Author: Anne St. Amant & Rachel Kurth 

There’s a version of professional success that many women were taught to chase: more visibility, more networking, more output, more fanfare, more momentum, more results. But over the last year, we’ve found ourselves asking a different question:

What actually lasts?

Not just in our careers, but in our communities, our ambitions, our energy, and our identities as women navigating work and life at the same time.

As we celebrate our third Dot anniversary, that question feels more relevant than ever and is why this year’s Signature Event theme is “Developed to Last.” Last year alone, more than 400,000 women left the U.S. workforce. Some stepped away by necessity, some by choice, and some because the systems around them stopped working for the realities of their lives. Careers today are no longer linear. They move with us through seasons of change, whether it be new jobs, caregiving, burnout, babies, relationships, relocations, evolving priorities, or entirely new definitions of success. 

And increasingly, we are realizing that longevity isn’t built through constant acceleration but through sustainability. That realization has shaped not only the conversations we’re having at The Dot, but the way we’ve chosen to grow this year.

On paper, The Dot may have done less, event-wise. We scaled from over 12 events last year to 6 planned events this year. But this year, we chose to focus on creating intentional events. Instead of reacting to the pressure to constantly produce, we listened to feedback from our community and focused on fan favorites, including small-space workshops, open and energizing soirées, and curated panels to inspire meaningful conversation.

We’ve also slowly shifted our online presence. We want The Dot to find you where you are at, and decided to shift our Inner Circle into an Instagram community. 

We’ve been inspired and joyfully led by six new ambassadors, each with incredible perspectives from their varying professional experiences, and their refined ideas to inspire The Dot. 

And we couldn’t do it all without our incredible Board, a team of eight women that continues to amaze us with their thoughtful leadership and their professionalism within each of their roles. 

Through this focus on intentionality, we believe The Dot has become more curated, more meaningful, and more connected to what professional women in the Twin Cities are actually craving: a dependable community network. 

There’s a difference between being everywhere and being dependable. This year taught us that women don’t necessarily need more from professional communities, they need spaces they can return to and that evolve with them. A community that understands ambition can coexist with exhaustion, reinvention, motherhood, uncertainty, creativity, growth, and changing priorities.

We’ve seen women come to The Dot while navigating all aspects of life, including promotions, layoffs, career pivots, personal crises, entrepreneurship woes, and honest questions about what they even want next. 

But the through line through it all? Sustainable careers are rarely built alone.

That’s ultimately what Developed to Last is about.

It’s not just how we as women stay in the workforce, but how we build our careers, and lives, to withstand change without requiring us to lose ourselves in the process. 

Together, we believe we can ask each other the difficult questions, like:

• How do we build professional identities flexible enough to evolve?
• How do we redefine success in ways that leave room for ambition and humanity?
• How do we stop measuring value by output alone?
• And how do we create workplaces and communities that support women not just at their peak productivity, but across the full arc of their lives?

We won’t pretend to know the answers, but we do want each Dot member to feel supported as they navigate these or similar questions they’re facing in their own careers. 

A lasting impact maybe doesn’t come from doing the most. It comes from knowing how to subtly shift your direction, one day or building block at a time, and doing it among a community of women who know and see you through it all. The Dot’s goal is to continue to sustain women in all stages of their lives, and meet each of you wherever you are at. Our goal is to “connect the dots” between professional women in the Twin Cities, so that you continue to strengthen and uplift each other. 

We are so grateful for each of you that has inspired The Dot this year, or over the past three years we’ve been building this community. Here’s to 2026, the fourth year of The Dot, and all the good things to come. 

Maybe it comes from building something steady enough that women know it will still be there when they need it most. We feel so good about where The Dot is and where it will continue to go, and that the Dot is evolving with the women it serves. Here’s to 2026 and the fourth year of The Dot. More good things to come! 

We created fewer moments driven by the urgency or pressure to constantly produce something.

This year, our events became more curated, more meaningful, and more connected to what women in the Twin Cities are actually craving right now: honest conversations, thoughtful networking, and spaces that feel energizing instead of transactional. Every gathering had purpose behind it. Our online presence has evolved too. We feel so proud of the constant connection we’ve been able to curate and the meaningful messaging that comes from our social presence  

And in doing so, something unexpected happened: The Dot became more present, not less.