Female Founders Office Hours Initiative with Clare Zhang from Playfair Capital

From an idea 💡to a thriving community💪🏼

Playfair Capital’s remarkable journey with the Female Founders Office Hours (FFOH) initiative showcases what's possible in today's venture landscape. 🚀

In December '24, I wrapped an incredible conversation with Clare Zhang on TheOnePoint podcast, where she shared the vision driving the FFOH initiative, how they're reshaping opportunities for female entrepreneurs, and their innovative project that is making waves in our ecosystem.

The scale of the initiative is massive. Some statistics on the 12th version of the FFOH initiative that was completed in Q4 2024:

• 310 founders

• 210 investors

• Over 1200 meetings in three hours

Listen in to hear how one mission evolved into a movement.🎙️

Clare is an investor at Playfair Capital, a London-based pre-seed fund. Previously, she was a Founder's Associate at fintech startup Liveflow and worked in driver ops at Uber, focusing on engagement and acquisition.

Our conversation touched on a range of topics

• – Success of their recent 12th version of the FFOH initiative
• – Process of running the FFOH initiative
• – How should founders approach initiatives like FFOH
• … and so much more

Where to find Clare:

• • LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/clarevzhang/
• • Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://playfair.vc/

Where to find Rohit Yadav:

• • LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohityadav23/⁠⁠
• • Newsletter: ⁠All Things VC⁠ (⁠⁠https://yadavrohit.substack.com/⁠⁠)

Topics that we covered in the podcast:

• (00:00) Podcast intro
• (00:53) Intro: Clare Zhang 
• (01:43) Tell us about the recent 12th version of the FFOH initiative 
• (02:45) Motivation behind starting FFOH
• (04:33) Why did Playfair focus on FFOF rather than other initiatives
• (05:50) How did the collaboration process look with other investors for this initiative
• (08:14) Process of running FFOH initiative 
• (11:02) What are the founder’s benefits of participating in events like FFOH
• (13:29) How should founders approach initiatives like FFOH
• (17:25) The Biggest challenge of running the FFOH initiative
• (16:38) Challenges faced by diverse founders 
• (23:29) One interesting stat from the ecosystem

Tune in and enjoy.