Meet the female powerhouse duo changing the way women work

Start-up supremo Debbie Wosskow and former CEO Anna Jones are changing the way we work — to suit women. As they get the keys to their Mayfair club, they tell Phoebe Luckhurst how they’re building a billion-pound empire

Debbie Wosskow — OBE, serial entrepreneur, co-founder of the AllBright Club — is explaining the concept of “game face”. “It’s about putting on the armour before you go into the presentation.” She straightens. “Doing the preparation. We do get asked whether it’s consistent to say that we’re a business here to empower women, where you can also get a blow-dry. We think that’s 100 per cent consistent. It’s all about what your version of game face is.”

Wosskow has hers on today. Besides being coiffed and polished, she is in steely, valedictorian mode. Her answers land as full, formed sentences, everything on-message (“Our best off-the-cuff remarks are well-rehearsed”).

If this is game face, you can see how Wosskow — along with co-founder Anna Jones, the former CEO of Hearst — have raised almost £11 million over two rounds of funding for their women’s network, the AllBright Club, which they launched in September 2017.

We meet in the AllBright’s stately Rathbone Street clubhouse to discuss the network’s galloping expansion: first into a second London site in Maddox Street, which opens on Wednesday, and then into its first US outpost, in Los Angeles, this summer (AllBright West Hollywood). A New York venue will open “in Q1 next year”, Wosskow says.

Potent mythology is the prerequisite for modern brand-building, and duly, the AllBright has its story. Wosskow sold her holiday rentals site Love Home Swap (the idea was inspired by romcom The Holiday) to the Wyndham Hotels group for almost £41 million in 2017, and swiftly started looking for her next deal. Jones is a corporate castaway: she ascended the ranks at Hearst and ran the show for almost three years, overseeing a portfolio of 25 magazines that includes ELLE and Cosmopolitan, before being “set up” with Wosskow at a party. They scribbled the idea for the AllBright Club on a napkin over dinner, and Jones left her corner office at Hearst to co-found it.

The name is a nod to Madeleine Albright, the first female US Secretary of State whose maxim “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women” has become a clarion call for modern sisterhood. It was originally an investment vehicle for female-led businesses but pivoted, early on, to be a “network”. Members pay £1150 a year, plus a £300 joining fee, which gives access to AllBright’s London and LA clubs plus a guaranteed place on the AllBright Academy’s 10-week digital course for supporting women in the workplace. They also enjoy access to the programme of panels and networking events (plus a wine club and a book club, Jones adds). Its thousands of members range from magazine editors to VCs, and more than 22,000 followers on Instagram.

Jones and Wosskow’s first book, Believe, Build, Become (“a manifesto, but also a really practical guide”) is published on Thursday. “Our plans for global domination do keep one awake at night,” grins Wosskow.

Each floor at the Rathbone Street site is named after female members of the cerebral Bloomsbury Group. There are Ohne tampons in the loos (toxin-free; five per cent of the proceeds go to supporting a menstrual health mission in the Zambia), and copies of the in-house magazine lying on clubhouse tables: the cover star is body-positivity activist Jameela Jamil. Wosskow smiles. “The buildings stand for something above and beyond just bricks and mortar.” Maddox Street will have much of the same, plus a gym and two roof terraces; LA is a work-in-progress.

But back to the message. “We set up the AllBright, focusing on the problem of where the f*** are all the women,” says Wosskow, game face fixed in determination. “We’ve been at this a long time, and the data still demonstrates that women don’t lead businesses, only two per cent of capital allocated goes back to a female founder, only one in six leadership positions in the UK are women.” That is, undeniably, dispiriting. “People saying, ‘Oh, we want to put a woman on our board but we can’t find one?’ Honestly, try harder.” Her eyes narrow. “Because they’re in our building every day.”

People say they want women on boards but can’t find them — try harder. They’re in our building every day.

