tell you.

The following loop is what a high-return member's Core Group cadence looks like across the year:

The reporting-back step is what separates a support group from a board of advisors. When you tell the group "I did the thing you suggested and here is what happened," you turn abstract advice into a real accountability system — and you signal that their time produced an outcome, which makes them invest more in you next time. Skip the report-back and the group slowly reverts to polite check-ins; keep it and the group compounds in usefulness across the year.

![How do you get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028 — figure 3](/assets/qa/q19021-b3.jpg)



## Which programming and events are worth your limited time?

Chief's calendar in 2028 will offer far more than any member can attend — speaker sessions, workshops, clubhouse events, regional gatherings, and community-hosted meetups. The instinct to attend everything in month one is understandable and wrong. Time is your scarcest resource as an executive; spraying it across every event produces shallow exposure and burnout. Instead, run a simple filter built on the theme you already chose.

Evaluate programming against that theme. A session on board governance is a must-attend if board-readiness is your theme and a skip if it is not, no matter how impressive the speaker. This single filter will cut your event load by two-thirds and double the relevance of what remains. Protecting your calendar is not a failure to engage — it is the discipline that makes your engagement count.

For the events you do attend, the value is rarely the content — it is the room. Senior executives can get content anywhere. What Chief uniquely offers is a curated room of peers, and the return comes from the two or three conversations you have before and after the formal session, not the panel itself. Arrive early, stay late, and treat the speaker content as a shared reference point that gives you something specific to talk about with the person next to you. One good conversation that turns into an ongoing relationship is worth more than ten sessions attended silently.

![How do you get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028 — figure 4](/assets/qa/q19021-b4.jpg)


Be deliberate about in-person versus digital. If your tier and location give you clubhouse or regional access, the in-person events tend to convert to durable relationships at a higher rate than digital ones. Front-load those in your first quarter while you are building your network, then lean on digital programming for ongoing learning once your core relationships are established. The asymmetry matters: digital access is easy to catch up on later, but the early in-person moments where you meet people while everyone still expects introductions do not come back.


## How do you turn the member network into real relationships and outcomes?

The member directory is where most of the latent value sits, and where most members never dig. A directory of thousands of senior executives across every industry and function is an extraordinary asset — but a directory is not a network. A network is a set of relationships you have actually built, and building them requires a deliberate outreach practice that most new members never start.

Run a **structured one-to-one program** in year one. The mechanics are simple: each week, identify one or two members whose experience maps to your theme or your current live problem, and send a specific, low-friction outreach. Specificity is everything. "Would love to connect!" gets ignored; "I saw you led the RevOps function through your company's PE transition — I am facing that now and would value fifteen minutes on how you handled the reporting cadence with the new board" gets a yes. You are not asking for mentorship in the abstract; you are asking a precise question of someone uniquely qualified to answer it.

Reciprocity makes this sustainable. Every time you take a conversation, offer one. Make your own expertise visible in the community — answer questions in the digital spaces, share a resource you built, volunteer to speak on the thing you know cold. The members who become hubs in the network are the ones who give first and give specifically. Over a year, this practice compounds into something no LinkedIn connection count can match: a set of peers who will take your call, make an introduction, or vouch for you when a board seat or a role opens up.

![How do you get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028 — figure 5](/assets/qa/q19021-b5.jpg)


Here is the flywheel that turns membership into outcomes over the first year:


The engine only turns if you have defined the outcome at the top. Everything downstream — which events you attend, which members you reach out to, what you bring to your Core Group — is a decision that gets easier and sharper when there is a destination to steer toward. Without one, the flywheel spins but never points anywhere.

## What does a high-return first-year cadence look like month by month?

The members who report the strongest year one follow a rough arc rather than a flat pattern of occasional attendance. Front-load, then compound.

**Months 1–3: Invest heavily and build the foundation.** Attend every Core Group session without exception — this is the trust-building window, and missing early meetings sets you back a quarter. Complete your member profile thoroughly so others can find you. Define your year's theme and your one measurable outcome. Start your one-to-one outreach immediately, aiming for one or two conversations a week. Attend in-person events aggressively while you are new and everyone expects you to be introducing yourself. This quarter feels like a lot of time; it is the price of the flywheel spinning up.

![How do you get the most out of your first year as a Chief member in 2028 — figure 6](/assets/qa/q19021-b6.jpg)



**Months 4–6: Convert exposure into relationships.** By now your Core Group is doing real work and your outreach has produced a handful of genuine relationships. Deepen them — move from single conversations to ongoing check-ins with the three or four members who matter most. Start giving back: volunteer, share, host. Use programming selectively against your theme. This is where members who front-loaded start seeing the first concrete returns — an introduction that matters, advice that changed a decision.

