February 19, 2025 • 50 mins
This week’s guest is Cate Luzio, Founder and CEO of Luminary - the professional education and networking platform propelling women and allies through all phases of their professional journey. She spent two decades in financial services, where she recognized the need for a space for women to build community and share resources, time, and expertise. She pivoted and founded Luminary, all while experiencing health challenges which eventually led to a life-changing surgery. In this episode, Cate gets super personal, opening up about her complex feelings around the intersection of these deeply personal experiences and her career success.
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She Pivots was created by host Emily Tisch Sussman to highlight women, their stories, and how their pivot became their success. To learn more about Cate, follow us on Instagram @ShePivotsThePodcast or visit shepivotsthepodcast.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to she Pivots. I'm Kate Lucio.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome back to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk
with women who dare to pivot out of one career
and into something new and explore how their personal lives
impacts these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Today
(00:33):
we have on Kate Lucio, the founder and CEO of Luminary,
a first of its kind global professional education and networking
platform created to address the systemic challenges impacting women and
our allies across all industries and sectors. Luminary also has
a brick and mortar location that you just might recognize
from our season three launch party last year. I met
(00:56):
Kate through one of my dear friends, a former she
Pivots guest, Marissa Lee, the author of the must read
book Grief Is Love. In fact, I had the honor
of introducing both her and another she Pivots guest, Brookshields,
at her book launch, the party held at you guessed It,
the Luminary. This is exactly what I love about this show,
(01:17):
the way it brings women together and uplifts all of
us individually, and Kate is the perfect representation of this.
She started Luminary after wanting to bring together women in
a meaningful community to share resources, time and expertise. She
had spent two decades in leadership and financial services, leading global,
multi billion dollar businesses, and she saw a need for
(01:39):
a platform that would allow people to fully embrace their
stories and skills, and so she pivoted and started Luminary.
But that's not the end of her story. In fact,
it's just one side, the professional. On the personal side,
Kate was dealing with her own health journey from IVF
to breast care answer to eventually a hysterectomy and acute
(02:03):
and difficult loss for her after trying for a baby
for so long. I'm so grateful to Kate for coming
on and opening up about her still developing and complex
feelings around the intersection of these deeply personal experiences and
her blossoming career success. Ladies, this is an episode you
won't want to miss enjoy. Oh and if you hear
(02:24):
some chirping birds, it was just the idyllic setting that
Kate was recording from. Let's jump right in.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I am Kate Lucio, and I am the founder and
CEO of Luminary and what is luminary. Luminary is a
global networking and provisional education platform. We started here in
New York City in twenty nineteen as a physical space
for women and allies to connect, create, develop, and thanks
(02:56):
to the pandemic, we went online overnight and now we
have a global community around the world.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
You also hosted my launch party for the podcast we did,
and I.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Couldn't even be there but because I was having surgery.
So but I you know, so many people continue to
bring that event up. They're like, I was at Emily
She Pivots podcast launch at the Glass Ceiling. You weren't there,
but so many people continue to talk about what a
magical night it was.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Oh my god, I love that so much. Well, I mean,
I think the energy that you brought into it, like
into designing the space and even just like the spirit
that you bring into it was so felt there. It
was so everybody was just happy to be talking about
their pivots and like how to help other women, and
everyone was bringing that energy and like, yes, what can
I do for you? What can I do for you?
(03:47):
What can I do for you? Which is the kind
of room I want to be in? Like that's definitely
the kind of I want to create, and you really
help do that with the space.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, isn't that amazing where it's not just about listen.
There's there's a time and place for the for the get,
but there's also a time and a place for the give,
and I think when it happens at that same time,
it just inspires other to have that given the get.
And so I'm pretty proud of what we've built and
both physically and virtually, and just know that the incredible
(04:17):
community and people coming into the space again physically and
virtually is is exactly who we wanted to walk into
the space.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Well, I actually met you and came into the space
for the first time in exactly one of these circumstances,
because you hosted a book party for my friend Marissa
Renee Lee and her book Grief Is Love, and that
was my first time in the space and I was
just blown away.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
And we love Marissa. She's amazing. So thanks to you.
You introduced Marissa to Luminary. You introduced us to Marissa
and her book, and that was an incredible book launch
as well. But she's become a Luminary member and she's
just an inspiring motivating is not even the words that
I could use to describer It's so much more than that.
(05:01):
But that was because she did her book launch there
and now she's so engaged and so involved and also
bring this idea that grief is love and we have
to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
You know, what she's talking about, what you're talking about,
the luminaria, what we're talking about here at Cheap Pivots.
It's so intertwined. It's like the fact that we want
to show up professionally and we know that we're good,
and we know that we can be our best selves,
and we have these other personal factors that interplay sometimes
and we want to show up with all of it.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah, and I think they interplay all the time, right.
I think historically women in particular women and women of
color just were kind of told not to show up,
you know, leave that at the door before you come
into the I'm using air quotes into the office. I
think the pandemic did change a lot of that, right,
because we had windows into what everyone's lives were because
(05:56):
everyone was going through it at once. And I think
that the more we share our stories and we do
it not behind closed doors or through what we call
Whisper Networks. We're doing it out in front. It does
inspire and motivate others to share their stories and bring
their whole selves into whatever they're doing. Yeah, I mean
it's the whole, you know, Like it's the whole idea
(06:19):
behind a group therapy that like if you see someone
showing up emotionally, then you are compelled to meet them, absolutely,
both for yourself but also for them, like you don't
want them to feel alone, and so like you show
up to talk about the thing that you're going through
and it helps them and it helps you absolutely. That's
such a great analogy. I was just leading a workshop
for one of our corporate our enterprise clients and around
(06:40):
self advocacy. But I like the term self promotion much
better because it makes people uncomfortable. Oh I don't want
to be around someone who self promotes. It's the same
as self advocacy. It's just this negative connotation that you're
doing it in an in authentic way. And it can
be done in an authentic way. But if we show
(07:01):
up and we actually give facts and context, I say
that's the way to do it. And so for me,
when somebody shares an achievement or an accomplishment. When they're
advocating for themselves, it inspires others to do that too.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, totally. Okay, So let's get back to you, Kate. Okay, okay,
So set the scene for us, give us a little Kate, like,
what did you think you were going to be when
you grew up? So, actually, my mom recently found something
that I wrote. She has kept a lot of our
kids stuff, and I think it was in fourth grade
I said I want to be the president. Probably not
what I thought I was going to do, but at
(07:39):
that time, I think I was inspired by leadership. And
so to me at that time, if I unpacked that
a little, it was like that was the example of
a leader. At the same time, I was in fourth grade,
it was when the Challenger happened, and so we were
watching all of these amazing astronauts, one of them being
a teacher, right, So for me it was like anybody
that was in a leadership role, that's what I wanted
(08:02):
to do. I really looked and my teachers were leaders,
and so one I thought there was they had a
position of power, which an influence which probably didn't recognize
then do now. And so for me growing up, I
really wanted to follow my dad's flote steps. He was
an FBI agent, and that's what I thought because that's
what I knew.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
And my mom was a teacher, loved what she did.
