Ten years in, five cities carry the Female Ventures story forward. We asked the women leading them what it takes to build a chapter, and what keeps them showing up.
Female Ventures doesn’t exist in one place. It exists in Rotterdam networking drinks, in Eindhoven’s mixed crowd of students and seasoned professionals, in a Delft/The Hague community that has grown from a handful of women into one of the organisation’s strongest chapters. Each city has its own rhythm, its own local flavour, built by directors who do this work alongside full careers, for no pay, because they believe it matters.
We spoke with three of them — Lydie Smets, City Director Eindhoven, Lily Hamouche, City Director Rotterdam, and Kristin Unger, who led the Delft/The Hague chapter before stepping into her current role as National Marketing Director — about how they got here, what nobody sees, and what they hope for their cities ten years from now.
Lily Hamouche, Lidye Smets, and Kristin Unger
How they got here
For Lily Hamouche, who became Rotterdam’s City Director in December 2025, the decision came from a simple alignment of values. “I strongly believed in the power of community and the impact that meaningful connections can have on women’s personal and professional growth,” she says. “The mission of empowering women through networking, learning, and support is aligned with my values.” Taking on the role, she says, felt like a natural extension of something she already cared about: Building a space where ambitious women in Rotterdam could meet like-minded women and share experiences.
Lydie Smets in Eindhoven was looking for something specific: a meaningful way to support female starters and young professionals navigating male-dominated work environments. When the City Director vacancy appeared, she didn’t hesitate. “It was the perfect match because I also love building and mentoring teams,” she says, “so it really allowed me to kill two birds with one stone.”
Kristin Unger came to Delft/The Hague a different way: through the community itself, before the title. She joined as a member, drawn in by a friend’s invitation to a summer networking event at the Social Hub in Delft. “I showed up thinking I’d just meet some cool women, maybe grab a glass of wine,” she says. Being a communications professional, stepping into the marketing volunteer role felt like an obvious fit, and from there, one thing led to another. When previous City Director Velina Veleva stepped down, Kristin took over, inheriting a team and a foundation already carefully built. “I never saw myself as a leader,” she says, “but through my experiences with this team and this community, I’ve realized that leadership isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about bringing people together and creating opportunities for growth.”
A city has a way of shaping its community
Every chapter has its own personality, and the directors are quick to describe it.
Rotterdam, Lily says, is “incredibly diverse”. Entrepreneurs, freelancers, corporate professionals, creatives, students, and women exploring new paths, held together by a small team of six with a shared curiosity and willingness to support one another. What sets the chapter apart, she says, is its range: “From learning to empower your brand in an authentic way to contract negotiation skills.” Events built so that every woman, wherever she is in her career, leaves having learned something.
Eindhoven’s energy comes from an unlikely mix. “We attract a lot of students,” Lydie says, “but the real magic lies in the blend of generations and backgrounds.” Students alongside solopreneurs, professionals in transition, corporate leaders, and expat spouses starting over in the Netherlands. “This mix creates an incredibly rich environment where we can all learn from one another.”
Delft/The Hague is the largest of the five chapters, with over 1,000 members, and Kristin says the scale hasn’t cost it intimacy. “There are so many faces that keep coming back, it feels less like networking and more like friends or colleagues meeting up,” she says. The community draws heavily from solopreneurs, coaches, and consultants, giving it what she calls an especially open, wholesome character. She credits much of that atmosphere to her team. Volunteers like Ana Maria, who she says “leads with her heart, creating a special place,” and former teammate Jay, whose energy shaped the chapter’s early culture before she moved on to become the National Partnerships Director. The team has also built structure others in the network have since adopted: process maps, checklists, and guidelines designed to make volunteer work sustainable. “I can’t say exactly how our community is different from the others,” Kristin says, “but it’s a genuine place, with familiar faces. You can come as you are, and we’re all here to support and cheer you on.”
Not one moment, but many
For Lily, pride doesn’t sit with the biggest events, it sits with what outlasts them. “The moments I am most proud of are not necessarily the biggest events, but the connections that continue long after an event has ended,” she says. She remembers women who met through Female Ventures going on to form real friendships, and an email that arrived months after an event, thanking her for the safe environment the Rotterdam chapter had created. “It is about creating an environment where women feel seen, supported, and inspired to take the next step in their journey.”
