Dominant Women
Vol. IX · Issue 47 · November 2025
Dominant Women Live is our annual gathering for women who refuse to lead quietly. One sold-out room in Austin. One day, no panels of pleasantries — only the conversations about executive presence, negotiation, and power that we cannot publish in the newsletter.
On the morning of March 14, 2024, twelve hundred women filed into a single black-box theater at the Austin Convention Center. They came from sixty-two countries. Forty-one percent held director, VP, SVP, or C-suite titles. The median household income of the room, verified through our post-event survey, was $187,000.
They were not there to network. They were not there to be inspired. They came for the operating manual — the version we cannot publish in a newsletter because it requires being in a room with the people who have actually done the work. Twelve hours of programming. Twenty-eight speakers, including three former Fortune 500 CHROs, two bestselling authors, and the editor of a Pulitzer-nominated magazine. Thirty-eight corporate sponsors underwrote the day, from Microsoft and Goldman Sachs to YPO chapters across eleven metros.
The inaugural Dominant Women Live sold out six weeks in advance. There were no recordings made available to the public. The conversations on stage — about compensation disclosure, board appointments, the cost of being the only woman in the C-suite — stayed in the room with the women who earned their seat in it.
We are now planning the next edition. The newsletter is the only place announcements will appear first.
Subscribe to be notifiedA selection of editorial photography from the inaugural Dominant Women Live. Released with permission of the speakers and the venue.
I came to Austin expecting another conference. I left with the clearest answer I have ever heard to the question I had been afraid to ask out loud at my own company.
— Director of Strategy, Fortune 500 financial services firm · Attendee, March 2024
Figures verified by the Dominant Women editorial team against on-site check-in records, post-event survey responses (n = 1,184), and sponsor contracts on file.
A selection of the speakers who anchored the inaugural program. Full speaker list for the next edition will be announced first to The Authority Brief subscribers.
Twenty-three years inside two S&P 500 companies. On the record about board appointments, compensation disclosure, and what she would not do differently if she had to do it again.
Walked the room through the framework our readers have cited in 230+ LinkedIn newsletters and fourteen business school syllabi. Live coaching on real compensation conversations.
On leaving a partnership to build a company in a category no investor took seriously. The closing session of the day, on the record and unedited.
The conversation about what the press still gets wrong about women in power, and the editorial standards she now enforces in her own newsroom as a result.
The next Dominant Women Live is in planning. Speaker announcements, ticket windows, and sponsor partnerships are released first to subscribers of The Authority Brief.
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