Ellevate Network

Ellevate Network is a membership community for professional women, descended from 85 Broads, the network Janet Hanson founded in 1997 for women who worked or had worked at Goldman Sachs. It opened to women in other companies and industries, and was rebranded Ellevate Network in 2014. The organisation is a Certified B Corporation, certified in 2016, and is certified as a Women's Business Enterprise by the Women's Business Enterprise National Council. Its programme combines three things: local chapters running coffee chats, happy hours and workshops in cities including New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, Dubai, Madrid and Toronto; Squads, a twelve-week facilitated mastermind programme that puts members into small peer groups; and a calendar of virtual Roundtables, Community Circles, executive events and the annual Mobilize Women summit. Ellevate also works with employers on hiring, retention and diversity programmes, and runs an Experts programme through which members publish. In 2023 Ellevate offered a free Guest tier, a Pro tier at US$40 a month paid annually and an Executive tier at US$150 a month paid annually; the community has since moved onto a Hivebrite platform that does not publish prices publicly.

How it works

Members join online at one of several tiers and attach to a local chapter, which runs informal meet-ups and workshops. The distinctive product is Squads, a twelve-week mastermind programme placing members in a small facilitated group, offered on the paid tiers only. Beyond that, members attend virtual Roundtables and Community Circles - free on paid tiers, ticketed for guests - watch recorded sessions from an event library, use a member directory, and can direct-message members in the Ellevate Experts programme. The Executive tier adds senior-level Squads and fuller access to executive events.

Typical member

Professional women across industries and career stages. Ellevate's tiers distinguish general members from senior executives: the Executive tier's Squads programme was described as connecting "other senior executives", while Pro-tier Squads were open more broadly.

Ellevate is one of the more open organisations in this database: there is no revenue test, no title requirement and no interview, and until recently a free tier let anyone join. What is bought at the paid tiers is Squads, the facilitated twelve-week peer group, plus discounted or free access to events. That makes it a career-development community rather than a selective executive network, and it competes on price rather than exclusivity. The current gap is transparency. Since the move to a Hivebrite platform, Ellevate's membership tiers, prices and chapter list are no longer rendered to the public, so a prospective member cannot compare options without logging in, and the figures recorded here come from the organisation's own 2023 pages. Ellevate does not publish an explicit statement on whether men may join; its stated mission is helping women thrive at work.

Editorial analysis by Peer Group Guide editors. It is separated from the record above and follows the editorial policy.