Inside a Poker Night for Female Power Brokers

Original source: Fortune

A Heidi Messer poker game. From L to R: Lauren Zalaznick, Michelle Lee, Micky Sumner, Doug Liman.
COURTESY OF EBBE SWEET

Clutching a gin and tonic in one hand and a stack of poker chips in the other, I settle into my assigned seat at a poker table inside a private event space on West Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard. The four tables in the room are studded with nearly 50 women at the top of their respective fields. The players range in experience from card shark to neophyte, but everyone is abuzz in anticipation of an evening rife with new friendships and business connections.

“Poker is a metaphor for business,” says Heidi Messer, the tech entrepreneur who convened these luminaries from a variety of industries. “It’s about calculated risk-taking, reading the people at the table, understanding that you’re not going to win or lose it all in one hand.”

Messer, who founded and sold affiliate marketing company LinkShare, now serves as co-founder and chairman of global data network Collective[i]. “I build networks for a living,” she said. “When I started in the Internet in the mid-1990s, it was stunning to me that a lot of the inequality that existed before ended up replicating itself in an industry set on disrupting the status quo.”

Messer’s poker series, which started five years ago in her New York City apartment with nearly two dozen players, has become one of the most exclusive networking events for the boldface names of business, politics and entertainment. For this Nov. 11th event, her first outside of New York, Messer has chosen 50 women—from a list of more than 1,000—with many flying in from New York, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. She plans to take the games international soon.