It’s hard to believe, but it’s almost been a year. This month marks one year since our co-founders, Karolina Herbut and Romana Wochl, stood on stage at the European Forum Alpbach 2025 to pitch a project that was still, at that point, just an idea: COINVERSATIONS. Looking back now, with a full first cohort of events behind us, felt like the right moment to pause and recap the journey — from Alpbach to Vienna, and everything in between.
Where it all began: European Forum Alpbach 2025
In August 2025, Karolina and Romana took part in the MEGA Bildungsstiftung Financial and Economic Literacy Hackathon at the European Forum Alpbach, together with experts and changemakers from across Europe. After days of intensive work refining the concept, COINVERSATIONS made it into the top 3 winning projects, chosen by audience vote at the final pitch.
The win came with more than recognition: it came with 5,000 EUR in funding from Dragonfly Finance – Lederer-Pabst GmbH, whose founder, Dr. Susanne Lederer-Pabst, CEFA, had also been one of the mentors and experts guiding the projects during the Hackathon. That funding — and Susanne’s continued support — is what turned COINVERSATIONS from a pitch on a stage in Alpbach into a real program with real events in Vienna.
At its core, COINVERSATIONS exists to create a safe space where women can talk about money in peer circles, in different languages, and learn from a trustworthy source of information. A year on, that’s exactly what we’ve been building.
Our first COINVERSATIONS cohort in 2026
With the support of Dragonfly Finance and Dr. Susanne Lederer-Pabst, we launched the first cohort of COINVERSATIONS with four events, each tackling a different piece of what it means to feel confident, secure, and in control of your own money and your own voice.
Connect – Reflect – Plan – Celebrate | 20 January 2026 | Loffice Vienna
We kicked off the year with a networking evening for women — and it felt like the perfect start. It was lovely to see familiar faces from earlier events, and just as lovely that half of the participants were joining us for the very first time.
The evening celebrated the end of our “She Counts” Financial Literacy Program, where we also shared the results of our participant survey on how the program had improved their financial knowledge, habits, confidence, wellbeing, and even the impact on people around them. From there, we moved straight into the future: our co-founder, financial educator Karolina Herbut, led a workshop reflecting on 2025 and looking ahead to 2026 — what it means for each woman to feel financially safe and independent, and what their first concrete action steps would be. The evening closed with networking, snacks, and music from DJ Zoe Whale / Zoe Gudović.
It was also the official kickoff of COINVERSATIONS: a project built on informal peer circles, in different languages, where women can explore money topics and grow their confidence together.
Know Your Worth Workshop – Negotiation Skills with Iris Litschauer | 18 February 2026
Our second event tackled a topic many women recognize instantly: undervaluing themselves in negotiations. Trainer Iris Litschauer, a certified systemic business and leadership coach, led a live, interactive workshop on defining one’s value, pricing one’s work with confidence, and asking for what one deserves — whether negotiating a salary, a raise, or one’s own rates as a freelancer or entrepreneur.
Invest Like a Woman – Starting Smart, Staying Calm, Investing with Purpose | 19 March 2026
To mark Global Money Week, we welcomed Dr. Susanne Lederer-Pabst back — this time as our fireside chat speaker rather than mentor — for an evening on the fundamentals of investing: risk, diversification, compound interest, inflation, and how to recognize red flags using the income–liquidity–security triangle. Moderated by our co-founder Romana Wochl, the evening drew a full room and closed with a Q&A and informal networking.
A Lovin’ NO – Practical Boundaries for Everyday Life with Tatjana Maksimovic | 15 April 2026
We closed the cohort with a practical, live workshop on something that touches every part of life, not just finances: boundaries. Tatjana Maksimovic, ACC, a solution-focused ICF Associate Certified Coach, created a safe space where participants could understand their own boundary patterns, practice real sentence structures for different everyday situations, build confidence in saying no without guilt, and leave with a genuine sense of self-trust and inner permission. Thank you, Tatjana, for such a valuable and grounding session.
Thank you, Dragonfly Finance
None of this first cohort would have happened without the continued support of Dragonfly Finance and Dr. Susanne Lederer-Pabst, who believed in COINVERSATIONS from its very first pitch in Alpbach and have stood behind it every step of the way since — as funder, mentor, and speaker. Thank you for helping us turn one hackathon idea into a full year of conversations.
Looking ahead: EFA 2026
As we close this first COINVERSATIONS cohort, we’re already looking forward to our next hackathon at the European Forum Alpbach 2026 — and to whatever comes next for this project. If the past one year is anything to go by, we can’t wait to see where the conversations take us.
PS: If you’d like to be part of what we do next, you can become a Prospera member. Here you can find more information and apply.