**Months 7–9: Compound and contribute.** Your network is now an asset you can activate. Make asks that would have been impossible in month one. Become a visible contributor in the community, which pulls opportunities toward you. Revisit your year's outcome and course-correct if you are off track — a mid-year honest assessment is far more useful than a surprised one at renewal.

**Months 10–12: Harvest and renew intentionally.** Assess honestly against the measurable outcome you set. Cash in the relationships — the board introduction, the reference, the door-opener. And make your renewal decision from evidence, not vibes: if you ran the loop and can point to what changed, the value is self-evident; if you cannot, diagnose whether you under-invested before you blame the membership.

Members transitioning between roles or into fully remote executive work should weight the in-person and clubhouse access even more heavily in the first two quarters — the informal, high-bandwidth relationship-building that happens in person is the hardest thing to replicate digitally, and it is precisely what a solo or newly appointed executive most lacks.

## Related questions

### Is Chief membership worth it for a first-year member?
It is worth it if you run it as a system — Core Group, programming, and one-to-one outreach on a fixed cadence tied to one measurable goal. Passive members get a pleasant network; active members get board seats, roles, and better decisions. The variable is your effort, not the membership.

### How much time per week does Chief membership require?
Plan for two to four hours weekly in the first quarter: one Core Group session per cadence, one or two one-to-one conversations, and selective programming. It tapers after the network is built. Front-loading the first three months is the single biggest driver of year-one return.

### What is the biggest mistake new Chief members make?
Sampling everything passively instead of running a deliberate loop. The second biggest is quitting around month two, right before Core Group trust inflects and the real value begins. Both come from treating the membership as an amenity rather than an operating system.

### How is Chief different from a traditional networking group?
Chief pairs a facilitated, coach-led peer group of vetted senior executives with a broad member network and curated programming — the depth of a mastermind plus the reach of a professional association. Traditional networking gives you contacts; Chief gives you a standing board of advisors and a room of peers at your level.

### Can you get promoted or land a board seat through Chief in one year?
Members do, but not passively. It comes from defining that outcome explicitly, using the Core Group to prepare, and making specific asks of members who have walked the path. The network creates the opportunity surface; you still have to work it deliberately across the year.

## FAQ

### What is Chief?
Chief is a private membership network created to connect and support senior women executives and leaders at the VP level and above. Its core offerings include coach-led peer Core Groups, executive programming and speakers, clubhouse and digital community access, and a member directory for one-to-one connection.

### Who is eligible for Chief membership?
Chief is designed for executives at the VP level and above, with distinct tiers historically differentiating VP-level leaders from C-suite executives. Eligibility and tier definitions have evolved over time, so confirm the current criteria directly rather than relying on older descriptions.

### How much does Chief cost in 2028?
Membership pricing varies by tier and has changed over time, and some employers sponsor membership as a leadership-development benefit. Because pricing is set by the organization and subject to change, verify the current rate and any sponsorship or financing options directly with Chief rather than trusting secondhand figures.

### What is a Core Group in Chief?
A Core Group is a small, curated peer group of roughly eight to ten executives at a similar level, guided by a trained executive coach who facilitates recurring sessions. It functions as a confidential board of advisors where members pressure-test their hardest professional decisions.

### How often does a Chief Core Group meet?
Core Groups meet on a recurring cadence set by the group and coach. Consistent attendance — especially in the first few sessions — is the strongest predictor of value, because group trust takes two to three meetings to form before the deep work begins.

### Do you have to attend in person to benefit from Chief?
No — Chief offers substantial digital community, programming, and one-to-one connection that deliver value entirely remotely. That said, if your tier and location include clubhouse or in-person access, those events tend to convert to durable relationships faster, so front-loading them in your first quarter is worthwhile.

### How do you measure ROI on a Chief membership?
Set one measurable outcome at the start of the year — a board seat, a promotion, a specific decision, a defined relationship goal — and assess against it at renewal. Members who define the outcome up front can judge the return objectively; those who join "to network" have no way to know if it worked.

### Should you renew after year one?
Base the decision on evidence. If you ran the loop — active Core Group participation, theme-filtered programming, and consistent one-to-one outreach — and can point to concrete outcomes, renewal is easy. If you cannot, first diagnose whether you under-invested before concluding the membership lacks value.

## Sources

- [Chief — Official Site](https://chief.com)
- [Harvard Business Review — How Leaders Build Networks](https://hbr.org)
- [McKinsey & Company — Women in the Workplace](https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace)
- [LeanIn.Org — Women in the Workplace Report](https://leanin.org/women-in-the-workplace)
- [MIT Sloan Management Review](https://sloanreview.mit.edu)
- [Center for Creative Leadership — Peer Coaching and Leadership Development](https://www.ccl.org)
- [Korn Ferry — Board Readiness and Executive Advancement](https://www.kornferry.com)
- [Catalyst — Research on Advancing Women Leaders](https://www.catalyst.org)

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