I could never be a teacher, but I guess I
do that now. So when I went to college, I thought,
I'm going to do political science criminal justice as a minor,
and that's what I'm going to do. Or I'm going
to work somewhere in the government, and that was what
I really aspired to do.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Wait, so how did you not end up as an
FBI agent? Oh?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Boy? So the true story that I don't think I've
ever shared publicly. So when I was a sophomore in college,
there was an internship program at the FBI Academy, oh sorry,
the headquarters in Washington, DC. I went to University of
Maryland underrub and very long story short, my dad said,
you should apply for this. It's to be a tour guide,
but that will get your foot in the door and
(09:03):
you can start experience. What I didn't know is you
had to go through the same application process that anybody
that wanted to work with in the FBI. Was like
thirty pages What I also didn't know is that I
had tried marijuana for the first time about three months
prior to that. Now this is in the nineties. The
last page of the application said your drug history, and
(09:25):
everyone in my dorm said, just lie, you've tried it
one time, but I couldn't. I had to be honest,
and I'm an FBI agent's daughter, and so we get
into the interview and they're like, this is amazing. You're amazing,
and then they get to the last page because they
do it they did it in person, and they said, wait, oh,
you've tried drugs. I said it was one time. I
started crying. They said, I'm so sorry, You're ineligible to apply,
(09:46):
and so had to go home and tell my parents
and my dad was very disappointed, but he said I'm
glad you didn't lie. And then got a letter a
few months later saying because of your drug abuse, you
know we can't you're not ineligible, and I thought, are
you getting me? Literally, I tried it at one time, and
I said, that's not where I want to be If
that's the judgment, I understand their processes and rules, and
(10:10):
so that was that was my I guess failed attempt
to try, and then years later my dad actually said
to me, I'm so glad that you did something different.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Okay, so do you know what your dad was trying
to get you away from?
Speaker 1 (10:26):
No. I think he thought, and again I'm putting words
into his mouth, that I was destined for bigger things
and bigger impact. And I didn't know it then that
I really wanted to do something very international, and not
(10:46):
that you couldn't do that at the FBI, but that
would have not been my path. And so you know,
many several years later, when I got recruited into banking,
that took me into an international career for the better
part of twenty years. And so I think that was
one I do also think my dad was so committed
and it's really a public service job. You're not making
(11:09):
a lot of money, which is a shame. It's because
they sort of protect us. And I think he wanted
me to not have to worry so much all the
time about finances and to put my four years of
college that he paid for. That was a huge gift
for me to use and to hopefully go and be
(11:30):
financially stable.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
So was that the driving factor for you when you
graduated college, like, I'm going to find a job that
will help me be as financially stable as quickly as possible. No.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
I got a job in a nonprofit.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Not known for financial stability.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
No, but so I was. I loved my job. I
was working for an affordable housing nonprofit still around mana
love them, and the CFO at the time, who was
probably not that much old, wasn't old, but looked older.
I was in my twenties. He came and he called
me into his office the city said I think you
need to leave. I don't want you to get stuck here.
And it wasn't a negative. It wasn't like you should leave,
(12:05):
and because it's more a bad place. It was you
have a lot to give, you are, you have a
lot of energy, and go work in the private sector.
You can always give back and be philanthropic over time,
and you can always come back like he did, because
he had been a CFO in the sort of private
sector and came back. And I really took that to heart.
And it was the Internet boom, and so I went
(12:27):
out and got a job at a tech startup and
I remember thinking, oh my gosh, I'm rich because of
what I was. I mean, it wasn't that much more money,
but it was significant for me, and I could start
saving to buy a house, things like that that didn't exist.
So I went from well, I'm going to make money
to a nonprofit to a tech startup to that for
(12:49):
a couple of years, and then pivoted when I got
recruited into financial the financial.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
World, you had really interesting international placements, what you would
call yes, yes, that's great. Were the international jobs. Were
you trying to find something where you would move around
the world because I want to hear what you learned.
It's just so interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Not necessarily so. I when I was in college, I
studied abroad and that was for me. I mean I
really I had been out of I never I've been
on a plane one time before I studied abroad. So
I went to Spain and it was amazing, and I
was like this whole world that I never knew existed
outside of sort of New Jersey, Midwest Florida, and I
(13:30):
fell in love. I remember coming home going I think
I want to live abroad. And when I got to
that tech startup, about six months into the job, my
CEO called me in and it was a very small
company and you said, you have a passport. I said,
of course, and he said, great, You're going to China
with our CTO and you're going to help him figure
out if we should set up joint ventures. He said JVS.
(13:52):
I didn't even know what it meant, and Google was
just starting, so he couldn't google it. And and then
I went to China and it was like, wha, this
is amazing experiencing this culture. And I spent you know,
sort of the better part of two years on and
off there working at this company and then realizing that
I just loved international And so when I went back
to school at Georgetown, it was not because it was
(14:15):
I had a job in mine. I did a master's
in international relations because I loved international and learning and
learning about economies and political systems and certainly job the
sort of what was happening in their markets. But there
wasn't a plan. There was a I'm going to go
back and either work in a startup or I'm going
to go work in the government. There still was that
(14:36):
government in the back of my mind, and I did
a night program, so I was surrounded by people that
were working in the government, whether it was the State Department,
the CIA, the NSA. So I was like, this is
what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
And then I.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Got recruited by a bank which was just nowhere on
my radar, and that then over the next you know whatever,
almost twenty years took me to Mexico and London and
then working and traveling all around the world.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
When you were moving, did you think every time you
think like this was a permanent move or you thought
of it as a tour of service. No.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
I always thought, Okay, I'm and I'm very close to
my family, and I always thought, well, this is just
going to be temporary. But I didn't know how temporary.
So for example, when I moved to London, the assignment
or the placeman was two years, and I remember having
this conversation with my mom like she's I'm very close
to her, and I said, she said, it's only two years.
(15:34):
It's going to fly by. And two years turned into seven.
And so when I did move back to the States,
you know, and Mexico was sort of on and off
for two and a half years, and then I sort
of lived a pneumadic life on a plane in Latin America.
And even when I was in London, I was on
a plane almost three weeks of every month, so but
always in a different part of the world. So when
(15:54):
I kind of moved. When I moved back to the US,
it was very difficult for me because I loved learning
and being and being thrust into situations where I sort
of have to adapt, and coming back to the US.
