Build a trusted peer group

Sidebar is a personal board of advisors for the next generation of leaders who want to grow in their careers.

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"A career tip that changed everything for me: your path to a leadership role does NOT start with you."
Elena Verna

Who is Sidebar for?

Sidebar is for growth-oriented, ambitious professionals who want a competitive edge. Unlock insights and opportunities not found in conventional networks.

1M+

Community Members

20+

Industries Represented

50+

Countries

What is Sidebar?

Sidebar is a curated peer group built for you and your career goals.

Join Curated Peer Groups

Sidebar matches you with 6-10 high-caliber peers that fit your needs.  You’ll meet every 2 weeks to share and learn from each other.

Solve your work problems

Through expert facilitated discussions and a tailored growth program, you’ll answer the tricky questions in your daily work and overall career.

Unlock insights, anywhere

Our platform keeps you connected to our community so you can unlock insights and opportunities, anywhere.

How Sidebar Works

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Apply

Apply in under four minutes. If you qualify for the program, an interview follows.

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Interview

A 25-minute discussion with our team explores your experience and goals.

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Match

On acceptance, get matched with 6-10 similar yet diverse peers. Gain exclusive network and event access.

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Grow

Networks offer benefits, programs yield outcomes. Boost your development with ongoing resources.

How does Sidebar match groups?
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Each Sidebar group is expertly curated to support your professional journey—it’s a blend of science and human touch that results in a dynamic, supportive environment tailor-made for accelerating your learning and growth. Sometimes, the rationale behind a match might not be immediately clear. Trust the process; often, the person you least expect is the one you learn the most from.

Our matching process includes:

  • In-depth understanding: We start with an interview and a detailed matching survey. This allows us to understand where you are today and where you aspire to be. Everything we learn about you, from your membership interview onwards, informs our matching process.
  • Algorithm + human insight: We use our highly sophisticated algorithm as a foundation, pairing members based on career stage, job function, industry, and areas of expertise.
  • Qualitative The algorithm provides the foundation. Then we add a crucial human layer, taking key qualitative factors like goals, preferences, personality traits, and personal connections.
  • Complementary goals: We strive to ensure the professional aspirations within each group are aligned and complementary, fostering a dynamic where everyone grows together.
  • Diversity and balance: Demographic diversity is crucial. We aim for a balance that ensures enough common ground for mutual understanding, while also embracing diverse perspectives.

Timing and logistics: We recognize the importance of timing. Your time zone and schedule preferences are key factors to ensure your group can meet successfully and consistently.

What happens in a Sidebar group meeting?
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Sidebar meetings are carefully designed and expertly facilitated to catalyze your professional transformation and growth. Here's what to expect:

  • 90-minute, interactive sessions: Twice a month, you meet with your small group. Every minute is optimized for maximum impact.
  • Sharing challenges and solutions: Each meeting is an opportunity to share your biggest work-related challenges, strategic advice, and practical solutions with peers who can move you forward.
  • Continuous learning: Every meeting is an active learning lab. You’re not just passively absorbing information; you're applying insights, practicing new strategies, and evaluating your growth trajectory. It's peer-to-peer coaching at its finest, ensuring everyone is heard and helped.
  • Accountability and action: Sidebar groups are about turning insights into action. You will establish clear next steps, share progress on your goals, and receive support from your group to ensure you're meeting them. This approach guarantees that every session contributes to tangible progress in your professional journey.
Can I change groups?
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Curating the perfect group for you—the people you will learn the most from—is one of our superpowers. It's important to remember that building relationships within your group takes time. Often, those who seem quite different from you offer the most insightful perspectives. Diverse viewpoints can be incredibly valuable, providing new angles and ideas you might not have considered otherwise. Embracing diversity within your group can lead to richer discussions, deeper understanding, and more meaningful learning experiences. So, we encourage you to stay open and curious about each group member; you may be surprised by how much you can learn from each other. That said, if you feel like you’re not in the right group, reach out to your group facilitator.

We do periodically calibrate groups, and if your group isn’t delivering what you need (or your needs change), we may reconfigure your Sidebar group or move you to a new one.