Debbie Wosskow 

Jones and Wosskow theorise that the imbalance is, in part, due to men’s superior networking ability. “Our lives turned on a sixpence when we met each other,” Wosskow observes. “We want to create more opportunities for that to happen in women’s lives.” Jones leaps in: “Men have been flexing networking muscles for much longer.” And so the AllBright clubhouses create “organised serendipity”. Women meet other women — who could become co-founders. collaborators or confidantes. Their book includes chapters on networking, as well as on confidence, personal brand and salary negotiation.

On pay, Jones is unequivocal. “NEVER come into a scenario where you say, ‘I need a pay rise because I’m buying a flat. Or, ‘I need a pay rise because Sarah got one.’ I’ve had all of those. To get a significant pay rise, you have to have delivered significantly for the business over and above what you are paid to do. Prove that.” Wosskow is certain that this pay-rise chapter is good. “We know it’s working because every member of our team has come in to negotiate a pay rise.”

Over our 45-minute conversation the words “preparation” and “workshop” (used as a verb, eg to workshop your ideas; to workshop your problems; to workshop yourself) recur time and again. Jones and Wosskow are not selling a fantasy. “If from the outside what we’re doing looks effortless, it isn’t,” Wosskow says. “As well as being a lot of graft, we really do practice. We’re each other’s critics on everything — from dresses to delivery.” They talk about a work-life “blend”. Wosskow says: “We work ridiculously hard — that is the founder’s lot. If you don’t want to do that, you wouldn’t start something like this. But it is the best fun. You have days that are horrendous but we love the fact we are on WhatsApp from 6am in the morning with each other at weekends.”

Both women have two children (a boy and a girl each). “Nobody’s got it right,” Jones shrugs. “I’ve never met anybody who says, ‘Well, this is how you do it.’ We’re not pretending to say we’ve got the answer.” Though on days without childcare, there’s a three-storey Georgian townhouse to play in. “My kids were in yesterday,” Wosskow smiles. “Watching The Boxtrolls in the cinema. Somehow they’d ordered chips.”

How to network your way to the top

Use the gang you have

The best place to start is with the people you’ve known for years. It’s vital to nurture these relationships as they know you the best.

Look for diversity 

Be cautious about surrounding yourself with different versions of you. Diversity of opinion, experience and knowledge is important. Including men in a sisterhood is key — we’ve both had fantastic male support, from bosses, investors, business partners and chairmen who have been instrumental in our success. 

Add a mentor 

Mentors are key members of your sisterhood yet women are statistically less likely to have someone mentoring them. It doesn’t have to be a formal relationship, or with someone who has done exactly what you’ve done, rather someone you respect who can guide you.

Find different ways to network

There is potential to network everywhere, from the gym changing rooms to the school run to a friend’s party (where we met). If “networking” fills you with fear, reframe the concept in your mind. You just need to be curious about everyone you meet and the opportunities they could present, and how you can help them in return.

Maintain your networks

It’s hard to keep up with a large and growing network of contacts. This is where social media comes into its own — people notice when you like or comment on a significant post. Using diary reminders to drop an email or call at certain times in the year can be hugely effective. Connecting people who you know, but who don’t know each other, is a good way of paying forward the networking karma.

A board of directors — for you

Once you’ve built up a network, narrow down your most trusted advisers. Just as a company would have one, so should you appoint a board of directors for your career. 

Are you about to negotiate a pay rise, going for a job interview, or dealing with a difficult boss or colleague? Think about who in your network you know has dealt with a similar issue and can be ready to advise and challenge you – you don’t need yes men or women. Success requires constant work. Lean on your sisterhood to help. 

Extract from Believe Build Become by Debbie Wosskow and Anna Jones, published by Virgin Books, £14.99

Broadly, the AllBright philosophy is Lean In but with the crucial support of a sisterhood. Wosskow notes that LA is a timely market to launch into. “It’s the home of #MeToo. That’s interesting because to some extent that has been indicative of how the zeitgeist has moved with us in a way that we couldn’t have predicted when we first started thinking about AllBright. These issues are front-page news in a way that I don’t think they were five years ago.

“We want to build a billion-dollar business. Why the f*** not? Women generally don’t, so we feel like we should.”

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