People warned me about repatriation, but I didn't really appreciate
it until I did it, and it was difficult. I'll
(16:15):
just say that it was difficult. I also was not
happy in my marriage at the time, and so I
think there was a lot going on when that happened.
But I still love the travel. I've been, you know,
amount one hundred and twenty eight countries, and so that's
just part of who I am. It's in my DNA
and my mom and dad always go, we don't know
where you came from, but it's just they gave me
(16:36):
this opportunity as a kid and growing up to believe
I could be anything I wanted. And I think just
giving me that belief and sort of reinforcing it and
think for myself and become who I wanted, that has
driven so much of why I love international and certainly
you know, my job and giving it.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
All, will you fill in, like illuminate into a little
bit into the personal. When you were going through you know,
like twenty years of international living and international travel, I
feel like sometimes it's hard for me to keep friendships
and relationships with people like a town over or you know,
like a different city. Yeah, So how did that work
for you? Were you making friends as you went? Were
(17:18):
you keeping up relationships? Were you dating?
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Like?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
How did that work? Oh?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Absolutely? I mean, you know, I think you're you have
to make time to invest in relationships, right, So relationships
that come from your past as well as the relationships
that when you're in different places. And I think it's
really important to surround yourself with local people as well,
not just the people that make you comfortable, and usually
those are Americans. So I made it a priority wherever
(17:44):
I was to really invest time and build relationships locally,
and a lot of those relationships I still have. It
also was very intentional about how did I stay connected
with my sort of network and my friend group that
were still I'll call use the word home. And that's
what's I think pretty wonderful. Is this is like before
the Internet and before all the social media, so you
(18:07):
really had to take time. And then obviously social media
made it so much easier. I remember when Facebook came
out and I was moving. I was actually moving to London,
and it was like, oh, this is a great way
to stay connected, and it really was. And it was
also allowed people to see what you were doing. So
many people thought I was in Cia because they're like,
you're in a different country every week. So that and
(18:28):
then you know, I got married when I was in
London and my now ex husband, but my then person
was living in New York and so we got married,
he moved to London and spent a couple of years
in London together before my job. The job opportunity brought
me back to the US, but that was always going
to be the thing that I wanted to do as
(18:48):
my parents got older. But it was definitely it wasn't easy,
but I think you really have to make an effort
and and build that. And by the way, I also say, listen,
I I'm not going to be in touch all the time,
but when I am in touch, let's make the most
out of it. And all of my US trips back home,
I would really make it a point to see the
(19:10):
people that mattered to me. It wasn't just I saw
my parents and my nieces and nephews, which I did see,
but it was like those those friends that I really
needed to to also fill me up personally and also
invest in them. It was important to me and be
there for their special you know, events in their life
and their weddings and experiences. Just because I wasn't in
living in that area didn't mean I shouldn't make time
(19:30):
for it, and I did. So let's talk about when
you started to think about pivoting out of the corporate career.
Was it when you came back to the US because
you stayed in it for a little while? Still, right, Yeah,
I stayed for a couple of years, and you know,
I loved I loved my job. I love managing people,
I love clients, I love deals, and and so when
(19:51):
I when I decided that I was going to leave
banking or at least, you know, take a stop in
that part of my career, it wasn't because I didn't
love it. I think the culture where I was was
not the right culture for me. And I also, in
a very again pivotal conversation with my one of my mentors.
He said, you know, you need to go somewhere and
build your continue to build your career somewhere where you're
(20:14):
able to have a tremendous amount of impact, because that's
when you get I don't want to use the word board,
but you start to feel sort of antsy when you're
not having an impact. And so that was a really
eye opening conversation for me because I'd never ever had
that and I'd never actually looked at myself that way,
but he saw it. He had known me for you know,
(20:35):
close to a decade and he's still a mentor of mine,
and that was a very sparked the idea for me around, wait,
do I have to do this for the rest of
my life just because that's what as a gen xer
I've been kind of told. And then a week or
so later I had another conversation with him and he said, Kay,
what's the worst that can happen? You build new skills,
(20:57):
you do something different. If it doesn't work out, you
can always go back, and your reputation precedes you. And
so for me that was almost like if you heuish
my coach or my boss, like this permission to go
and do something different, not knowing what that was going
to be. And so I decided that I was going
to take a step back from that particular role. And
(21:18):
what did I immediately start doing? Like within two weeks
started interviewing with other banks again, and I said, what, wait,
you didn't do this. You could have just done that
when you were still in the institution you work for.
And it was in that moment that I allowed myself
to think. And I didn't even know that this was
happening at that time, but I came out of an
(21:39):
event and just wasn't what I wanted it to be,
and I thought, I think I can do this differently
and better and actually bring more people together versus we
get so siloed. And I was called my then he
still is my boyfriend, but I was divorced by then
in my divorce, and he said write it down and
(22:00):
I said I'm just spenting and he said, no, no,
you have something and write it down. And so I
spent the next week or two writing it down. And
that was the business plan for Luminary. So what is
it that you were Like what kind of event were
you at? Yeah, And it sparked it, and like, what
were you trying to solve for. So it was a
very i'll call it intimate fundraiser, charitable fundraiser for about
(22:23):
twenty twenty five women, and a friend of mine had
invited me. And when I got there, I didn't have
a job right because I was in this break and
so I really was having a hard time identifying how
to introduce myself. And there was another woman there from
another financial institution. She was like, Oh, that's so bold,
and that's amazing because she was the only person that
would talk that it was talking to me. And so
(22:45):
they went right into this like twenty people, and I'm like,
why is no one getting the opportunity to introduce themselves?
Like I don't know who these people are. And so
I stopped everyone and I was like, I know we're
at this dinner, but could we go around the room
and introduce ourselves and tell a little bit of our stories?
And you would have thought I'd eight heads. And these
are all women that I thought well, and most of
(23:08):
them were not working anymore. They had left to raise
their families or do philanthropic things. And these were amazing
and credible women that had these awesome stories, and yet
then none of them wanted to tell their story. And
I don't know why, but for me, it felt like
I didn't get an opportunity to know any of them.
(23:30):
I got a business card if I was lucky, and
there was no connection. And I think because people weren't
sharing their stories about themselves and maybe they all knew
each other. I don't think that's the case, but I
realized that so much of what connection is is being
open to hearing about someone else and wanting to help
(23:51):
if that's an opportunity, but also sharing our own stories.
And then I looked around and said, wait a second,
are we doing that in corporate America? How are women
doing that? Is this holding us back that we're not
doing this? This goes back to advocacy and advocating for ourselves.
