Not Just Ladies Who Lunch: Rethinking How Women Do Business Together
“Oh, so have you got your ladies who lunch event on today?”
He was referring to Working Women Club. It was meant as a joke, but it landed heavily because beneath the humour sat a familiar assumption: that when women gather, it is social rather than serious. Conversations about starting, building, and sustaining businesses somehow shrink into a coffee morning the moment they happen over cake and coffee instead of boardroom tables.
No one asks whether business conducted on a golf course is merely a day out. The difference, of course, is not the substance of the conversation but the environment in which it happens. The environment quietly shapes how seriously we take what unfolds within it.
Many traditional networking groups are built around visible outputs: referrals made, contacts brought, deals won. Groups like BNI are structured around measurable performance, with pressure baked in to justify attendance through results. I was invited to several meetings like this, but they never quite fit. I am a relationship builder, but my approach is slower, softer, and rooted in trust rather than transaction, really rather feminine wouldn’t you say.
There is another dynamic I have noticed in these spaces. Often, you are the only one who does what you do. The logic is clear: if someone needs an accountant, there is only one to refer, and eventually the business flows. I understand the model. It is efficient but it assumes scarcity. I operate from a belief in abundance, and that there is room for more than one version of excellence in any field.
Competition definitely has its place as it sharpens thinking and keeps offers, products and services relevant. But I believe choice matters more. If there are three brand designers in a room, and you need branding support, the decision should come down to shared values, understanding, and the right solution for your specific challenge, not because one person happened to secure exclusivity.
That belief was quietly validated during a Working Women Club session when two financial advisers attended on the same day. Instead of tension, something else happened. Romany, new to the group, waited nervously to introduce herself until she heard Julie speak. In that moment, she saw a future version of herself. Another woman navigating a male-dominated finance world. Another woman making it work. The shift was visible to “if it is possible for her, then it is possible for me too.”
There was no competition between them. What followed was genuine peer-to-peer support. Romany later shared how nervous she had been to attend. As the youngest financial adviser in the country, still finding her place in the industry, she had pushed herself to network for the first time in what felt like a safer environment. When she spoke about her vision to help women gain financial control and build wealth, and her frustration at how often women are sidelined in financial conversations, the room responded instantly. Stories surfaced about jargon-heavy meetings, about advisers speaking only to husbands, about feeling patronised rather than empowered.
What happened next mattered. Romany did not just leave with a ready made support group, she left with validation. Proof that the problem she wanted to solve was real, shared, and extremely urgent. That single session built confidence not only in attending networking spaces, but in her business itself. Since then, I have watched her grow, take up space on conference stages, and speak openly about why she does what she does.
The first step into a room like this often feels like the hardest. Walking in without knowing who you will meet or how you will be received takes courage. But when the environment is right, what emerges can be transformative. Not because women are “having lunch or coffee mornings,” but because they are building something together, in a space that finally allows the conversation to be taken seriously.
Originally posted on Huddle Online.
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