Room2Rise

Opening in Australia

Founders get answers. Advisors get access. Everyone gets momentum

The advisory board that moves at startup speed.

I want to adviseI need an advisor
Black and white photo of a woman looking up and away, her coat and hair caught in the wind
Your experience, put to work.

The problem

Board roles get filled by the people already in the room

72%

of advisory board roles are filled through referrals. 45% come through business networks and 27% through a current advisor. Advertising and social media together account for 6%.

71%

of 2024 appointments to ASX 200 and NZX 10 boards went to people who already held public-board experience. The qualification for the role is having had the role.

So the women who would be good at this cannot get in, and the founders who need them do not know where to look.

Sources: Advisory Board Centre, 2025–2027 State of the Market Report. Heidrick & Struggles, Board Monitor Australia and New Zealand 2025.

Black and white portrait of an East Asian woman in her forties with a bob, looking off camera

For advisors

Your first board-level role doesn’t have to wait for your first board.

You have done the work. What you have not had is the invitation. Room2Rise puts your expertise in front of founders who need exactly what you know.

Start as an advisor
Three women of different ages and backgrounds working together over a laptop at a timber table

For founders

You don’t need directors. You need the right people in the room.

No minutes. No liability. No ceremony. A standing conversation with someone who has already solved the thing you are stuck on.

Find an advisor

How it works

If you’re advising

  1. Get ready. A short program that turns your career into a clear advisory offer. What you know, who it helps, how you would work with a founder.
  2. Get listed. A profile built on evidence. Fifteen years in B2B SaaS revenue tells a founder more than any title will.
  3. Get matched. We pair you with a founder whose live question sits inside your expertise. You choose whether to take it.
  4. Keep going. You join a group of women doing the same work at the same time, comparing notes on what advising actually looks like.

If you’re building

  1. Tell us what’s blocking you. One question. Pricing, your first enterprise deal, the hire you keep getting wrong.
  2. Meet your match. We put a name in front of you with the specifics of what she has done. You decide.
  3. Set the rhythm. Monthly works for most. Some go weekly. You set it and you can change it.
  4. Stay in charge. She advises. You decide. Nothing about this changes who runs your company.

What a profile leads with

Example advisor profile

illustrative, not a real person

  • 15 years in B2B SaaS revenue
  • Three regulated-market entries
  • Knows cold: enterprise pricing
Black and white portrait of a woman in her sixties with cropped grey hair, looking upward
  • One call a month to start
  • Won’t advise on: fundraising
  • Evidence first, titles last

Fifteen years in B2B SaaS revenue tells a founder more than any title will.

The advisory role

Not a director. Not less. Lighter.

An advisor has no vote, no fiduciary duty and no binding authority. Nothing is registered. Nothing is minuted unless you want it to be. She turns up, asks the questions nobody inside your company will ask you, and tells you the truth.

For a company that has not raised the round a board comes with, this is the right-sized version.

Three women laughing together on a sofa, one in a red suit, one in a black shirt, one in a pink suit

We’re putting the first group together

Room2Rise opens with a founding group of advisors and impact founders in Australia. Tell us which side you are on and we will be in touch when it forms.

Join the founding group