You may have noticed for the first time ever, we have a partner for this year’s conference! We’re happy to be teaming up The Riveter to provide you an elevated experience. Just like Alt, The Riveter believes in the power of community and focuses on connecting, supporting and empowering women in their work and goals. We think we make a pretty good pair.
We asked Amy Nelson, the founder and CEO of The Riveter, a few questions so you can get to know her and her business a bit better.
How would you describe the history of The Riveter — pre-pandemic through its current iteration?
I founded The Riveter in 2017 after a decade-long career as a litigator. After the birth of my first daughter (I now have 4!), I took a hard look around corporate America and realized that there were very few women in leadership. I decided I couldn’t believe in a system that didn’t believe in me as a working mom. As I started to think about next steps, I looked to find a community of women where I lived in Seattle who were building their own businesses, sharing skills and more. I couldn’t find it! So I set out to build a local clubhouse for working women but soon realized that if I thought something like The Riveter could work in Seattle, why couldn’t it work across the country. We opened our first Riveter coworking and events space in May 2017. Over the next three years, we welcomed Riveter members in ten spaces from Washington to Texas, California and more. We learned from speakers like Robin Roberts, Jane Fonda, Abby Wambach and more. We saw businesses born within our 4 walls, raised $30 million in venture capital, and built a digital community to reach even more women. In November 2019, we hosted our very first summit in New York and had an incredible two-day event with hundreds of changemakers. When the pandemic hit the world, our business immediately shut our spaces, sent our staff home to stay safe, and stopped charging our members for space they couldn’t use. At the time, I thought the pandemic would be short lived. We quickly learned that the impacts would be lasting and we spent 2020 and 2021 working to exit our leases and re-envision The Riveter. The pandemic only strengthened our belief that women needed community around our work and lives. So we asked, who can we be? It took us awhile to figure it out, but we’re thrilled that we could pivot and rebuild. We continue to bring women together digitally and IRL, where we share our collective expertise, learn from one other and advocate for change for American women. We also share our ideas and thoughts in a weekly newsletter and a top-rated podcast, What’s Her Story with Sam and Amy. We’ve had the most amazing guests, from Melinda Gates and Huma Abedin to Cheryl Burke and Glennon Doyle.
We also relaunched our workspace business, but – like the world – it looks different today. Riveter members now work not in Riveter spaces but in beautiful, curated hotels across the country where they can access space to gather and work, food and beverage discounts, and special hotel rates.
What are you most excited about that The Riveter is working on right now?
We are working hard to partner with hotels across the country so that no matter where you live, a Riveter Space is nearby. We’re also thrilled to share that we’re launching our own curated recommendations for products that will bring value to women’s lives – and soon launching our own product line of goods! Please sign up for all of it at www.theriveter.co! Anything else that the Alt Summit Community should know?
We love Alt Summit and the Alt Community! We’ve been lucky enough to attend Alt Summit in Palm Springs and we were blown away by the creativity and brilliance of the attendees. And you’re also fun! We’ll bring Riveters to New York to join us, and we think it’s a match made in heaven! We also can’t say this enough: Coming together in person matters. It’s important. It’s how we change the world. And we can’t wait!
——-
Thank you Amy! We couldn’t agree more.
