SISTERHOOD AND THE CITY

According to Allbright founders Anna Jones and Debbie Wosskow, amazing things happen when women come together. They talk to Arielle Tchiprout about their mission to create a brighter future for working women

On an inconspicuous street in Bloomsbury, London, you’ll find a Virginia Woolf quote emblazoned on a blackedout window: ‘A woman must have money and a room of her own.’ Behind this sign lies The Allbright, a beautiful Georgian townhouse-turned-private members’ club for ambitious women. Inside, creatives, scientists and entrepreneurs are meeting, pitching and planning. Just like Virginia Woolf and her friends more than a century ago, the women here are creating, collaborating and –

I have a sneaking suspicion – changing the world.

I’m here to meet the club’s founders, ‘best mates’ Anna Jones and Debbie Wosskow. Both are powerhouses in their own right: Anna Jones is the former CEO of Hearst UK, the publisher behind Red and other magazines including Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping. Debbie Wosskow is a serial entrepreneur; she recently sold her business Lovehomeswap – a house-swapping business inspired by The Holiday – for $52 million.

Last year, they came together to create Allbright, which began as a fund to invest in female entrepreneurs. Since then, the business has expanded to encompass an academy, equipping women with the skills and confidence to succeed, and a festival of events named Foundher, which this year featured talks and workshops from the likes of Thomasina Miers, Trinny Woodall and Helen Pankhurst. In March, they unveiled The Allbright, a physical space committed to inspiring and supporting women.

‘We’ve seen first-hand that amazing things happen when women from different worlds come together,’ Wosskow tells me. ‘We want women to leave here feeling like they can go out and kick ass.’

Partially inspired by The Wing, a women-only co-working space in New York City (founded by Audrey Gelman, a former press aide for Hillary Clinton), and the exclusive London members’ club Soho House, Jones describes The Allbright as a ‘one-stop shop’ for everything a working woman needs. Alongside space for work and meetings, the townhouse has a cafe, cocktail bar and beauty salon. It hosts talks, socials and events, as well as fitness classes.

Allbright is a business built upon a net of female friendship and sisterhood. Jones and Wosskow met at a party in 2015 and instantly bonded. ‘I didn’t want to go out that night, but my mum always says, “You’ll never meet the man sitting in your kitchen,” and it’s the same with friends,’ Wosskow recalls. ‘Our relationship was a bit like a whirlwind romance.’

It’s obvious why they gel. Both are warm and welcoming yet distinctly no-nonsense. Most importantly, though, they share a laser-sharp vision for what they want working women’s futures to look like. ‘We’d meet for cocktails or breakfast and bang on the table, ranting about our own experiences in business,’ Wosskow says. ‘Soon, we had a battered cocktail menu with “Project Allbright” on it, inspired by Madeleine

‘WE WANT WOMEN TO FEEL LIKE THEY CAN KICK ASS’

Albright’s quote, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” This would eventually become our business plan.’

The pair were galvanised by stats that confirmed what they already knew anecdotally. ‘We discovered that only 2% of venture capital in 2016 went to female-led businesses while, on the other side of the table, only 7% of investors were women,’ Jones recites. ‘Only one in six leadership positions in UK companies are filled by women, yet female CEOS deliver 35% better returns. We saw this huge open goal that no one was doing anything about.’

The timing to start a joint venture was perfect: Wosskow was selling Lovehomeswap, and Jones felt she’d achieved most of her goals as Hearst’s CEO. And so the fund was born in August 2017, and went on to back eight successful female-led businesses including healthy snack brand Well & Truly (sold in Tesco and on Ocado) and Technology Will Save Us, which makes coding toys for children. As female founders working to empower other female founders, they found that they weren’t always taken seriously as they worked to raise investment.

‘We were once referred to as “the girls” in a meeting,’ Jones recalls. ‘We were called “totty”, told we needed to be “brought down a peg or two”, and asked in meetings what our husbands do.’

Comments like these only scratch the surface of the deeper issues facing women in work today. The Harvey Weinstein scandal that broke last year highlighted the epidemic of workplace harassment, while the male-only Presidents Club event in March, during which waitresses were groped and heckled, was particularly stinging for Jones and Wosskow.

‘Our first forays into the world of work were as waitresses, but this also struck home because we know this isn’t an anomaly,’ Jones says. ‘Women in all professions can and still do face sexism and limits to their progress.’

A women-only club won’t necessarily tackle these problems directly, but creating a safe, supportive and celebratory space for women to thrive is clearly a move in the right direction. But men are also allowed into The Allbright as guests of members. ‘For practicality reasons, our members need to be able to invite male colleagues, clients and friends to get the most out of the club,’ Jones explains. ‘But, also, we want to be inclusive and bring enlightened men into the conversation.’

Wosskow and Jones are insistent that the club’s membership is diverse; its

800 members were selected to encompass a variety of industries, ages, ethnicities and incomes. Soon they will be opening another space in Mayfair, and they won’t rule out regional expansion.

‘We love seeing female artists, scientists, creatives and CEOS chatting and networking,’ Jones says. ‘We see them spending time together, cooking up projects. It’s brilliant watching these work friendships develop.’

At the core of it all is the strong friendship that exists between its two founders, who describe themselves as ‘work sisters’. Not only does each act as a career cheerleader for the other, they socialise and even holiday together.

‘Anna is the only person I’ve met who operates at my pace, which is relentless,’ Wosskow says. ‘We’ve never had a cross word. We’re always there to talk each other off the ledge.’ This close bond is a microcosm for their long-term goal: to help all working women thrive through female connections, friendship and mutual respect. And with

Jones and Wosskow in our collective corner, the future looks bright.