And then at the same time, I really was watching
all of these women starting companies which I had no
(24:13):
interest in, to be honest. And after I wrote this
what now I know was my business plan, it was
then I started really doing research and saying, Wow, there's
an opportunity here that I think is untapped. And I
was only thinking about New York, right, I didn't even
(24:34):
think about more broadly outside of But I needed that
community when I came back to New York and I
didn't have one. What was the original business plan? So
the original business plan was a physical space in New
York City that women and allies because we've always been
gender inclusive, but predominantly women, because we were trying to
advance one of the workforce would come and learn and
(24:56):
connect and collaborate. However, the first audience that was in
that original business plan was really targeted at corporate women
because that's what I knew. And it wasn't until I
started to do more research that I saw so much
focus on entrepreneurship and women in entrepreneurship and all also
the lack of capital and all of the things that
(25:18):
we know, and I was like, wait, that's a whole
different audience. So what if I got both audiences and
also women like me that are in transition. But what's
really interesting is that original business plan didn't have the
word digital or virtual at all. I did a word search,
like when the pandemic hit, not one, so it was
all around physical and then a year later it changed overnight.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, so I want to just stick with the original
business plan for a second to understand. I mean, you're
talking about three pretty different audiences, bringing in women who
are within corporate structures, women who are entrepreneurs, and then
women who are in transition. How did you think about
marketing to each of them to bring them in and
to let them know that they were included and like
(26:04):
really wanted. Like I feel like there's often if you
market to one of those communities and the others feel excluded.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I think as a banker and walking
into that room of other women that were mainly philanthropic
and there's nothing against that, but that was in me,
I felt immediately excluded. I also had gone through the
process in London for many years of trying to get
into the Shortage House, which is part of the SOHO House,
and I was never accepted because I was a banker
(26:33):
and they were very clear, we don't want you. That's
changed now, so nothing against them, but well, once they
didn't take you, I'd hold it against them. Yeah, So
when I launched the Luminaria is like, I don't want
anyone to feel that way. And so that's actually the
experience that allowed me to say we're not going to
have an application process because if it's a true community,
(26:53):
we break down barriers for people. We don't put up
barriers for people trying to get in. That's not what
I experience in a supportive community. And so that was
always part of the business plan. I remember sort of
fake pitching it to friends in finance and BC and
private equity and they're like, Oh, this is never going
to work. You have to have an application process. But
that appl not having that application process broke down that
(27:16):
original barrier that we were talking about around well, that's
for women in corporate America, that's for people in entrepreneurship,
that's for people in transition. And so now I'm not judging,
I'm not there's no criteria around what you do in
your background. I think the other thing is we forget
that the topics and themes that challenge us or potentially
(27:37):
hold us back, or things we need to invest in,
whether you're climbing the corporate ladder or you're just navigating it,
whether you're in transition, you're in a lot of those
are topics are applicable across right, So advocacy, negotiation, relationship building,
everything that we do on a that we lack or
(27:58):
we need to invest in. It doesn't matter if you
are sitting and working for a two hundred and fifty
thousand percent organization or you're running a two person organization.
A lot of those topics are applicable across the journey,
and so what we've done is one make them accessible
and to when we're talking to a specific audience is
(28:20):
really tailor it around them.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Okay, so you've created a physical space. Your entire business
is raising dedicated on people being in a close knit
strangers being in a close knit space together. The pandemic hits,
what did you do? Yes? More after the break.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
So luckily we had a member who are unluckily for her,
but she gets she was stuck in China and she
we chatted me and said, it's worse than they're saying
it is. So this like two week thing not happening.
And either way, we hadn't shut down yet, New York
had not shut down yet, but I knew that people
(29:12):
were less and less people were coming in. And also
I was worried about my staff, and so I called
an intern in, one of our interns, and I said, hey,
have you ever heard of this thing called zoom? Can
you just get us a zoom and we'll just see
what that looks like, because we had all this programming
for the rest of March it was Women's History Month,
and I needed to continue to deliver that whether it
(29:34):
was two weeks or two months. And she called me
and she goes, it's free for thirty days. I said,
do I have to put a credit card down? And
she said yes because after thirty days. I said, oh, well,
we won't have it for after thirty days. Yeah, here,
I have like one hundred zoom counts already now. And
that was it. So overnight, before New York, even before
the physical space even shut down, we went online and
(29:56):
I remember our first program was don't touch your face,
don't touch your four oh one k because everyone was
talking about like you, you know, touching your mouth, and
then everyone was panicking, Oh my gosh, you know, it's
going to be like two thousand and eight, and so
that really for us, it was we didn't know it
then because we were in sort of fight or flight
(30:17):
mode because we didn't know if we were going to
make it, But it was the beginning of such an
amazing opportunity for us to think about how do we
reach more people and have more impact and make what
we were doing much more accessible. Than just in New York,
and that's really what what transpired. But it was those
first March, April, May June was the hardest for the
(30:40):
six months of my career, hands down, way harder than
the Financial crisis.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Wow. Wow. And I was a banker, right, I mean,
that's that's quite a statement, to be harder than the
financial crisis. Why do you think this was harder? How well? One?
Speaker 1 (30:53):
You know, I don't. I mean, even with all of
the cuts during the financial crisis, I don't think I
ever really feared for my job. I was, I was,
you know, really doing a great job. And I don't
think I ever really thought, am I going to lose
my job? When everybody in that company relies on you
to pay their rent, or their mortgage or their childcare,
(31:15):
it's it's a real rude awakening of the of the
realities of what's happening and also the pressure of what
was going on. And so we knew we had to
adapt very quickly in order to just stay alive for
a couple of months. And I think I went back
to that original business plan and said, what could we
(31:36):
do that could be innovating but also still at the
core of our community. And if you remember so many individuals.
So we have two you know, very again distinct audiences
in that we have B two C and B too.
B B two C. Everybody's worried. It's like, oh my gosh,
like I'm going to pull back on my spending B
(31:57):
to B. It was trying to figure out all these
company these were trying to figure out how do they
stay close to their people and connect them. And so
we had already had some great companies that we were
working with, and I called them and said, I think,
you know, let's double down. And now it doesn't have
to be in New York. I can reach your women
and your allies anywhere in the world. And that sort
(32:19):
of I think innovation and adapting and a pivot in
a way was huge for us.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah. It created a different way of thinking and a
different pathway of opportunity.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
But while she was finding her stride with Luminary, behind
the scenes, she was dealing with a diagnosis that changed
her life. After the break, Kate dives into the personal
that was behind her professional career. You know, the crux
(32:57):
of this show is that these personal things that happen
outside of us, like that we can't control end up
opening up different opportunities. Like they're hard in the moment,
and then they end up opening up different opportunities that
we couldn't have even thought of. And a long which
is basically this, I'd say, but this is still even
kind of professional. You yourself have had a variety of
(33:19):
health challenges that have taken you in different directions. Can
you talk through that for us? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (33:25):
And I think it's you know, it makes you feel
really human when you go through something that you never expected.
