MONTAUK, New York — On a brisk August morning, about a dozen women clad in trendy swimwear emerged from an “ocean plunge,” a wellness trend touted for boosting mood and reducing inflammation.
The scene was peak Hamptons, with one key difference. After toweling off, they got back to the real reason they were on the beach: funding rounds and board seats.
These were senior women investors and leaders in fashion and retail — from Ralph Lauren to QVC to mall operator Simon Property Group — holding court at a Dealmakehers meetup, an exclusive network of women who’ve brokered million-dollar deals and lead retail organisations.
“I just had two offers to introduce [my] brand to major international department stores … plus at least two potential collaboration opportunities,” said Summersalt co-founder and chief executive Lori Coulter, who outfitted the women for the plunge.
DealmakeHers’ founders, retail PR veteran Stacy Berns and retail advisor Stacey Widlitz, pitched their Aug. 4-5 gathering as an antidote to the golf junkets that dominate trade shows and other industry events. Attendees were encouraged to set bold, specific goals: make money, secure funding and forge lucrative partnerships.
“You’re not here to ask, ‘How are your kids? What are you doing this summer?’ You’re here to talk business,” the designer Rebecca Minkoff told The Business of Fashion.
On Minkoff’s to-do list: laying the groundwork to secure a board seat, striking a new partnership for Female Founder Collective, her own networking group for women founders, and onboarding a new vendor partner for her brand.
Events like this have gotten rarer since Donald Trump’s inauguration. As corporate America pulls back from diversity, equity and inclusion commitments, women executives and founders — particularly those from historically underrepresented groups — have even fewer institutional pathways to capital, influence and transformative deals. The small pool of funds earmarked for women and minorities after 2020 has rapidly dwindled amid political and legal pushback.
The Fearless Fund, which backed beauty brands like The Lip Bar and Brown Girl Jane, was forced to dismantle a grant programme for Black women last year. Earlier this year, the women-focussed Trybe conference, a retail-focussed spin-off of Shoptalk, abruptly canceled its inaugural conference citing political pressure targeting DEI initiatives.
Many women at DealmakeHers said these setbacks have galvanised them to band together, swap resources and advance each other’s business goals with renewed urgency. Sometimes, that means rewriting the inclusion playbook. Much of the conversation at the gathering emphasised engaging more men as funders, mentors and advisors.
“In this new landscape, I’m personally seeing we don’t have to change our message or lose our impact,” said Aliya Sahai, an investment advisor and principal at Bernstein Private Wealth Management. “I think of inclusivity as bringing men into the conversation. It will be the way that we stand our ground and are able to make progress.”
Beach Plunges to Board Seats
While the event emphasised high-stakes dealmaking, it played out against a deliberately relaxed backdrop — a barefoot beach meditation, an evening bonfire, a morning workout with fitness influencer Isaac Boots. The effect is what Summersalt’s Coulter called a “low risk, low pressure” environment.
“Many doors have opened — just today,” she told BoF as she came ashore following the beach plunge.
Amy Wildstein, managing partner at Suttona Capital, a women-led growth equity firm that has backed companies including The RealReal and beauty brand K18, told BoF she’s mindful her role as an investor in consumer goods is especially critical now, after venture capitalists’ rapid retreat following the DTC boom’s uneven growth.
Professional investors, Wildstein said, are good at learning new industries quickly, often backing sectors they have no direct experience in — like cybersecurity or tech — by tapping expert insights. But consumer brands, where many women founders are concentrated, pose a distinct challenge: without a personal connection to the product, investors often fail to apply the same rigour in understanding the business.
“We hear a lot from female founders that are pitching investment committees and they’re hearing ‘let me check with my wife,’ or ‘let me ask my assistant,’” she said. “But… your wife might not be the target audience. That doesn’t mean it’s not a great business.”
Wildstein’s investment targets are often similar to brands in attendance like Summersalt and beverage label Gorgie. Wildstein said she’s been encouraging women founders to focus on steady, loyalty-driven growth rather than chasing rapid, often fleeting customer acquisition — a strategy better suited to tech but risky for consumer brands.
“if you just focus on making the customer happy to drive that repeat purchase such that you do have visibility on the next year,” she said.
Lessons for the Future
The women executives and investors at the gathering say they remain clear-eyed about the realities of navigating male-dominated industries: future success will hinge on forging strategic alliances with men. Their collective advice is pragmatic — work twice as hard, but don’t hesitate to leverage male networks and mentorship, even if that requires stepping back periodically to meet with other women who help you build the confidence to do so.
“Business is not going to get done in the same way that men are doing business,” said Minkoff, who ended up checking off every item on her to-do list, including landing an interview with a recruiter for a board seat. “You have to get creative and now you’re seeing women share how hard it is.”
Michelle Cordeiro Grant, angel investor and founder and chief executive of Gorgie, compared the current economic environment for female founders to what came after the #MeToo surge — an initial wave of dramatic capital inflows that inevitably gave way to retrenchment. One upside, she said, is that the volatility has forced women founders to develop resilience and agility, learning to navigate economic ebbs and flows rather than rely on one-off windfalls.
“Everything in business, it’s cyclical,” she said. “Yes, I’m a female founder, but I’m a founder [first] and… founders take bigger risks and faster pivots.”
Even so, some gender-specific dynamics can still be a critical advantage, some experts say. A plethora of research has consistently shown women are the primary purchasers in fashion, beauty, and broader consumer categories. (For instance, US household spending on women’s apparel averaged $655, compared with $406 for men’s apparel, per the US Bureau of Labour Statistics.)
“In fashion and beauty, femininity is a superpower,” Sahai said. “As women leaders, we have to embrace that femininity alongside business acumen, perseverance and relentless ingenuity.”