Addressing Your Feedback From the Listening Sessions and Our Roadmap for Growth
Throughout March and April, we held 38 listening sessions with the 14 identity groups represented in our community, as well as across several geographies, to listen and learn about your member experience.
Two distinct themes emerged from these sessions that have guided our path forward: Strengthening the Chief Member Experience and Deepening Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion.
Outlined below are our five focus areas to address these themes. We will update this roadmap quarterly and continue to listen, learn, and evolve so that Chief is a place where every member feels seen, heard, and supported.
Building More Meaningful In-Person Connections
- Onboarded local community managers in Atlanta, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Miami, as well as regional support across the East Coast, Midwest, and West Coast. In addition to bringing you tailored opportunities for in-person connection, community managers also support members who want to host events in their city.
- Hosted 60+ events across the country, including networking lunches, C-Suite roundtables, cocktail hours, and volunteer activities — all within the past four months.
- Expanded ChiefX, our first-ever summit in Palm Springs, to include ChiefX Local activations for greater participation in markets across the U.S. and UK.
- Launched a new, more personalized home page with real-time location functionality, enabling us to provide you with a curated list of events and group recommendations based on your area. Plus, you can now see a 360-degree view of what’s happening at Chief, including your personalized schedule, a monthly speaker spotlight, and more.
- Introduced more clubhouse events. We’ve expanded our calendar of in-person gatherings to support greater social connection and professional development. Recent highlights include live music performances, cultural celebrations hosted in collaboration with Chief’s identity-based community groups, and events with partners like Roku and Re-Inc.
Enhancing Member Support & Digital Experience
- Launched a new Events page where you can easily find and search for all upcoming and on-demand programming (workshops, Clubhouse events, and member-hosted events) in one place.
- Implemented the “Chief Marketplace,” a dedicated, opt-in community group to highlight member-owned and -operated businesses on the Chief platform. Moving forward, solicitation will be removed from other areas of the app and member site.
- Revamped the Chat experience so members can easily start and engage in conversations with up to hundreds of their peers. This enables members to keep dialogue going with all of the connections they make through chance encounters, Core meetings, or Chief events.
- Introduced a simplified onboarding email series, guiding new members into the Chief platform step-by-step to make getting started even simpler.
- Enhanced member support with our new Help and Support Center, making it easy for members to find answers to commonly asked questions, connect with our Member Experience team, and find information that helps them to get the most out of their membership.
- Improving key digital functionality, such as search and notifications, to continue to strengthen our digital community experience.
Focusing on Inclusion, Safety & Respect
- Expanded our Commitment to DEI to include more details on the demographics of our community, leadership team, Chief Guides, and Board of Directors; how we infuse DEI into our experience through programming, identity groups, and grant programs; and our $1 million commitment to support causes and organizations aligned with our mission.
- Published updated Community Guidelines, which will continue to evolve and provide clarity about how we’re managing non-inclusive behaviors, as well as our hopes for our community.
- Defined our point-of-view on inclusive facilitation and delivered training sessions to 92% of Core Guides on how to facilitate connection among members with differing identities and experiences. Inclusive facilitation training will be an ongoing offering to continually hone the skills of our Guide community.
- Increased support for identity-based groups by hiring a senior manager of community inclusion.
- Refining our identity-based strategy, which will allow us to build deeper relationships with members and better integrate identity-based perspectives across the member experience. We aim to launch this strategy in Q1 2024.
- Focusing on improving accessibility at Chief. Working across our digital and in-person experience to make Chief more accessible and equitable for current and prospective members.
Providing More Clarity & Communication
- Updated our application process so we provide clear membership criteria outlining how we vet candidates, as well as more information on our process, including timelines and ways to connect with our team to ask questions or check on the status of an application.
- Published public-facing FAQ with information about our application process, membership criteria, and member experience.
- Provided clarity around our Grant Program for ease of application and clarity around eligibility. Learn more in our FAQ.
- Updated our nominations process so you and anyone you nominate to Chief will receive updates on their application status within 90 days.
Building Chief for the Future
- Ongoing evolution of the Chief experience. Looking ahead,our roadmap includes 1) the next iteration of Core to improve group matching, extensively train Core Guides, and set clearer expectations for members 2) more tailored experiences based on seniority and needs, and 3) better and more robust ways to connect through our app.