I actually it started actually in March of twenty twenty
because as everything was shutting down, we were now locked down,
and I started getting sick and I thought, oh, it's
just like cold, and then no, it was COVID. So
it was the original first strain, if you want to
(33:48):
call it that, and I was trying to keep the
company in business. I was going through PPP, the paycheck
Protection Program, and it was really really rough on my body.
And I think what should have been a two week
maybe three week sickness lasted well into six to eight
weeks because I wasn't getting any rest. And I think
that took a tremendous amount of a put a tremendous
(34:10):
amount of strain on my body. But then I didn't
stop right, so I just kept going and it's the
pandemic and I've got to keep the business going. And
then in twenty twenty two, after failing to go to
a mammogram for two years, I was like, oh, I
guess go to collegist said you have to do this.
You're not leaving my office until you go schedule your mammogram.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Fine, do it.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
And then I was going to get on a zoom
for about five hundred people one of our corporate clients,
and my phone rings literally like two minutes before, and
it's my doctor and they're like, hey, you know, very
matter of fact, your biopsy came back because I had
to have a biopsy. You have stage one breast cancer
and now we need you to get in touch with
(34:51):
the rest surgeon did and I remember not even listening.
I was like, wait, what would they just say?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (34:56):
And I'm trying to take notes while also thinking I
have to go lead this gigantic zoom session. And I
hung up and I get on the zoom and my
COO at the time, who's still our advisor and our
general counsel, could see my face and she DMed me
in the zoom and said do you need a minute?
And I said yeah, as I just needed to collect myself.
(35:17):
I got back on into the zoom and then she
came into the beauty bar, which which is where I
was doing the zoom from, and she said what happened?
And I had to say it out loud, and She's like, Okay,
you're leaving, You're going home. I'm going to walk you home.
And I'm getting a little emotional now because I don't
think if she had done that, I think I would
have just kept powering through that day. But it was
(35:38):
really I just couldn't believe and I knew that it
was stage one and it was all that was curable,
and I was in New York City and the best
city in the world for medicine. But you think you're
invincible and then that happens, and it was. It has
been a journey, and I have not been as open
(36:00):
about it, not because I'm not open. I'm an open book,
but I think I've also had to behind the scenes
deal with having surgery, having treatment, getting ontomoxifen, which is
the absolute worst medicine in the world, but it's a lifesaver.
Then having so many complications from breast cancer and the
(36:20):
medicine likely that led me to have a hysterectomy, a
full hysterectomy in January of this year. And if I
thought I needed help when I was going through the
breast cancer, boy, what did I underestimate what kind of
help I was going to need when I had a
full hysterectomy. And coming from someone who never had children, unfortunately,
you know, I never I didn't have any of that
(36:42):
sort of like what happens when your body goes through trauma.
So that has been May of twenty twenty two, that's
when I was diagnosed and then I had my full
hysterectomy January, and I would say, I'm still on the
on the journey.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Do you think that you've had to adjust the way
you think about your work, your impact, your time as
you've been recovering and gone through these different phases. Yes,
and no.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
I don't think my focus and my drive and my
determination are different, but how I do it is. And
I think the hysterectomy. If you had asked any of
my team when I was going through the breast cancer
and all that I don't think they would have said
that there was a huge change because I just sort
of got on with it and I kind of managed
(37:27):
things around it. When the doctor told my surgeon told
me that I was going to have to take at
least six weeks to eight weeks for recovery for the hysterectomy,
I just said, no, that's got to be a joke.
That's a long time. And I had to mentally come
to the grips with it. I needed to let go
and this was going to be not a huge opportunity
(37:50):
for me and the team, and they just were incredible.
They have been incredible and continue to be incredible, and
so for me that almost the entire month of January,
it did not do one video. I did a few zooms,
but I really and I told people, I'm on short
term medical leave and this is who's handling things in
(38:11):
the team. And I really had to let go of that,
and I think it was one of the best things
that I could have done as a leader for me,
but also for my team, because oh did they shine
and they continue to and I saw that when I
was going through COVID and we were all at home
and we got to see different strengths from our team members,
and I think I temporarily forgot that that people really
(38:35):
can step up to the plate and shine and if
you give them the opportunity. So that's really what's come
out of this for me, and not holding on so
tightly to every single thing just because it's my company
and really allowing people to have wings and sort of
take flight and own it. Yeah, there's opportunity, but it's
(38:57):
hard for people to do, especially when they found company
and continue to run it. Yes, and I think I've
learned a lot too.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
I also learned.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
I think that it is really important outside of work
to lean on the people that love you. And I
think I've always preached that right so to my family
and to friends, like lean on me, lean on me,
and I don't think I ever really practiced what I preached.
And this was a great exercise. If you will on,
(39:27):
you have to lean on the people that are around you,
and you have to ask for help and you tell
everyone that, but you're not doing it. So start role modeling, Kate.
So that was a wake up call for me too.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah. Around the time of your Hysteric d Mags, a
little bit after you had written on your Instagram that
you were angry, that you were angry that the organ
that you had never gotten to use to have kids
was now the thing that was making you sick.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Yeah, it still makes me angry because I think there's
obviously a societal thing that says, like, women, you're here
to pro create and to have a family. And I have,
you know, brothers. I have a brother on each side.
I have ten incredible nieces and nephews who I love,
and so I always wanted to have a family. I
really it was such a big part of what at
(40:18):
some point I was going to be able to do.
And when I wasn't successful, I beat the shit out
of myself. Right, I can be successful at every single thing,
but I can't do this and my body won't work.
And so fast forward I went. I mean, I went
through a lot of IBF and then to have to
find out that they're going to take everything that that
(40:39):
sort of like makes you a woman. That didn't work
on me. I didn't think it was going to be
a big deal. Emily, I didn't. And then it just
hit me one night that I had to grieve something
that I could never do. But it still felt like
a loss and how that is. And I know that's
(41:01):
you know, we get into that and there's lots of
people that have way worse things. But I just felt
in that moment when I posted that I am angry
because something that I wanted so badly in my life
was enabled could happen. And now even though I the
doctors had always told me after the IVF, I was
not going to be able to be successful, I think
(41:22):
once they take it out, it's like, well then it's
really never going to happen. Not that it was going
to happen anyway, but it was just cemented that. And
I'm still grieving that because it's it's a hard thing
to go through and by the way, it puts you
an immediate menopause and that's also you know, terrible. So
it's it's just a lot to deal with and emotionally
(41:45):
and mentally, and I think for me cathartic to just
share that on Instagram or even here, because I don't,
you know, there's definitely still a lot of anger in there.
