For Stressed-Out CEOs, a Shoulder to Lean On

The scene is a balmy evening in San Francisco’s SoMa, an historic warehouse district that’s now brimming with tony residential lofts. Entering the airy, modern space, all of the 30 visitors, mostly strangers to one another, are handed drinks and offered hors d’oeuvres but not given name tags. When it’s time for dinner, they’re encouraged to sit with people they’ve never met and introduce themselves without identifying their profession. “Ask ‘How are you?’ ” says Kari Sulenes, a psychologist and partner at Alpha Bridge Ventures, a finance firm that organized the event. “If you feel your interlocutor isn’t being honest, insist on asking, ‘How are you, really?’ ”

That guidance spurred one diner to reveal the difficulties she had balancing the demands of her job with the time she needed to plan her wedding. The founder of a health-care startup shared the stress he feels in running his company while going through a divorce and caring for his 2-year-old son. And a venture capitalist fretted about the extreme workload he faces assessing new investment prospects.