Leading UK Women’s website, www.wearethecity.com lays it’s future roots in Essex

9 years ago

Vanessa is Managing Director of WeAreTheCity and author of leading book, Heels of Steel, Surviving and Thriving in the Corporate World and is a regular speaker for both global organisations and local schools. After a 25 year senior career in the City, Vanessa knows all too well how easy it is to lose momentum in your job particularly at times when women often need additional support in order to achieve their career goals.

WeAreTheCity.com is the no.1 career aggregator site for women, offering careers advice, jobs and support. Set up in 2008, it is a website that supports women by providing a myriad of information that they can use to develop their careers. The site provides motivation from regular bloggers and career experts as well as profiling inspirational women and business leaders. WeAreTheCity also promotes the activities of over 200 women’s networks and in excess of 200 career orientated events per year. They have raised over £50,000 for various charities and 10% of the site is dedicated to free advertising for social enterprises and charity based initiatives. These enterprises are intended to both support charities and to encourage women to give back and help others as part of their career.

Rayleigh residents Vanessa (42) and her husband Stewart (39) have been building WeAreTheCity for the past 6 years alongside their senior corporate careers and raising their two daughters. During this period they have grown the site to incorporate over 26,000 female members, 4 million hits per month and 200,000 unique visitors.

At the start of this year the couple were offered investment to expand the business and didn’t hesitate in deciding that the new offices would be based locally in Essex. Vanessa and Stewart believe heavily in growing the local community and are intent on employing local talent and are helping a number of youngsters to obtain work experience through their apprenticeship and weekly visit schemes.

Vanessa or Stewart are available for interviews or any press team is welcome to visit our offices in Hockley, Warren House, 10-20 Main Road, Hockley, SS5 4QS.

Contact details: Chantelle@wearethecity.com - Telephone: 01702 201 695

Additional information

For more information on Vanessa www.vanessavallely.com

WeAreTheCity also has a website based in India www.wearethecity.in

WeAreTheCity also has an associated job board www.careerscity.co.uk

Vanessa also sits on the board of Women of Influence for Cancer Research

Vanessa and Stewart are also Pearly Queen and King of the City of London

WeAreTheCity currently employee 5 local individuals, 1 apprentice (from Fitzwymarc School) & 2 young girls on work experience (from Sweyne school)

About WeAreTheCity.com

About WeAreTheCity The aim of WeAreTheCity is to provide an information careers and lifestyle portal for women working in London and across the UK. It was founded in 2008 by husband and wife team, Stewart & Vanessa Vallely with the intention of providing career orientated content to working women and entrepreneurs across London. Other key facts • It has been funded by both founders and was run as a not for profit from 2008 to 2013. • WeAreTheCity has a database of over 30,000 professional and entrepreneurial women. • The company has a projected reach (via network relationships) of approx. 400,000 women across the UK. • WeAreTheCity experiences over 4million hits per month, 210,000 unique visitors • WeAreTheCity.com is the top 1% of visited websites in the UK (as per Alexa.com), ranking at 7,275 out of 10 million websites registered in the UK, 181,977 out of 1 billion websites worldwide. • WeAreTheCity has a job board offering specifically aimed at our female members, www.careerscity.co.uk which was launched in October 2012. • WeAreTheCity.com has a sister site based in India which was just launched in March 2013, www.WeAreTheCity.in. This is currently sponsored by Ernst & Young LLP • We have a combined social media reach of 9,000 via Twitter, 1,500 on Facebook and 5,000 members on LinkedIN. • WeAreTheCity has over 25 resident bloggers and over 250 volunteer writers. • We generate around 25-30 unique pieces of content per week. • We supports over 25 charities with free advertising through our Giving Back section. WeAreTheCity provides the following services. • Provides career and lifestyle orientated information to professional and entrepreneurial women working in London and across the UK. • Provides corporates with a platform (through Careerscity.co.uk) to advertise their open vacancies directly to a female market). • Project manages events for corporates who wish to engage with particular demographic of women (eg Technology). • Provides a platform for corporate companies to enhance their brand within the female community by publishing gender related content. • Provides a platform for female entrepreneurs to advertise and promote their quality products or services to a large female demographic. • Offers training opportunities to our members via free webinars. • Profiles inspirational women across the UK in order to raise their profile and inspire our members. • Promotes restaurants, bars, business schools, wellness activities in London plus other female centric services. • Provides competitions and unique discounts for our members. • Provides our own events, eg networking drinks 4 times per year. • Engages with our members via a bi-weekly newsletter and various social media feeds. • Promotes female leadership programmes and opportunities for women to up-skill outside their corporate environments. • Provides a calendar of events from female networks and other learning providers. • Provides a directory of recommended coaches. • Promotes giving back activities (Charities and social enterprises) to our membership to encourage them to give back to their communities. • Provides a platform for female writers to share their stories and experiences with other women.