What does Sidebar’s curriculum look like?
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Sidebar's curriculum is an invitation to experience intentional, facilitated growth, requiring nothing more than your commitment to show up and engage. The environment, the content, and the collective energy of your Sidebar group do the rest, guiding you to achieve your most audacious goals. The program is the product of extensive research and has been honed over thousands of hours of meetings with a diverse global group of leaders and innovators. It blends scientific principles of effective group dynamics with proven coaching practices to foster individual brilliance and collective growth. Here's what to expect:

Structure: Each meeting is carefully structured with a unique goal, agenda, and outcomes.

Progression: Each meeting is carefully sequenced so that insights and actions from each meeting drive progress for the next

Expert facilitation: Every session is led by a highly trained facilitator to guarantee efficient use of time, equitable participation, and a safe space for confidential dialog.

Practical value: Each meeting is engineered to yield practical strategies you can immediately put to work in your personal and professional life, propelling you closer to your goals.

Perhaps most importantly, the Sidebar program is a dynamic, living system, and we are always iterating to make it progressively better.

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Real Impactful Wins

Members support each other to achieve their career goals and solve challenges. 

93%

of members say that Sidebar has made a significant difference in their career trajectory.

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Ben S. was promoted to VP of Customer Experience
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Jason S. pivoted career from tech to executive coach
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Henry S. founded his own company and raised seed capital
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Ashley C. founded a company to support working parents

My group provided unbiased support and valuable insight to give me the push I needed to have some hard conversations. Now I find myself applying those different perspectives to my daily work life and it's yielding amazing results.

Courtney Steinberg

VP of Finance

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The group provides constructive feedback and encouragement that helps me reflect on actions and decisions I've made or need to make in my professional development. This has helped my self-awareness and decision making.

Mark Longmore

Director of Operations

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I have a really good group. We are at similar stages career-wise. Three people who are expecting babies. Other folks have really young children. It's really hard to talk about work without what ELSE is on your plate. It's really nice to share that point of connection. It allows us to think BEYOND learning and growing in careers. There are a lot of other sides you have to take into consideration.

Haomin Xu

Product Design Manager

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It’s refreshing to bring up an issue and realize I'm not alone. It’s great to hear perspectives across different geographies, industries, functions, and how they've solved it. It's sort of like phone a friend, but you get six very different takes, and some of them build on each other.

Diana Rothschild

Director of Retail

I've recently made big progress in locking down the business model, working with my business accelerator. These convos have given me a lot of clarity.

Glenn Block

CEO

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Just had my first group session and it was great! Exceeded my high expectations. Looking forward to more of these.

Phil Carter

Growth Advisor

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I've found the various talks I joined to be helpful and I really enjoy the variety of members. It's made me realize how isolated I've been.

Polly Barton

Artist & Owner

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The group brain is so valuable!

Ida Wainschel Cools

CPO, CIO, CTO Advisory

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I love to hear the different perspectives, allowing me to think about different angles of the problem I'm facing.

Brian Benitez

Executive Director

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I can already see HUGE advantages in Sidebar's approach, particularly with the tech support. The Sidebar team clearly has a good process on the human side of things too.

Sondra Pepe

Senior Vice President

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I love my group. I really appreciate having the space with different people from different industries.

Halimah Jones

Learning Manager

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The facilitation has been great. I love the timer bar, the way the conversation is structured, the commitment and accountability.

Yeong-Ping Koh

VP of Product

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I love that each meeting has unique goals, opportunities, feedback and areas for insights.

Elizabeth Carey Smith

Design Director

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I've been impressed by Sidebar’s technology platform. The real time agenda tracker at the top of our weekly meetings really helps the group stay on track. I would love to implement something similar for my Microsoft Teams calls at work.

Jack Cowett

Senior Director

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I've never been in a networking type setting where, so quickly, people are so supportive of one another and open about their challenges.

Jessica Dominiczak

CPO

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I've been part of groups where there is no facilitator before. The facilitator makes a big impact, adjusting on the fly and pushing where it's important.

Victor Skrylev

CPO

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The facilitator tooling is really good. The agenda tracker is brilliant!

Michael Scully

Senior Director

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