Between the panels Lindsay Kaplan appears on and the advice-dispensing coffee dates she agrees to, the cofounder of Chief, the exclusive network that arms C-suite women with tailored guidance and resources, sometimes marvels at her path to leadership. Many other executive women, she discovered, do too.
Kaplan, who serves as chief brand officer, launched Chief in 2019 with CEO Carolyn Childers. Both were previously at startups (Kaplan was vice president of communication and brand at Casper; Childers was senior vice president of operations at Handy and headed the launch of Soap.com until it was acquired by Amazon) and both faced challenges they wished they could navigate with input from their peers. “As we went higher up the ladder, we had less support. All of a sudden, we became de facto mentors to others when we needed more mentorship to make critical decisions,” recalls Kaplan.
That lack was the impetus behind Chief, a space for women who are CEOs or rising vice presidents. Membership is open in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, with some 4,000 members (35 percent identify as BIPOC) from companies like Netflix and Nike. A waitlist of more than 8,000 women across the globe underscores the necessity of the vision.
Books and artwork curated by Uprise Art lend elegant touches to the lounge and parlor area in New York
Anchored by a proprietary app, all of Chief’s services and events are accessed digitally, including core groups led by executive leadership coaches—10 women at the same professional level culled from different industries. Still, many members will be eager to meet in person post-COVID, and a trifecta of flagship clubhouses in New York, LA, and Chicago, designed by a women-led team from AvroKO’s New York office, offer fitting backdrops to exchange ideas and cultivate relationships. “They truly understood how to design for women without being overtly feminine,” says Kaplan.
Chief was already on AvroKO’s radar when Kaplan and Childers reached out. “We felt a kinship with the founders’ sense of how spaces and design could be targeted for women without falling into the tropes of what design for women should look like,” says AvroKO principal Kristina O’Neal. “Chief members arrive powerful, so we wanted spaces that maintain confidence and energy.”
Recalling buzzing hotel lobbies, the clubhouses are destinations for women to gather and converse. “I think of each city’s clubhouse as a pied-à-terre,” says AvroKO managing director Lexie Aliotti. “We also loved the idea of Elsie de Wolfe’s Sunday salon, the historic meeting of the minds that took place a few blocks from Chief’s New York location, where we saw parallels to Chief’s mission for creating community.”
Contemporary artwork from emerging talents, curated by Chief founding member Tze Chun’s Uprise Art, plays a pivotal role, and striking pieces placed at entries are among the many design threads linking all three. There is also the grounding signature rich green hue, lounges layered with vintage finds, and central cocktail bars that spark spontaneous banter.
The material palette references “Chief’s values of fortitude, belonging, and longevity. Saturated walls are balanced by the warmth of plush upholstery and broken-in leather, creating an approachability with an overall style that is fresh and enduring,” says Danielle Gray, senior designer at AvroKO. “There are subtle, almost covert, differences in each location that reflect something essential about each city.
Olive trees provide shade to outdoor areas in Los Angeles, continuing the California cool aesthetic
Calling to mind prewar apartments, the New York clubhouse in Manhattan’s Flatiron District, for example, features decorative trim moldings and a penthouse amplifying the views of surrounding mansard roofs. The West Hollywood iteration channels its past as a puppet theater and mixes a preserved wall of celebrity signatures dating from the 1940s with an olive tree-shaded courtyard. In Chicago, an abundance of exposed wood honors Fulton Market’s warehouse roots.
The woman who joins Chief will regularly be grappling with demanding situations, Kaplan points out, and “we wanted to create a space for her—to have business meetings, to connect with other members—that feels private and confidential.”
This article originally appeared in HD’s April 2021 issue.
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