And I the more I share, the better I feel.
And the other thing is the more I share, kind
of like what we were talking about the beginning this
group therapy, Like the more I share or I really
open my heart and my eyes to listen to others
(42:07):
about their experiences, and I learned so much.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
You know, often at this point in the interview, I
would ask somebody to maybe like how they got through it,
But I don't think that's a fair question to ask
you right now. You're in it and like you're still
having these waves of anger, maybe angry all the time.
So how do you move through life with these big emotions?
You know?
Speaker 1 (42:30):
One is I always have something that I am focused
on professionally and personally, right so I'm a goal oriented person.
I always have something, and so for me, a little
bit of is it And I'm again I'm not I'm
not saying this is the best way, but I want
to kind of just like move on, get on with it,
(42:50):
and keep going because it will get better. I have
learned in this kind of moment. Is my boyfriend Joe,
who is amazing, would say, you know, you're all a boss,
and he doesn't mean that in a negative way, but
he's like, you're so tough and you have to let
open yourself up. So part of me is still trying
to figure out how to do that. I do that
with my mom, my poor mom, every day. But that
(43:12):
helps me move on. And also knowing that I have
remarkable team and I have remarkable friends that if I
need them, I can call on them, and even if
I don't call on them, just knowing that they're there.
But the other is I've got all these people in
my community watching me, and I have nieces, and I
(43:34):
want them to know it's okay to be honest about
how we're feeling and that life is shitty sometimes and
that we have to ask for help. So as an entrepreneur,
you know, we have this emotional rollercoaster of like the
terrible highs and lows. I think as humans we have that,
and I just have to embrace both of them, because
if you try to fight the lows all the time,
(43:57):
I think you just get stuck in it even more.
And so I have good days and bad days. I
have good hours and bad hours, and that's really how
I just kind of move I'm learning to move through it.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Yeah, that's a very real answer. You've referenced something that
I think over the course of interview, something that I
think about a lot is redefining success for myself at
different points in my life. How do you think you're
defining your success for yourself right now at this point.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Doing my best every day. You know, I tell my
team all the time, we're never going to make everybody happy,
and it's hard to run a company and whatever job
you're in. I think if you go to work every
day or show up in your personal life every day
with the best intentions and giving it your all, and
it sounds kind of like a TV commercial from the eighties,
but that's how I was raised, and I think at
(44:44):
forty nine, so much of how I was raised is
really being reinforced now that I'm in that sort of
you know, my mid life and my definition of success
really now changes kind of daily. It changes in the
way that if I had a really great conversation with
an employee, too, I had a productive conversation with you know,
(45:08):
my boyfriend too, I had an impactful dialogue about, you know,
supporting someone's journey through menopause or loss or getting a promotion.
So for me, it's it used to be. It used
to be just everything about my career, and that is
definitely still me and I own that and I love
that part of me.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
But I can do that.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
I can still be relentless on my career and everything
we're trying to build by also having a life and
really embracing the love that I have in it.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
That's so beautiful. What is one thing that at the
time you saw as being like a negative or a
setbacker really a low, and now in retrospect you see
it's having really launched you into the success you.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Are right now. So I really when I when I
decided to do the sort of leave banking, and I
kind of sort of say it was like a temporary
exit because you never know and never say never. But
for about two months, I was really in a state
of depression. And I think this is important for people
that are going through transition. Whether you've been part of
(46:16):
a job for production or you've made the choice to
do something different and you're kind of figuring it out.
It's really lonely because everybody else is at work and
you're making this huge decision and everyone's going this is
so inspiring and amazing, and I can't believe you're doing this,
and you're feeling like, oh my god, what did I do?
And I really felt that I was really depressed and
(46:38):
I didn't know what to do. And no one knew that.
Nobody knew that except for my boyfriend and my mom
and maybe a few close friends, but very few. And
I was so tied and tied up into my identity,
which was work. And it was really like, oh my god,
I don't have this thing that has defined me for
(47:00):
twenty years, and now I've totally redefined that for myself.
And I didn't even know that that's what I was
going to do. And so I just think of myself
those almost two months sitting in my bathroom of my
apartment and thinking what did I do? I just blew
up my life in lots of different reasons and ways.
And now I look back and said I had to
(47:21):
go through that because now I can be a better advocate,
I can be a better leader, manager, founder, because now
I can put myself in the shoes of different people before.
I don't think I think I've said I could do that,
and I don't truly think I could have. There's so
much now on social media, and there's so much and
(47:42):
we can create these great brands and personal brands and stories.
But I truly feel like every day that I show up,
I'm honest and I'm open and I'm direct and sort
of what you see is what you get, and that's
me and I'm okay with that. And someone doesn't like it.
They don't like get One of my old bosses said,
not everybody's gonna like you, but hopefully they respect you.
(48:04):
And so I think whoever's listening, whoever out there, is
like just own who you are, whether you're twenty five
or forty nine or seventy whatever it is. And so
for me, it's like, I am tough, I am relentless,
I am I'm not as emotionally in touch with myself
as I should be. I don't have a skincare regime,
(48:25):
and that's okay because that's who I am, and I'm
pretty happy with that.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Kate, thank you so much for joining. She pivots so
good to have you on.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Likewise, I'm so happy to be here and it's so
good to see your face too.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
No, I know this just flew right by. Kate and
Luminary are still in New York City, so if you're
in the area, consider joining in person to truly tap
into the magic of her community. You can visit their
website we are luminary dot com to learn more. For
(48:59):
more on Kate. You can follow her on Instagram at
Kate Luzio. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to this
episode of she Pivots. I hope you enjoyed it, and
if you did, leave us a rating and tell your
friends about us. To learn more about our guests, follow
us on Instagram at she pivots the Podcast, or sign
(49:21):
up for our newsletter, where you can get exclusive behind
the scenes content on our website at she pivots thepodcast
dot com. Special thanks to the she pivots team, Executive
producer Emily eda Velosik, Associate producer and social media connoisseur
Hannah Cousins, Research director Christine Dickinson, Events and logistics coordinator
(49:45):
Madeline Snovak, and audio editor and mixer Nina Pollock. I
en yours she Pivots
Welcome back to she Pivots. I'm Kate Lucio.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome back to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk
with women who dare to pivot out of one career
and into something new and explore how their personal lives
impacts these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Today
(00:33):
we have on Kate Lucio, the founder and CEO of Luminary,
a first of its kind global professional education and networking
platform created to address the systemic challenges impacting women and
our allies across all industries and sectors. Luminary also has
a brick and mortar location that you just might recognize
from our season three launch party last year. I met
(00:56):
Kate through one of my dear friends, a former she
Pivots guest, Marissa Lee, the author of the must read
book Grief Is Love. In fact, I had the honor
of introducing both her and another she Pivots guest, Brookshields,
at her book launch, the party held at you guessed It,
the Luminary. This is exactly what I love about this show,
(01:17):
the way it brings women together and uplifts all of
us individually, and Kate is the perfect representation of this.
