Find me in le club

There’s nothing more exciting than the birth of a dream project. Especially when you know how freaking awesome it’s going to be! 

Which is why you must check out the Business O Féminin Club coming to Paris next month and read my interview below with its founder, Véronique Forge-Karibian. 

I met Veronique for coffee a few months ago at the suggestion of my good friend Ajiri and we hit it off immediately. Véronique and I chatted about our past careers in marketing and journalism and how we’re both passionate about helping women express their full potential professionally. 

Six years ago Véronique launched businessofeminin.com, a dynamic media hub devoted to women in business, and it’s been her dream ever since to bring her platform to life.

Apollonia Poilâne fell in love with the idea and decided to lend Véronique a gorgeous space down the road from her family's famed Parisian bakery in order to test the concept from October 1st-18th.  

The pop-up will consist of a café serving Poilâne treats, a shop stocked with innovative women-owned brands, a library of empowering reads, a lovely lounge to chill and chit-chat and an inspiring events series of workshops and conferences to accelerate women’s personal and professional development. 

I’ll be participating in the project by hosting two vision board workshops on October 11th and 18th.

If you’re in Paris and interested in coming to any of the events use the special -20% promo code. (BFLOVERS)

photo by: Ajiri @Madame de la Maison

Read my Q&A with Business O Féminin Club founder Véronique Forge-Karibian

What inspired you to create the Business O Féminin Club? How long has the idea been brewing? What made you decide to finally go for it?

I organised a couple of events in Paris and London for the Business O Féminin community, including a sold-out breakfast with Arianna Huffington that over one hundred women attended. I realized then the need to go beyond one-off talks and instead offer a program that could accelerate women’s professional development and help them acquire new skills and develop their talents. I also think we need places where women can learn, share and connect with women outside their professional networks in order to create more diversity and inspiration.

What was the hardest part of pulling this project together? What challenges seemed insurmountable and how did you overcome them?

The hardest thing is always to convince people to embark in your adventure, sponsors for example. Apollonia Poilâne, CEO of Poilâne, was the first to believe in this project and support me with a space to host this club. I am grateful for her support so early on to bring this project to life. We were fortunate to also have ENGIE’s enthusiastic support within days! It’s rare for such big organisations to lend their support so quickly. With the coaches and experts, they were also very positive and saw the value in bringing all the different skill trainings in one place.Finally, the women professionals I encounter on a daily basis are excited and find this format to be innovative but also much in demand.

Six months from now, looking back, what do you hope people will say about how their experience at the Club affected them and changed their lives?

I hear so many women questioning their professional and personal lives yet they don’t know where to start. I hope that our workshops and meet-ups will give them the knowledge, skills and confidence to make the right decisions and empower them to make positive changes in their lives. We have had women contact us for courses for all kinds of reasons from wanting to change careers (e.g. banking to start up) to just learning a new topic such as personal branding. I hope all these women will look back and talk about their experience and how profound a change we were able to make in their lives, whether through learning a new skill, gaining confidence, meeting new people and so on.

What do you personally hope to learn from this project?

I want to how learn to create the right environment for our audience. This includes the venue, decorations, themes, content, communications and the economics behind it all. Through my work at Business O Féminin, I was fortunate to have a wide network of exceptional women who could be partners: Valérie Gerbi, artistic director at Merci concept store was just the person we needed to decorate and theme our space with Ajiri Aki from Madame de la Maison adding a touch of beautiful vintage and Amanda de Montal bringing her exceptional scented candles to the club.

Where will people find you during these next few weeks? What events and experiences are you looking forward to the most?

I am looking forward to spending my next three weeks at the club meetings, participating and learning as much as possible about what we can improve for next time. We have decided to cover a wide range of topics from personal branding and public speaking to learning how to code and how to go about starting a new business. Our coaches have varied backgrounds such Olivia Penichou who previously was Communication Director for Christine Lagarde. We will also host special evenings such as the one organised for La Maison des Femmes de Saint Denis, an organisation that helps sexually harassed women and FGM (female genital mutilation) victims to rebuild their lives. We hope to be able to raise money for the founder Ghada Hatem as we are very inspired by their work. The other important meeting will be end of November “Pitch night” which enable start-ups who want to raise funds to pitch in front of business angels and VC’s.

What’s next?

Business O Féminin Club will last three weeks in October but we plan to take all our learnings and create something bigger and more permanent in the very near future.

Hope to see you at the Club!

PS. For the full calendar of events head over here. The direct links to my workshop are here (Oct 11) and here (Oct 18). Spots are super limited and the prices are very friendly so get on it! And don't forget to use the BFLOVERS promo code for a 20% discount.