The City Girl Network is the UK’s largest women’s network, with 145,000 members and a spending power of £2.2bn. We’re the all-encompassing big sister, influencing buying decisions, property purchases and relationships. Friends are made, businesses are built and neighbourhoods are invested in as a direct result of our community.

And it all began with a walk on Hove Promenade.

I was 23 at the time. I’d just moved to Brighton to start my life after graduating from the University of Sheffield. I was born in Luton, spent my teenage years in Milton Keynes, and always knew that Brighton was where I wanted to end up. I even spent a year studying songwriting at BIMM Brighton before embarking on my journalism degree in the steel city.

Whilst the rest of my school peers wanted to go down the London route, I wanted a life of pebbled beach lunch breaks, promenade walks and bohemian decor. I really felt like I’d made it when I got my first marketing job offer in a little office just off Church Road in Hove.

I moved in February 2015 and took that fateful walk eight months later. It was a cold October day and I was facing the reality that, despite living the life I wanted, I felt deeply lonely. I didn’t know how to meet people and I struggled to find the hidden treasures that drew me to the city. The little coffee shops, the art galleries, the yoga studios – you had to know someone to find these places, and I didn’t really know anyone.

As I wandered along the promenade, I saw a girl looking out to sea. She reminded me of a friend, or perhaps resembled my want for one. I wondered if she felt as lonely as me. It was at that moment that I had an idea: Brighton Girl, a community to help guide and connect women in the city.

I started with an online magazine, encouraging readers to share their local recommendations, and hosted our first meet up on Sunday March 13th 2016. “Find friends, housemates, travel companions and things to do in the city”, I wrote, leading 17 strangers to the upstairs of a café on Western Road. One had just moved from Switzerland, one had lived here her whole life; they all felt disconnected from the city.

By October 2016, Brighton Girl had grown to 3,000 members with an events programme of book clubs, coffee meet-ups, drinks nights, yoga classes and walks. It was at our October coffee event that two of our members approached me with the news that they were moving and asked me to set up a community there. Cue the birth of the City Girl Network.

I became a business owner on 13th March 13th 2017, registering the City Girl Network Ltd. At that point, we were based in Brighton, Edinburgh and Berlin, with Bristol Girl in the works. I had no idea what I was doing, but I went in with the same naïvety that I had when believing that I could just land on my feet when I first moved to Brighton.

We’re now eight years on, we’re based in 19 places across the UK, with Brighton Girl now at 33,000 members – and I was listed as in the Top 100 UK Female Entrepreneurs for 2024. Members, mostly aged 25 to 40, utilise our social media, website and events platforms to find friends and make buying decisions about anything from health and beauty, to leisure activities, to property purchases. We also launched a deals and discounts app in August 2024, working with some of the biggest brands in the UK.

In some ways, my path to entrepreneurship was just like everyone else: I wanted to solve a problem. I’ve also faced the same battles with Imposter Syndrome and a lack of business literacy that so many business women have faced.

Yet, there’s a uniqueness to my story. I had the audience before the product and needed a monetisation structure that preserves the impactful and authentic nature of our community. It was only recently that I realised that I’ve built an advertising platform: the audience is the product. It’s an unconventional business to build with a whole lot of anecdotes and adventures, much like the city that got me here.

Pippa Moyle
CEO + Founder

Our Communities: Brighton, London, Manchester, Bristol, Bath, Leeds, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Worthing, Liverpool, Newcastle, Chester, Milton Keynes, Oxford, York, Cardiff, Glasgow, Perth and Rural Sussex