She started Luminary after wanting to bring together women in
a meaningful community to share resources, time and expertise. She
had spent two decades in leadership and financial services, leading global,
multi billion dollar businesses, and she saw a need for
(01:39):
a platform that would allow people to fully embrace their
stories and skills, and so she pivoted and started Luminary.
But that's not the end of her story. In fact,
it's just one side, the professional. On the personal side,
Kate was dealing with her own health journey from IVF
to breast care answer to eventually a hysterectomy and acute
(02:03):
and difficult loss for her after trying for a baby
for so long. I'm so grateful to Kate for coming
on and opening up about her still developing and complex
feelings around the intersection of these deeply personal experiences and
her blossoming career success. Ladies, this is an episode you
won't want to miss enjoy. Oh and if you hear
(02:24):
some chirping birds, it was just the idyllic setting that
Kate was recording from. Let's jump right in.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I am Kate Lucio, and I am the founder and
CEO of Luminary and what is luminary. Luminary is a
global networking and provisional education platform. We started here in
New York City in twenty nineteen as a physical space
for women and allies to connect, create, develop, and thanks
(02:56):
to the pandemic, we went online overnight and now we
have a global community around the world.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
You also hosted my launch party for the podcast we did,
and I.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Couldn't even be there but because I was having surgery.
So but I you know, so many people continue to
bring that event up. They're like, I was at Emily
She Pivots podcast launch at the Glass Ceiling. You weren't there,
but so many people continue to talk about what a
magical night it was.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Oh my god, I love that so much. Well, I mean,
I think the energy that you brought into it, like
into designing the space and even just like the spirit
that you bring into it was so felt there. It
was so everybody was just happy to be talking about
their pivots and like how to help other women, and
everyone was bringing that energy and like, yes, what can
I do for you? What can I do for you?
(03:47):
What can I do for you? Which is the kind
of room I want to be in? Like that's definitely
the kind of I want to create, and you really
help do that with the space.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, isn't that amazing where it's not just about listen.
There's there's a time and place for the for the get,
but there's also a time and a place for the give,
and I think when it happens at that same time,
it just inspires other to have that given the get.
And so I'm pretty proud of what we've built and
both physically and virtually, and just know that the incredible
(04:17):
community and people coming into the space again physically and
virtually is is exactly who we wanted to walk into
the space.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Well, I actually met you and came into the space
for the first time in exactly one of these circumstances,
because you hosted a book party for my friend Marissa
Renee Lee and her book Grief Is Love, and that
was my first time in the space and I was
just blown away.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
And we love Marissa. She's amazing. So thanks to you.
You introduced Marissa to Luminary. You introduced us to Marissa
and her book, and that was an incredible book launch
as well. But she's become a Luminary member and she's
just an inspiring motivating is not even the words that
I could use to describer It's so much more than that.
(05:01):
But that was because she did her book launch there
and now she's so engaged and so involved and also
bring this idea that grief is love and we have
to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
You know, what she's talking about, what you're talking about,
the luminaria, what we're talking about here at Cheap Pivots.
It's so intertwined. It's like the fact that we want
to show up professionally and we know that we're good,
and we know that we can be our best selves,
and we have these other personal factors that interplay sometimes
and we want to show up with all of it.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah, and I think they interplay all the time, right.
I think historically women in particular women and women of
color just were kind of told not to show up,
you know, leave that at the door before you come
into the I'm using air quotes into the office. I
think the pandemic did change a lot of that, right,
because we had windows into what everyone's lives were because
(05:56):
everyone was going through it at once. And I think
that the more we share our stories and we do
it not behind closed doors or through what we call
Whisper Networks. We're doing it out in front. It does
inspire and motivate others to share their stories and bring
their whole selves into whatever they're doing. Yeah, I mean
it's the whole, you know, Like it's the whole idea
(06:19):
behind a group therapy that like if you see someone
showing up emotionally, then you are compelled to meet them, absolutely,
both for yourself but also for them, like you don't
want them to feel alone, and so like you show
up to talk about the thing that you're going through
and it helps them and it helps you absolutely. That's
such a great analogy. I was just leading a workshop
for one of our corporate our enterprise clients and around
(06:40):
self advocacy. But I like the term self promotion much
better because it makes people uncomfortable. Oh I don't want
to be around someone who self promotes. It's the same
as self advocacy. It's just this negative connotation that you're
doing it in an in authentic way. And it can
be done in an authentic way. But if we show
(07:01):
up and we actually give facts and context, I say
that's the way to do it. And so for me,
when somebody shares an achievement or an accomplishment. When they're
advocating for themselves, it inspires others to do that too.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, totally. Okay, So let's get back to you, Kate. Okay, okay,
So set the scene for us, give us a little Kate, like,
what did you think you were going to be when
you grew up? So, actually, my mom recently found something
that I wrote. She has kept a lot of our
kids stuff, and I think it was in fourth grade
I said I want to be the president. Probably not
what I thought I was going to do, but at
(07:39):
that time, I think I was inspired by leadership. And
so to me at that time, if I unpacked that
a little, it was like that was the example of
a leader. At the same time, I was in fourth grade,
it was when the Challenger happened, and so we were
watching all of these amazing astronauts, one of them being
a teacher, right, So for me it was like anybody
that was in a leadership role, that's what I wanted
(08:02):
to do. I really looked and my teachers were leaders,
and so one I thought there was they had a
position of power, which an influence which probably didn't recognize
then do now. And so for me growing up, I
really wanted to follow my dad's flote steps. He was
an FBI agent, and that's what I thought because that's
what I knew.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
And my mom was a teacher, loved what she did.
