City Walk Chats NYC: Building Brands by the Hudson
City Walk Chats is a monthly series bringing together founders, creatives, and operators across beauty, wellness, fashion, and lifestyle to connect, explore the city on foot, and talk shop while we move.
This month, we're heading to the Hudson with guest co-hosts Brooke Sowa and Sola Park of Womansplain, and Sax, founder of Creating Forward Studio, and the City Walk Chat series, for a midday walk along the Hudson River Greenway.
We'll start with introductions and a founder spotlight with partner brand, Esspo, walk the waterfront with conversation prompts (powered by the Womansplain Founder Cards), swap partners along the way, and circle back to our meeting spot to keep the conversation going, and grab a wine if so inclined.
😎 Come ready to:
Share what you're building and what you're working through
Trade real lessons on traction, brand building, and growth
⚡️ Here's how it works:
You'll get the meeting spot when you register, but hint, it's around the Hudson River Park
Quick welcome and intros from Sax, Brooke, and Sola
Grab an espresso + soda by Esspo to get moving
Pair up and walk the Hudson with founder prompts in hand
Swap partners so you get multiple perspectives
End back where we started for an optional drink and continued conversation
🗽You'll leave with:
New connections with founders and collaborators
Sharper thinking on what makes your brand stick
Renewed confidence in your vision and the company you're building
ABOUT THE HOSTS
Sarah Saxty (Sax) is a Fractional CMO, Advisor, Brand Marketing Mentor, and the founder of Creating Forward Studio, a growth platform for beauty, wellness, design, and lifestyle brands. She has spent the last 20 years in the consumer product ecosystem as a founder, consultant, and CMO, building brands from the ground up and scaling them to multi-million dollar revenue. Sax is the creator of Sticky Brand DNA, her signature framework for building brands that click, stick, and convert, and the creator of the Creating Forward Incubator.
Brooke Sowa and Sola Park are the co-founders of Womansplain, the platform building the modern infrastructure for female founders. Through the Womansplain podcast (200K+ downloads, 50+ episodes, 9K+ average audience per episode), weekly newsletter, and community of 5K+ operators and investors, they've helped surface and support female founders who have collectively raised $1B+. Both began their careers in private equity and finance before building Womansplain into one of the most active communities for women in business.
Philippe is the co-founder of Esspo. A ready-to-drink espresso + soda, AKA, your new afternoon upgrade. It sips like soda, caffeinates like cold brew, and hits that just-right balance of fizz, flavor, and feel-good energy. Light. Crisp. Not too sweet. The kind of boost that turns “ugh” into “Let’s do this!”. Esspo is sold at Whole Foods and was born in Brooklyn.