Luminary’s partnership with Nine West and its “Groundbreakers” campaign celebrates women who break conventions, constructs and ceilings while empowering them to take on the world in style.

We kick off our series with Nine West X Luminary "Groundbreakers", featuring panelists of groundbreaking women such as Chastity Garner Valentine, Founder of Curvy Con and GarnerStyle.com, Jennifer Justice, Co-Founder of The Justice Dept, Iman Obou, Founder and CEO of SWAAY Media, and moderated by Cate Luzio, Founder and CEO of Luminary.

Join us for candid conversation, cocktails and a bit of styling!

Bios

As seen on Oprah.com, The New York Times, and Elle Magazine, GarnerStyle.com was founded in October of 2008 by Chastity Garner Valentine. Through GarnerStyle, she offers inspiration and advice to plus-size women who want to achieve their best style. What began as an experiment with little knowledge as to what “blogging” even was or how it would impact social media became a platform with over 300K followers on Instagram, and get this—nearly 1 million followers on Facebook! She has chronicled her life, her clothes, travel, moving to a new city, and many other adventures through her blog. and there is still much more in store to come!"

Jennifer Justice, also known as JJ, is an entertainment and live experience executive known for her expertise in building artists’ careers and business portfolios by marrying art with commerce. JJ made her mark as an entertainment attorney at Carroll, Guido and Groffman LLP where she was made partner in only 3 years. With a roster of clients that included Jay-Z, Outkast, Slipknot and Mark Ronson, and having negotiated massive joint venture agreements including the partnerships of Jay-Z and Roc Nation with Live Nation, JJ parlayed her experience to join Jay-Z to build Roc Nation in 2010 and served as Jay-Z’s personal entertainment attorney for a total of 17 years as well as Beyonce’s personal attorney for one year while at Roc Nation. JJ joined Superfly in 2016 as the President of Corporate Development, a role created for her to expand the portfolio of the then 17 year old live experience company. During her three year tenure, Superfly doubled their ownership of live experiences, increased revenues by double digits and raised another round of financing.

JJ has been featured on the TODAY show, in InStyle magazine's Badass Women, Pollstar, in Marie Claire as one of seven women featured in the music industry, has been named to Billboard women in power list three times and has been honored by TJ Martell as a Woman of Influence.

Iman Oubou is a Moroccan-American self-made entrepreneur, published scientist and former beauty queen (Miss New York US 2015 and 2nd Runner Up at the 2015 Miss United States pageant) on a mission to change the women's media landscape. She is the Founder and CEO of SWAAY Media.

Through her diverse experience in business, pageantry and STEM, Iman noticed gender disparities in the workforce and an omnipresent bias across printed and digital media representation of women which inspired her to launch SWAAY, a mediatech platform highlighting stories of female leaders challenging the status-quo, and championing the voices of female change-makers through substantive and inspiring, user-generated content.

Her podcast, Women Who SWAAY, which was syndicated by media conglomerate, Westwood One, was number 2 on iTunes in 2015, and was ranked in the top 5 best podcasts for women entrepreneurs by Inc. Magazine.

Iman was named by CIO Magazine the number one “Female Entrepreneur to Watch” in 2018 and recently became the first ever “Visage Du Maroc” of 2018 (which translates to Face of Morocco), a new initiative uplifting female voices in Morocco and across the Middle East. In 2018, Iman was picked to be a keynote speaker at Harvard Women In Business and a keynote at MIT STEM Conference. She was also part of the first ever all-female judge panel at Miss Universe 2018

Cate Luzio is the Founder and CEO of Luminary, the premier collaboration hub for women who are passionate about professional development and expanding their networks. Luminary is the ultimate career advocate offering members unparalleled programming from intimate workshops with dynamic leaders to a pioneering speaker series. A long-time advocate for empowering women and girls, Cate serves on the National Board for Girls Inc.

Cate has over 20 years of leadership experience in financial services. Previously, she was the EVP and Global Head of Multinational Corporate Banking for HSBC managing roughly $2 billion in revenue and teams in 72 countries. Cate also served as a Managing Director and Head of Multinational Corporate Banking at J.P. Morgan. She has received numerous recognitions including being named to the Most Powerful Women in Banking List by American Banker multiple times as well as a two-time recipient of the Financial Times and Heroes Global Diversity Champion in 2017, 2018 as well as Yahoo Finance Heroes Role Model in 2019. Cate was named to Inc.'s 2019 Female Founders 100 List and has also been featured in the Financial Times, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Fast Company, Bloomberg, USA Today, NowThis News, Cheddar, WWD, Robb Report, Women's Health and more. She is a Forbes and Fast Company contributor.

Nine West x Luminary "Groundbreakers"