The Pink-Collar Network

"I don't really have time go help people get their business off the ground," Lee said. "It's not what I want to do. I don't want to be rude, but I don't have time for it."

Success in the City got its start in April 2004, just as women across the country toasted their cosmopolitans to HBO's final season of "Sex in the City."

De Lorenzi had moved to Northern Virginia two years earlier to become chief executive of her younger brother's company PatriotNet, an Internet service provider, after he had died. Relocating her family from Dallas, where she had lived for 20 years, was tough, and de Lorenzi was lonely without her Texas clique of female business executives.

So in honor of the popular show going off the air, de Lorenzi hosted a networking event where attendees were required to wear high heels and red lipstick.

"I figured if I could find five women CEOs and be friends with three of them, I would be set," de Lorenzi said.

The one-time event launched a series of lunches and gatherings. In 2006, de Lorenzi sold PatriotNet and last September, she made expanding Success in the City her full-time -- albeit unpaid -- job. She's created schemes for Internet television shows for women and a professional development program called Diva U. She's asking members to contribute to a book she's compiling on tips and anecdotes of how women succeed in business. De Lorenzi has set up a charity foundation, podcasts and an online job board.

And she is creating sponsorship deals with a number of companies that will fund future Success in the City events.

Reston Limousine provides free transportation to all Success in the City events in return for publicity. It's helped the company land one of its biggest clients, who happens to be a member, and jump-start its new revenue stream, New York shopping trips.

"We like to help each other out," Bouweiri said.

As de Lorenzi builds her organization, she has rallied local women to do the nitty-gritty work -- collecting membership dues, planning a fundraising gala, finding speakers -- so eventually she can launch Success in the City on a national level.

"I'm a real CEO," she said. "You need someone who's a visionary, someone who looks over the horizon, and people will follow you. Setting up charter rules? I'm not good at those things."

But she is a charmer.

Andrea Fitch, founder and chief executive of RedCarpet Creations, an Alexandria brand strategy firm, said she counts herself as one of the many loyal followers working to support and manage de Lorenzi's vision.

"I've drunk the Kool-Aid, and I love it," she said.