One Evening, One Great Story, One Leadership Team That Leaves Seeing Itself Differently
In Paris, Coco Chanel walked into a world that told women exactly how to dress, how to move, and how much space they were permitted to occupy — and she redesigned every single rule. Not loudly. Not with a manifesto. With a little black dress and the radical act of making simplicity look like power.
In Florence, Artemisia Gentileschi painted canvases of feminine justice in a world that had done her a specific and serious wrong — and instead of disappearing into the wound, she turned it into the most powerful work of her generation. Her Judith is not a victim. She is a woman who decided what the story was going to be.
In Berlin, Marlene Dietrich left the country that had made her famous because she refused to let the story she was being asked to perform override the story she had chosen to live.
These are not historical footnotes. They are the archetypes that run through every women’s leadership story — the Warrior who redesigns the rules, the Rebel who refuses the narrative given to her, the Visionary who creates from damage rather than despite it.
The Heroine’s Journey has been staging these stories in boardrooms, hotel suites, and leadership retreats for years through its brand partnerships. The Heroines in the Room brings that experience directly to your team: a private, facilitated story evening in which the lives of the women who walked the Heroine’s Journey before you become the analytical lens for the leadership challenges you are facing right now.
What is a Story Salon?
The Heroines in the Room is a private story salon for women’s leadership teams — a maximum of fifteen participants — conducted in a single evening of two to three hours, online or at your location. Peter de Kuster selects one heroine and one city in advance, in consultation with you, that speaks directly to the specific challenge your team is navigating. He prepares a bespoke briefing document — sent to all participants before the evening — and then facilitates a conversation that moves between the biographical and the professional, between the historical and the urgent, between the story of Chanel or Gentileschi or Woolf and the story your team is living right now.
This is not a motivational talk. It is not a leadership workshop with frameworks and breakout groups. It is something rarer: a guided encounter with a woman who faced something like what you are facing — and made a choice about who she was going to be in response to it. The conversation her story opens is the one your team has been needing to have.
Recent salon themes:
Chanel and the Art of Redesigning the Rules — for leadership teams navigating organisational transformation and asking how much of the old structure they are obligated to preserve.
Gentileschi and the Work You Make From the Wound — for teams where a significant setback, a betrayal, or a failure has left an unspoken residue that is shaping the way the group operates without anyone naming it.
Woolf and the Room of One’s Own — for women leaders who are excellent at making space for others and have not yet made sufficient space for themselves — and for teams where that dynamic is reproducing itself at scale.
Dietrich and the Story You Refuse to Perform — for leaders at a decision point about a role, an organisation, or a direction that no longer aligns with who they actually are.
What you receive:
A two-to-three-hour facilitated story salon with Peter, online or on-site.
A written briefing document sent to all participants in advance — the heroine’s story, the key biographical turning points, and the three questions her journey is asking your team.
Peter’s post-salon reflection: a short written document capturing the narrative patterns he observed in the evening’s conversation and what they suggest about the story your team is telling itself right now.
Investment: € 2.500 per salon — online or on-site in Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, Florence, Berlin, London, or New York.
To discuss your team and the heroine who speaks most directly to your current chapter: peterdekuster2023@gmail.com
The heroines who walked before you left a map. This is how you read it.
Norma Rae (Martin Ritt, 1979)
The most famous scene in Norma Rae has no dialogue.
Norma Rae Wilson, a textile mill worker in rural North Carolina, has just been fired. Rather than leave, she finds a piece of cardboard, writes the word UNION on it in large letters, climbs onto a machine in the weaving room, and holds it above her head. She turns slowly, making eye contact with each of her colleagues, one by one. One by one, without a word spoken, they shut down their machines. Eventually the room becomes totally quiet. This depiction of a direct action work stoppage was based on the real experiences of Crystal Lee Sutton.
The word she is holding is not just a labour organising term. It is the word for what happens when women in a room decide to see each other — really see each other, not as competitors or mirrors or threats, but as allies in a story they are all living together.
Norma Rae is forced to take great risks. Her relationship with her father starts to fall apart once she becomes affiliated with the union. Her faith community also turns its back, lacking the courage to cross racial barriers for the greater good. Her young marriage is also at risk because her commitment to the union means less time to fulfil her roles as wife and mother. She suffers the loss of her job and her reputation, yet she is still undaunted.
This is the story for the Heroines in the Room. Because the Story Salon is not a motivational event. It is not a leadership workshop where everyone is polite and no one says the real thing. It is a room in which women decide, collectively, to see the real situation — the way Norma Rae’s colleagues saw theirs when she held up that sign.
The Heroines in the Room brings exactly that quality of witness into a leadership team’s shared story. It uses the lives of Chanel, Gentileschi, Dietrich, and Woolf the way Norma Rae used that cardboard sign: as a visible, undeniable articulation of something everyone in the room already knows but has not yet said aloud. When the machines go quiet, the real conversation can begin.