Athena Alliance

The barriers and challenges facing women in the business sector, particularly at the executive level and within traditionally male-dominated industries like tech, are well-documented. 

Women are outnumbered by men in the C-suite, in the boardroom, and are often excluded from the crucial organizational networks that help them climb the ranks, according to one recent report from the Society for Human Resource Professionals. 

There’s no shortage of networking groups to offer support to professional women, but one platform aims to go a few steps further, offering women networking opportunities, just-in-time business acumen and situation-based coaching that supports women at all stages of their career and across all lines of business.

“We are a network of professional women, with key resources, knowledge and connections,” says Coco Brown, Founder and CEO of the Athena Alliance, an online platform that has amassed more than 1300 members since its launch just two years ago. 

The roots of Athena Alliance can be traced back to 2005. Brown, who has spent most of her career—30 years—in Silicon Valley, was first promoted to a vice-president role while working for a company in the deep tech space when she was 27. 

Her experience, as a woman in a senior leadership position surrounded by men, helped Brown see that women need a space to share knowledge and support each other’s growth and success. She soon started a dinner group where women could actually talk shop without having to deal with the assumptions that they often faced in conference rooms. It grew from eight women to more than 150, and attracted anywhere from 20 to 40 women for networking dinners.

“This wasn’t a group for us to commiserate—we just needed the opportunity to talk about best practices, business solutions, that sort of thing, while being totally invested in each other’s success,” Brown recalls. 

But it wasn’t until she realized that many of those women were still facing barriers, despite being high achieving, ambitious, successful women, often in executive positions, that she launched Athena Alliance in 2021, providing women access to curated and on-demand learning, networking and knowledge-sharing opportunities. 

Athena Alliance also provides its members with what Brown describes as “just-in-time” business acumen, whether it’s legal expertise, a crash course in how IPOs work, or what to do in a crisis. 

“It’s what you need to know, exactly when you need to know it. It’s like Netflix for business — you can log in, seek out your subject matter and have a front row seat to that knowledge immediately,” Brown says. 

Athena Alliance is constantly producing content, and has banked hundreds of hours of videos in its library, catalogued according to topic and ‘pathways,’ the latter of which are like guided lessons for women seeking guidance on subjects such as advancing to the boardroom or navigating a transition. 

The platform also offers women situation-based coaching, giving members access to the best of the best, whether it’s someone who has trained Olympic athletes or worked with the FBI, or an expert in the psychology of voice. 

“You can Google facts and data, but you can’t, unfortunately, Google wisdom,” says Brown.  “But wouldn’t it be great if you find the right person to talk to, or access specific business content, whenever you need it, and finally find the wisdom you need.

“That’s what Athena Alliance offers.”