A curated collective for women who lead

For the woman who holds everything together.

You carry a company, a team, and everyone's expectations.
Aurora is the room where you don't have to.

Apply to join

Membership is curated. We read every application.

The cost

Functioning has a price.

You've built something real. From the outside, it works. And you know exactly what it costs to keep it working.

Your body keeps the score: the migraines, the tension, the sleep that doesn't restore you. Money comes in and still never feels like safety. Relationships hold as long as you hold them. And underneath it all sits the most expensive thing: the gap between what you know is possible for you and where you actually stand.

You already know what needs to shift. The awareness is there. Awareness was never the problem.

Our premise

aurora /ɔːˈrɔː.rə/ noun

a light that rises out of the dark, and cannot help being seen.

Everything inside Aurora is built for this.

The mirror

I carry everything alone.

I have a hard time asking for help.

I have no one at eye level to really talk to.

I know exactly what to do. I just don't do it.

I can't switch off, even when nothing is urgent.

If you nodded at one or more of these, Aurora is for you.

What Aurora is not

Not a women's circle. Not a network. Not another course.

More knowledge won't close the gap. Neither will more discipline. You've tried both.

This pattern only dissolves in a room where you don't have to perform. Where you can be the one who is held instead of the one holding. Where asking for support is a practice, not a defeat.

You can't do it alone. That was never a weakness. It's how it works.

This is Aurora

A curated collective of trust.

An ongoing membership with hand-selected women who lead companies, teams, and lives, and who are done doing it in isolation. Not a program you consume. A circle that carries itself, and you with it.

Two live sessions per month.

90 minutes each: somatic practice, hot seats, and strategic guidance around a monthly theme.

Every Friday, 11:00–12:30

The monthly ask.

A member brings a real project or challenge, and the circle responds: feedback, intros, support.

One slot each month

In-person gatherings.

Twice per year, we meet in a European city and spend real, offline time together.

Next: Lisbon, 23–24 October

Your buddy.

One woman from the circle at your side between sessions.

A private community.

Real-time reflection and support between sessions.

Ongoing accountability.

A short review and preview every Friday, to build momentum.

The essence

You can't separate strategy from the body,
or leadership from energy.

Most rooms work on one of these and leave the other two to you.
Aurora works at the intersection of all three.

Strategic clarity.

Direction and execution that reflect who you actually are, not who the market told you to be.

Somatic intelligence.

Your body registers what your calendar won't admit. We practise listening to it and leading from there.

Inner coherence.

When your inner world and your outer work move in the same direction, leading stops costing you.

Work on one and the other two pull you back. Aurora holds all three at once.

The Aurora year

A designed arc, not a rolling agenda.

Every month has a theme. The two live sessions, the weekly practice and the monthly ask all move around it, so the work compounds instead of scattering.

You join the cycle wherever it stands.

What changes

This is what shifts.

You don't just gain tools. You change how you lead, how you decide, and how you show up.

You lead from clarity and presence, not pressure and performance.
You make decisions that reflect who you are, not who you think you should be.
You build a business that expands with you, not at the expense of you.
You are visible without shrinking or overcompensating.
You ask for support, and you receive it.

This is not about becoming someone new. It's about becoming fully yourself, and leading from that place.

Our story

We didn't plan Aurora. We recognized it.

We met as buddies in a speaking program. We were both there to sharpen our positioning, and the program had a formula for that:
I help X achieve Y, by Z.

For both of us, the formula was too small. It took the joy out of what we were building, and it couldn't hold who we actually are. We left the program without a better positioning. We left with something better: each other.

We kept talking. We met in Berlin. And we understood that what we'd been looking for wasn't a sharper sentence about ourselves. It was a room with women who don't need us to fit a formula. Aurora is that room, built with intention.

Bianca Gfrei

Somatic executive coach

Former 2x health-tech CEO and somatic executive coach, devoted to guiding leaders back into their true power, authentic impact, and inner stability. Her work integrates deep emotional transformation with leadership and business execution.

Former two-time CEO in the US and Europe and entrepreneur of 13+ years, Bianca knows what it means to build external success while feeling deeply disconnected and unalive beneath the surface. Her burnout, while living in NYC and being internationally awarded as a leading female founder, became a major turning point. She left her promising career behind and immersed herself in the study of human potential with leading teachers around the world. As a somatic executive coach, she blends deep emotional and somatic transformation with leadership experience, guiding leaders through profound inner change in retreats, in her work with teams, and in her transformational work. Bianca lives in Portugal, in love with the ocean, a deeply connected way of living, and the ever-changing waves of life.

Vanessa von Frankenberg

Strategic advisor

Former strategy consultant and CEO, devoted to helping founders build businesses that are both successful and deeply aligned. Her work bridges strategic clarity with personal transformation.

Former strategy consultant and CEO, with 15+ years of experience, Vanessa is a transformation advisor devoted to helping founders and leaders build businesses that are both successful and deeply aligned. Her work bridges strategic clarity and human insight, combining business transformation with a deep understanding of personal patterns and leadership dynamics. She supports individuals and teams in navigating change, uncovering blind spots, and making decisions that truly reflect who they are. Her vision is a world where business success is no longer built at the expense of personal truth, but rooted in clarity, self-awareness, and authentic leadership.

Together, we hold a space that blends strategy, leadership experience,
and a deeply embodied, feminine approach to business.

From inside the circle

You listen to another woman and suddenly recognise something in yourself. Someone says the thing you had no words for.

I notice again and again how much shifts when a room genuinely feels safe. There are things that only change once we experience them in contact with others.

Anna-Maria Fritsch-Beuschlein Former CEO, C-CON EngineersHolistic executive coach & consultant Read her full post

One sentence from another woman finally kicked off something that had been stuck for years.

A thought process I could never really pinpoint. I always said I take the role a constellation needs, and it dawned on me that this means I take myself back.

Aylin Schaer Fractional COO/CFOCo-Founder & Co-CEO, Female Finance Circle

Is Aurora for you

Aurora is for you if:

This is for you if

Belongs here

You've built something meaningful, and you know there's more in you than what you currently live.
You're ready to lead without performing, and to strategize without abandoning yourself.
You're done following inherited patterns and ready to rewrite the rules on your own terms.
You want women around you who match your ambition and hold your depth.
You're willing to do the inner work that real leadership requires.

This is not for you if

Not this room

You're looking for quick fixes.
You want a step-by-step formula.
You want a space where you can stay on the surface.

This circle works because every woman in it is ready to go deeper.

How to join

Application only. By design.

The quality of this circle is the product. We protect it.

Apply.

Tell us where you stand and what you're building.

We read every application personally.

Both of us.

If it's a match, you'll hear from us.

With everything you need to begin.

Apply

€750 per quarter, minimum one quarter. Or €2,500 for the full year. Your application is non-binding.

Questions

Aurora works with the whole system: strategy, body, energy. We are direct, practical, and business-literate. If you've avoided spaces that felt too soft or too esoteric, you'll feel the difference here.

Two 90-minute live sessions per month, a short weekly practice, and as much of the community as serves you. Aurora is built for women with full calendars.

No. Aurora is for women who carry real responsibility, whatever the title: founders, CEOs, executives, owners. What matters is the pattern, not the business card.

€750 per quarter, with a minimum commitment of one quarter. Or €2,500 for the full year, which saves you €500. Both include everything inside Aurora.

Aurora runs in a rolling rhythm. Once your application is confirmed, we'll tell you exactly when and how you begin.

The invitation