City women hitting new heights

A website that set out to be a “little black book” for professional women in London, providing professional development, networking and lifestyle information, is celebrating after achieving a new record of over 60,000 unique visitors and 1.6 million page views in May, up 47% on the month before.

WeAreTheCity.com was founded by Vanessa Vallely, considered to be the most connected woman in London, voted one of the 100 most influential women in Banking globally and a Pearly Queen of the City of London.

“The website was started three years ago to provide the connections and insight that I felt was lacking for London women” Vanessa (39) said. “I’m passionate about empowering women in all aspects of their lives, driving diversity in the workforce and encouraging celebration and sharing of our successes, which women are notoriously bad at. I’m thrilled at how quickly We are the City has become a much-loved part of so many women’s lives.

Vanessa provides content and PR for the website in her spare time alongside a small team, with husband Stewart responsible for technical development of the site.

“Our events listings get 600,000 hits a month so we have just launched an entirely new micro site dedicated to development and lifestyle events specifically for women in theLondon area – events.wearethecity.com ” Stewart commented. “Over the next three months we have a host of other new features coming online including the launch of our Female Job Board, where we intend to partner with Corporates and Recruitment agencies that are passionate about increasing the opportunities available to talented females across the UK. On the lifestyle side, we have celebrity female bloggers, a gallery of user photos sharing snapshots of London living, and tried & tested reviews.”

The celebrity bloggers already lined up include award winning Garden Designer Kate Gould, Entrepreneur and charity fundraiser Charlotte Hogg and Made in Chelsea star Gabriella Ellis.

“We are looking for more women to join our team of “City Guineas” to test and review products, gadgets, technology, fashion and beauty products, bars, restaurants and networking events, providing unbiased reviews back to other women” Vanessa finished. “Anyone interested in volunteering their time or writing for our site should email pr@wearethecity.com to register.”

Third Season of Made In Chelsea Confirmed.

C4 Entertainment Commissioning Editor David Williams has green-lit a ten-part, third series of hit reality drama Made In Chelsea from Monkey.

The announcement follows the news that E4 will also be screening a feature length 90 minute, Made in Chelsea Christmas Special, in December.

The show follows the lives of a glamorous group of globe-trotting young socialites and first aired on E4 in May, becoming the channel’s highest rated non-scripted debut.

Series 2 finishes Monday 21 November and is averaging 701k viewers to date, with the total average audience rising to over 1 million, when consolidated and VoD viewing is included. More than half of the audience is aged 16 to 34.

Made In Chelsea also remains one of Channel 4’s most talked about programmes, trending worldwide on Twitter and generating a total of 475k tweets to date.

Series 2 introduced a new online element with three 30 minute live video webchats in the form of ‘Live in Chelsea’. A first for E4.com, this online spin off consolidated 90K users who had the opportunity to watch cast members take questions from Twitter and Facebook and enjoy exclusive preview clips.

To further harness the show’s strong presence across social media, E4 is the only UK television network working with GetGlue; A new social network for entertainment that allows fans of the show to ‘check-in,’ earn virtual and physical stickers and share their activity with their friends on Facebook and Twitter.

To date, Made In Chelsea has recorded 45k ‘check-ins’ for series 2, generating a total online reach of more than 8m.

Commissioning Editor David Williams said: “With such a loyal audience tweeting, checking-in and following the lives of our new TV stars, it’s fantastic to be once again returning to the hallowed streets of the Royal Borough of Chelsea.”

Exec Producer, Sarah Dillistone from Monkey said: “We’re delighted by the connection so many people have made with the show, its cast and the incredible world they live in. We look forward to bringing new bed hopping, name dropping, champagne popping characters to series 3.”

Monkey is a division of NBCUniversal International Television Production.

Made In Chelsea Stars Ollie Locke and Chloe Green Split Up.

Made In Chelsea stars Chloe Green and Ollie Locke have split up.

Chloe Green joined the reality TV show this month as Ollie’s girlfriend and has said that the relationship could not survive the media spotlight.

The daughter of Topshop owner Sir Philip Green said: “We have split. It was nothing to do with Ollie being bisexual; I was fine with it and so was Dad. He met Ollie and thought he was a really nice guy.”

She also said that “World War 3 nearly broke out” a few times between her and Ollie’s ex-girlfriend Gabriella Ellis.

“It’s fair to say there were some awkward moments and World War 3 nearly broke out when we watched the screening of the first episode.”

However, the two seem to have become friends, Ellis went on to tell GLAMOUR.com: “Yeah, we’re really close friends actually. In the past kind of week or two, we’ve become really close. The show airs nearly a month after we’ve filmed the episode, so now we’ve become really, really close, but you’ll see it happen.”

July Cultural Highlights: Amanda Eliasch has it As She Like It.

Frost’s favourite theatre production in July was Amanda Eliasch’s semi-autobiographical play As I Like it. Amanda wrote the play and Nicky Haslam did the set, a dream combination if ever there was one. It was directed by Lyall Watson, who Amanda knew from RADA. The set was opulent and glamorous, much like the play itself. Amanda is a socialite, photographer, fashion editor, blogger and poet. You can read the review in my theatre column here:
http://www.lastminutetheatretickets.com/blog/index.php/5908/as-i-like-it-review/

Frost enjoyed the Kanaloa & Gallo Summer Red Party.

As did Jo Wood, Henry Holland (who was also DJ), Pixie Lott, Jo Wood, Alice Dellal, Henry Holland, Francesca Hull, Gabriella Ellis, Natt Weller, Leah Weller and Diana Vickers and her boyfriend George Craig

Summer, wine, interesting people, what more could you want?