Lydie points to something surpassing a single event: growth itself. “While it is tempting to point to our big event last autumn, I am actually most proud of how our regular networking drinks have grown,” she says. What began as five or six women meeting casually has become a lively crowd of 15 to 20 showing up regularly. “Seeing that consistent community growth makes me incredibly proud of the Eindhoven team and everyone who shows up.”
Kristin’s proudest moment isn’t a single event, either: “I am, as always, most proud of my team,” she says. “It’s not a specific moment, but how we all always come through for each other, creating special events for our community.” She’s quick to note that leading the chapter hasn’t meant standing apart from it: “We are as much a part of the community as we are leading it.”
Behind the events, a second job
Ask any City Director what surprises people most, and the answer is the same: the sheer amount of work that happens between events, invisible to everyone but the team doing it.
“Most people see the event itself, but they rarely see everything that happens behind the scenes,” Lily says. Which means partnerships, speakers, venues, communications, and making sure every attendee feels welcome. “One of the most important but invisible parts is community building between events. Staying connected with members, listening to their needs, encouraging introductions.”
Lydie describes the same pattern from the ecosystem side: “It takes time and dedication to find partners, venues, and contributors who are not just looking for financial gain, but who truly believe in our mission and want to build upon each other’s strengths.”
Ask Kristin what people don’t see, and she doesn’t hold back. “That’s a really sore spot for me,” she says, laughing. As City Director, she wasn’t just leading a team. It is much more, as Lily pointed out as well. It is also doing marketing, partnerships, and community management, often putting in a full day’s work a week on Female Ventures, well beyond the two to four hours the role is meant to take. “People see the event. They don’t always see all the coordination behind it,” she says. For example, the bi-weekly meetings, the calls with speakers and venue partners, the internal alignment calls, the checklists, the quarterly face-to-face workshops, the WhatsApp community, the LinkedIn messages that come in one by one. “It’s like a real job, and the event or the post is the professional outcome.” And all of it, she adds, running on volunteers and favours: “We do everything unpaid, and all the venues and speakers are either unpaid or sponsored.”
What comes back to them
Beyond the work itself, each director names something personal.
For Lily, it’s been a widening of perspective: “It has helped me discover my superpower: building a community, bringing people together,” she says. “It has given me a strong sense of purpose. Knowing that even a single introduction, conversation, or event can positively impact someone’s life or career makes the role deeply fulfilling.”
Lydie, who came from a tech background, found the role cracked open a world she didn’t know existed outside her own bubble. “As a woman in tech, the tech environment was my entire world, and I mistakenly assumed every professional woman in Eindhoven had a similar background,” she says. “Joining Female Ventures opened up a whole new world for me.”
It has been incredibly rewarding to step outside my usual bubble and get to know such a diverse, inspiring group of women. — Lydie Smets, City Director, Eindhoven
Kristin found something similar in her own path through the chapter, first as a member, then as a marketing volunteer, then as director. Taking on more responsibility, launching the chapter’s blog and monthly newsletter, and working closely with her team, she says, helped her develop skills she didn’t know she had. “Leadership isn’t about having all the answers,” she says. “It’s about bringing people together and creating opportunities for growth.” A lesson she has carried with her since stepping up into her current role as National Marketing Director.
Looking ahead
Lily’s wish stays close to home: a Rotterdam chapter that grows stronger and more visible, and in a decade, “a thriving network where women actively mentor, invest in, hire, and support one another.” A chapter that shapes not just individual careers but a more inclusive local business ecosystem. “I hope every woman who joins feels that she has found a place where she belongs and can truly thrive.”
Lydie thinks in terms of ecosystem, not expansion. “Eindhoven is already blessed with many fantastic initiatives supporting women, so my wish is not for us to outgrow or compete with them, but to complement them,” she says. Her hope for the next decade is a seamless, collaborative network across the city’s women’s organisations, “where every single woman, regardless of her background or career stage, can easily find the exact space, support, and mentorship she needs to thrive.”
Kristin’s wish scales her national vision down to community level. “I wish for Female Ventures to be the go-to institution for women in their area; to open doors, to help them grow professionally, and to keep finding genuine friendship and support along the way,” she says.
Five cities, five different chapters of the same story. Not every city has a director right now — Utrecht is between leaders, and Amsterdam wasn’t able to take part this time — but the ones who show up, week after week, are the reason Female Ventures has a local flavour in every city it touches.
Contributors:
Lily Hamouche · City Director, Rotterdam
Lydie Smets · City Director, Eindhoven
Kristin Unger · Former City Director, Delft/The Hague