First Circle Meet: What Happened When We Took Away the Networking

Seven women gathered around a table for the first Femfluence Circle Meet. There was no panel. No keynote speaker. No name badges. And, deliberately, no networking agenda.

For our first gathering, we wanted to start with something much simpler: put a small group of interesting women in a beautiful, intimate room and give them enough space to actually get to know one another.

What happened over the following two hours taught us something about the kind of Circle Femfluence could become.

Beyond the professional introduction

We began with a question that sits at the heart of Femfluence:

Why does another women's community deserve to exist?

Most accomplished women don't suffer from a shortage of contacts. We already have professional networks, industry associations, alumni groups, business communities and hundreds—sometimes thousands—of digital connections.

More people isn't necessarily what is missing. What becomes increasingly valuable is something harder to manufacture: trusted relationships, perspectives outside our usual worlds, access across industries and cultures, and people with whom we don't always have to lead with our professional identities.

That is the premise behind Femfluence.

Our ambition is not to become the largest women's network. It is to build a considered, cross-border Circle of women who bring substance, perspective and generosity to one another—and to explore what becomes possible when the knowledge, relationships, reputation and access accumulated individually begin to travel collectively.

After sharing the Femfluence vision and our four pillars—Personal Brand, Cultural Intelligence, Circle and Capital—we did something slightly different with the introductions.

Nobody was asked to recite her biography. Instead, each woman considered four things:

What are you passionate about? What are you building now? What perspective can you bring into this Circle? And what would be valuable to you at this stage of your life?

The difference was immediate.

When a room stops performing

What began as introductions quickly became a much more personal conversation. Women spoke about businesses and ambitions, but also about transitions, difficult decisions, relationships, uncertainty and the realities behind the polished identities we normally encounter professionally.

There were moments of seriousness and moments of enormous laughter. None of this had been programmed. And perhaps that was precisely why it happened.

One of the most interesting observations from the afternoon was that the more accomplished we become, the more accustomed we become to entering rooms through a role: founder, executive, investor, mother, expert, leader. There are surprisingly few places where none of those identities has to do the talking first.

Femfluence was not created as a support group, nor do we believe meaningful relationships can be engineered through forced vulnerability. But our first Circle reminded us that influence begins with trust—and trust requires knowing something about the person behind the credentials. That matters if we eventually want women in this ecosystem to exchange more than business cards.

It matters if we want them to exchange perspective, make meaningful introductions, open doors across markets, collaborate, invest in one another or simply pick up the phone when another woman needs a point of view she can trust.

Small, intentionally

There were seven women in our first Circle. For something with ambitions across Asia, that may sound like a very small beginning. We think that may be exactly the point.

The intimacy of the room allowed conversations to go somewhere a gathering of 50 or 100 people rarely could. It reinforced something we have believed from the beginning: Femfluence does not need to optimise for scale at the expense of substance.

Some gatherings will be larger. Our Private Salons will introduce members to thinkers, founders, cultural figures and places they might not otherwise encounter. Over time, the Circle will travel across cities and markets. But there will always be value in coming back to a small table.

What we are building from here

The first Circle Meet also clarified what we want Femfluence gatherings to feel like. Beautiful surroundings matter—not because luxury is the objective, but because environments affect how people show up. Curation matters. Different generations and industries matter. Conversation matters more than programming. And there should always be enough openness for something unexpected to happen.

Future Femfluence gatherings will take different forms: intimate Circle Meets, private Salons, cultural discoveries and cross-border experiences. Some will challenge us intellectually. Some will introduce members to unfamiliar worlds. Others will simply give women who rarely have enough time the opportunity to sit around a table and talk properly.

What they should share is a certain quality of room.

Not a room you enter asking, “Who should I network with?” But one you leave thinking,

“I'm glad I met her.”

Our first Circle began with seven women in a library in Hong Kong. It feels like a good place to start.