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Power of Laughter: Yao Huang, Founder, Wonder Women
Description
On this week's How We Connected from the US Chamber of Connection, hosts Charlotte Massey and Aaron Hurst discuss some recent connection experiments: Aaron hosted mostly male friends to watch Michigan win a basketball championship, while Charlotte attended a Seattle Community Builders Dinner where participants did simple drawing and collage activities about ideal “third places.”
The interview this week is with Yao Huang, founder of Wonder Women, a largely invitation-based “whisper network” that began as casual women’s dinners and has grown over 20 years to about 20,000 women leaders across 30 cities. Yao emphasizes humor, curated guest lists, repeatable hosting scripts, and women-only spaces to create trust, friendship, and mutual support.
00:00 Intro and Check-In
01:54 What's Been on Our Minds
13:00 Meet Yao
13:30 Yao's Origin Story
14:10 Standup Comedy and Finding the Real Yao
14:55 Wonder Women: How It Started
21:26 The Formula: Curating Connection
25:49 Community Ripple Effects and The Vouch Network
34:00 Secret Sauce: Extroverts, Energy and Fun
40:27 Reflections
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How We Connected explores the conversations that power communities across the United States. Aaron Hurst and Charlotte Massey share what they’re building at the US Chamber of Connection and speak with leaders whose work strengthens local connection. Episodes offer human stories, practical insights, and ideas you can use in your own community.
Aaron Hurst, Co-Founder of the US Chamber of Connection, is a longtime entrepreneur focused on purpose and community. He founded Imperative and the Taproot Foundation and wrote The Purpose Economy.
Charlotte Massey, Co-Founder of the US Chamber of Connection, leads community programs nationally. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and former organizer and founder, she works at the intersection of civic life and entrepreneurship.
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Yao Huang, Founder, Wonder Women
Yao is the founder of Wonder Women, an invitation-only global community that has grown over nearly two decades from a handful of friends gathering for dinner in New York into a whisper network spanning roughly 30 cities and 20,000 women across three continents. She is also the founder and managing partner of The Hatchery, one of the organizations most responsible for building New York's tech ecosystem, where she has helped hundreds of early-stage companies with product, revenue, and fundraising, and co-founded Division One Capital, a fund expanding access to capital for women and minority-owned small businesses. Her winding path through healthcare, tech, finance, and climate included a memorable detour into stand-up comedy at clubs like Carolines and B.B. King's, an experience she credits with pulling out the goofy, funny version of herself that her corporate days had been hiding. Recognized by Forbes as one of the women at the center of New York's digital scene and by TechWeek among the 100 most influential people in tech, Yao is above all a student of human behavior who has figured out how to make a room full of strangers feel like old friends by the end of the night.
Wonder Women
wonderwomen.hatchery.vc
Heylo
Heylo is a community-management platform built for real-world groups of every kind, giving leaders a clean, branded home base to run events, manage members, communicate clearly, and handle payments without friction. It brings scheduling, RSVPs, waivers, announcements, topic-based chats, and