From Puzzle Pieces to a 4k Community
In a recent podcast episode of Generatie Kracht, Rein Meirte joined the conversation to reflect on her entrepreneurial journey, the future of technology, and why community is one of the most powerful drivers of innovation.
Host Luc Limère and Eva Pareyn sat down with Rein Meirte - co-founder of Clusity, Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, and founder of the Femme Futures Collective - for a wide-ranging conversation about entrepreneurship, technology, and why community still matters most in a digital world. Here are the highlights.
🌟 An unconventional path, an entrepreneurial streak
Rein describes herself as someone who never accepted things at face value, a trait she traces back to childhood, from selling seashells and playing violin on the street for pocket money to running a vintage shop and a skincare business as a teenager. Interestingly, this drive didn't come from her family: both her parents are academics (a biology researcher and a psychologist), and no one else in her family has an entrepreneurial background. She calls herself "the first in a lot of the things I do", and credits her strong sense of security, instilled by her upbringing, as the foundation that let her take risks and embrace being different how Clusity started: puzzle pieces falling into place.
Clusity's origin story is a lesson in recognizing, and seizing, a moment of momentum. While working alongside her now co-founder Elke Kraemer at a tech company during the pandemic, Rein noticed how even a 25-years-senior colleague with deep ambition kept hitting invisible ceilings that male peers at the same level didn't face. Together, they saw how male-dominated engineering teams shaped products, and blind spots, for female end users.
What started as a small pitch ("more women within our own company") grew, at their CEO's urging, into something sector-wide: a standalone community for women in tech. A company acquisition that same year forced them to go full-time immediately: accelerating research, business model, and launch all at once. As Rein puts it: "The puzzle pieces fell into place": timing, funding, a strong co-founder relationship, and a sector-wide push all converging.
By the numbers, five years in
~4,000 women in the Clusity community - roughly 8% of all women in tech in Belgium
~40 partner companies, plus a dozen universities and colleges
160+ events and 90+ interviews with female role models in tech
A mentorship program connecting nearly 50 mentor-mentee pairs
Run by a lean team of 3 staff, powered heavily by volunteers
The business model: build for companies, not around membership fees
Clusity deliberately built its non-profit model around partnering with companies rather than fully charging its community members. Services range from internal DEI and inclusive leadership training to external talent-matching and employer branding - helping companies attract and retain more diverse talent.
Rein is candid about the current climate: shifting political winds and economic uncertainty have made DEI one of the first budget lines to get cut at many organizations. Still, Clusity continues to grow, buoyed - she says - by an "army of 4,000 women" who won't let the mission stall.
Turning bias into a strategy, not a flaw
One of the most striking insights: Clusity's growth strategy is built on similarity bias - the well-documented tendency for people to trust, network with, and refer to people who resemble themselves. Rather than only trying to counteract this bias in traditionally male, homogeneous tech networks, Rein and Elke decided to actively leverage it for good: put women in the spotlight, and let women's inherently more female networks do the work of expanding the community. The 8% market penetration is proof it worked - while care is taken to avoid tipping into an echo chamber; men remain welcome and typically make up 10–20% of event attendees.
Femtech: the next frontier
Through her Femme Futures Collective, Rein is focused on femtech - technology genuinely designed around women's bodies and lives, from menstrual and endometriosis pain-relief devices to heart-health data models built on female physiology, to something as simple as hair accessories that don't become a safety hazard in a car headrest. She sees Europe as uniquely positioned to lead this space internationally.
Community as a philosophy, not a buzzword
Perhaps the most quotable moment: Rein pushes back on the word "community" itself, arguing it's overused and often really means "audience." For Clusity, community means being an enabler, not a director - listening to what members need rather than setting the agenda. "We don't set the rules. They set them themselves. We're just a listening ear."
“A little box of contradictions”
Asked to describe herself in one phrase, after resisting labels throughout the conversation, Rein settled on: "a little box of contradictions." It's a fitting note for a founder who has built a fast-growing tech-adjacent organization by leaning into humanity, connection, and in-person magic - in an industry that so often forgets both.
Listen to the full episode of GeneratieKracht to hear the complete conversation:
