Redefining Breadwinning for a New Era
Beyond the Paycheck
It became clear: there was a hunger for a platform that celebrates - not apologizes for - Breadwinner mothers. A space that asks "Why not both?" instead of forcing impossible choices.
In March 2025, during SXSW in Austin, 30 remarkable women gathered around a table. Empire builders, industry leaders, and mothers who were financially leading their families while redefining what it means to nurture them. What started as an intimate evening of breaking bread became a national conversation we can't look back from.
The response was immediate and overwhelming. Messages poured in from women across the country saying, "Yes! This! I feel so seen..." Corporate brands asked how they could support this community. The flood gates had opened.
The Breadwinners began with a serendipitous dinner...
From that one powerful dinner, The Breadwinners platform was born.
What We Are building
We're a community-led media platform celebrating and redefining what it means to be a “Breadwinner” in today’s society and culture - moving it from a footnote to the headline of modern motherhood.
What if breadwinning isn't just about bringing home money - but about bringing financial richness, emotional richness, and the power to change systems?
The Breadwinners began with a simple question:
Our mission
- about raising their children, spending time with them, nurturing their partnerships, taking care of themselves, their health, or their careers. We replace individual struggle with community and agency.
We exist to make every mom feel less guilty -
To quiet the mental overload of working motherhood by creating a supportive and empowering community that replaces guilt with confidence.
Hi! I'm Alexis!
Alexis Contos founded The Breadwinners after two decades as a marketing executive - most recently as a CMO across the tech and venture capital industries. She knows what it takes to compete at the highest levels of business. She also knows what it's like to do it while raising three kids under five.
That dual reality - not as a struggle, but as a source of strength - is what she couldn't find reflected anywhere. So she built it.
What started as a dinner in Austin during SXSW 2025 became something she didn't expect: a flood of women saying finally. The Breadwinners has since grown into a podcast, a dinner series spanning major U.S. cities, and a community platform redefining breadwinning beyond the paycheck - to include the emotional, systemic, and cultural leadership that working mothers bring every single day.
Alexis isn't just building this platform. She's living it.
Meet our Founder
The women at our table don't fit into single boxes. They're:
Executive-partner-advocate
Entrepreneur-caregiver-changemaker
CEO-mother-athlete
Founder-parent-community leader
Doctor-wife-artist
These aren't separate identities competing for time and energy - they're integrated dimensions of whole, powerful lives.
They're not just succeeding within existing structures - they're proving that the structures themselves need to evolve to accommodate the reality of multi-dimensional women.
This is what makes them system-changers.
The Breadwinners have rejected the myth that they must choose one hyphen over another. Instead, they've built lives where their professional ambition informs their parenting, their family insights enhance their leadership, and their multiple roles create a richer, more complete version of success.
our Approach
The systems we're changing will benefit all working families. We're contributing our voice to the chorus, not drowning out others.
Inclusive Impact
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We recognize that system-changing work often happens within supportive relationships. We celebrate partners who champion growth and create families based on mutual support and shared vision.
Partnership-Oriented
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We build bridges rather than walls within motherhood. We learn from mothers in all seasons and roles, recognizing that strong families take many forms.
Community-Minded
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We celebrate strength, not suffering. We showcase integration, not sacrifice. We champion women who refuse the false choice between career and family - while honoring that this is one powerful path among many valuable ones. And that as mothers, we go through various seasons of motherhood and careerhood, the ebbs and flows, and make strategic choices for whatever season we’re facing in the present and planning for the future.
Celebration, Not Struggle
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our values
Professional ambition and maternal nurturing aren't competing forces - they're complementary strengths. Multi-hyphenate identities make us more capable, not more fractured.
Integration Over Segregation
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Celebrating the unique power that comes from containing multitudes - embracing that Breadwinners are both/and, not either/or.
Strength in Multiplicity
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Creating new definitions of achievement that honor all dimensions of contribution, not just the ones that fit on a resume.
Redefined Success
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Bringing others along, sharing wisdom, and building supportive networks across all our hyphens.
Collective Elevation
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Embracing professional drive and financial leadership without shame or unnecessary justification - in all our multi-hyphenate complexity.
Unapologetic Ambition
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Moving beyond individual adaptation to actively redesigning systems and cultural narratives that can accommodate whole, multi-dimensional women.
Systemic Transformation
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Rejecting fragmentation and compartmentalization in favor of integration, authenticity, and presence across all domains of life.
Wholeness As Standard
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The Breadwinners Platform Today..
What Began as One Dinner in Austin has Turned Into....
A growing network of women supporting each other through the journey of integrated, multi-hyphenate success
Our Community
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Insights, strategies, and stories delivered to thousands of breadwinner mothers and allies
Our Newsletter
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Intimate gatherings in major cities across the country, building community one table at a time
The Breadwinners Dinners
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Intimate conversations with remarkable multi-hyphenate Breadwinner mothers, and experts that are your digital tribe, to help you build your whole self.
The Breadwinners Podcast
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Us
Join
The conversation has begun. The community is growing. And we're just getting started.
Whether you're already a multi-hyphenate Breadwinner mother, aspiring to grow your career while building your family, or an ally supporting this evolution - there's a place for you at our table.