I could never be a teacher, but I guess I
do that now. So when I went to college, I thought,
I'm going to do political science criminal justice as a minor,
and that's what I'm going to do. Or I'm going
to work somewhere in the government, and that was what
I really aspired to do.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Wait, so how did you not end up as an
FBI agent? Oh?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Boy? So the true story that I don't think I've
ever shared publicly. So when I was a sophomore in college,
there was an internship program at the FBI Academy, oh sorry,
the headquarters in Washington, DC. I went to University of
Maryland underrub and very long story short, my dad said,
you should apply for this. It's to be a tour guide,
but that will get your foot in the door and
(09:03):
you can start experience. What I didn't know is you
had to go through the same application process that anybody
that wanted to work with in the FBI. Was like
thirty pages What I also didn't know is that I
had tried marijuana for the first time about three months
prior to that. Now this is in the nineties. The
last page of the application said your drug history, and
(09:25):
everyone in my dorm said, just lie, you've tried it
one time, but I couldn't. I had to be honest,
and I'm an FBI agent's daughter, and so we get
into the interview and they're like, this is amazing. You're amazing,
and then they get to the last page because they
do it they did it in person, and they said, wait, oh,
you've tried drugs. I said it was one time. I
started crying. They said, I'm so sorry, You're ineligible to apply,
(09:46):
and so had to go home and tell my parents
and my dad was very disappointed, but he said I'm
glad you didn't lie. And then got a letter a
few months later saying because of your drug abuse, you
know we can't you're not ineligible, and I thought, are
you getting me? Literally, I tried it at one time, and
I said, that's not where I want to be If
that's the judgment, I understand their processes and rules, and
(10:10):
so that was that was my I guess failed attempt
to try, and then years later my dad actually said
to me, I'm so glad that you did something different.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Okay, so do you know what your dad was trying
to get you away from?
Speaker 1 (10:26):
No. I think he thought, and again I'm putting words
into his mouth, that I was destined for bigger things
and bigger impact. And I didn't know it then that
I really wanted to do something very international, and not
(10:46):
that you couldn't do that at the FBI, but that
would have not been my path. And so you know,
many several years later, when I got recruited into banking,
that took me into an international career for the better
part of twenty years. And so I think that was
one I do also think my dad was so committed
and it's really a public service job. You're not making
(11:09):
a lot of money, which is a shame. It's because
they sort of protect us. And I think he wanted
me to not have to worry so much all the
time about finances and to put my four years of
college that he paid for. That was a huge gift
for me to use and to hopefully go and be
(11:30):
financially stable.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
So was that the driving factor for you when you
graduated college, like, I'm going to find a job that
will help me be as financially stable as quickly as possible. No.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
I got a job in a nonprofit.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Not known for financial stability.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
No, but so I was. I loved my job. I
was working for an affordable housing nonprofit still around mana
love them, and the CFO at the time, who was
probably not that much old, wasn't old, but looked older.
I was in my twenties. He came and he called
me into his office the city said I think you
need to leave. I don't want you to get stuck here.
And it wasn't a negative. It wasn't like you should leave,
(12:05):
and because it's more a bad place. It was you
have a lot to give, you are, you have a
lot of energy, and go work in the private sector.
You can always give back and be philanthropic over time,
and you can always come back like he did, because
he had been a CFO in the sort of private
sector and came back. And I really took that to heart.
And it was the Internet boom, and so I went
(12:27):
out and got a job at a tech startup and
I remember thinking, oh my gosh, I'm rich because of
what I was. I mean, it wasn't that much more money,
but it was significant for me, and I could start
saving to buy a house, things like that that didn't exist.
So I went from well, I'm going to make money
to a nonprofit to a tech startup to that for
(12:49):
a couple of years, and then pivoted when I got
recruited into financial the financial.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
World, you had really interesting international placements, what you would
call yes, yes, that's great. Were the international jobs. Were
you trying to find something where you would move around
the world because I want to hear what you learned.
It's just so interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Not necessarily so. I when I was in college, I
studied abroad and that was for me. I mean I
really I had been out of I never I've been
on a plane one time before I studied abroad. So
I went to Spain and it was amazing, and I
was like this whole world that I never knew existed
outside of sort of New Jersey, Midwest Florida, and I
(13:30):
fell in love. I remember coming home going I think
I want to live abroad. And when I got to
that tech startup, about six months into the job, my
CEO called me in and it was a very small
company and you said, you have a passport. I said,
of course, and he said, great, You're going to China
with our CTO and you're going to help him figure
out if we should set up joint ventures. He said JVS.
(13:52):
I didn't even know what it meant, and Google was
just starting, so he couldn't google it. And and then
I went to China and it was like, wha, this
is amazing experiencing this culture. And I spent you know,
sort of the better part of two years on and
off there working at this company and then realizing that
I just loved international And so when I went back
to school at Georgetown, it was not because it was
(14:15):
I had a job in mine. I did a master's
in international relations because I loved international and learning and
learning about economies and political systems and certainly job the
sort of what was happening in their markets. But there
wasn't a plan. There was a I'm going to go
back and either work in a startup or I'm going
to go work in the government. There still was that
(14:36):
government in the back of my mind, and I did
a night program, so I was surrounded by people that
were working in the government, whether it was the State Department,
the CIA, the NSA. So I was like, this is
what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
And then I.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Got recruited by a bank which was just nowhere on
my radar, and that then over the next you know whatever,
almost twenty years took me to Mexico and London and
then working and traveling all around the world.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
When you were moving, did you think every time you
think like this was a permanent move or you thought
of it as a tour of service. No.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
I always thought, Okay, I'm and I'm very close to
my family, and I always thought, well, this is just
going to be temporary. But I didn't know how temporary.
So for example, when I moved to London, the assignment
or the placeman was two years, and I remember having
this conversation with my mom like she's I'm very close
to her, and I said, she said, it's only two years.
(15:34):
It's going to fly by. And two years turned into seven.
And so when I did move back to the States,
you know, and Mexico was sort of on and off
for two and a half years, and then I sort
of lived a pneumadic life on a plane in Latin America.
And even when I was in London, I was on
a plane almost three weeks of every month, so but
always in a different part of the world. So when
(15:54):
I kind of moved. When I moved back to the US,
it was very difficult for me because I loved learning
and being and being thrust into situations where I sort
of have to adapt, and coming back to the US.
People warned me about repatriation, but I didn't really appreciate
it until I did it, and it was difficult. I'll
(16:15):
just say that it was difficult. I also was not
happy in my marriage at the time, and so I
think there was a lot going on when that happened.
But I still love the travel. I've been, you know,
amount one hundred and twenty eight countries, and so that's
just part of who I am. It's in my DNA
and my mom and dad always go, we don't know
where you came from, but it's just they gave me
(16:36):
this opportunity as a kid and growing up to believe
I could be anything I wanted. And I think just
giving me that belief and sort of reinforcing it and
think for myself and become who I wanted, that has
driven so much of why I love international and certainly
you know, my job and giving it.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
All, will you fill in, like illuminate into a little
bit into the personal. When you were going through you know,
like twenty years of international living and international travel, I
feel like sometimes it's hard for me to keep friendships
and relationships with people like a town over or you know,
like a different city. Yeah, So how did that work
for you? Were you making friends as you went? Were
(17:18):
you keeping up relationships? Were you dating?
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Like?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
How did that work? Oh?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Absolutely? I mean, you know, I think you're you have
to make time to invest in relationships, right, So relationships
that come from your past as well as the relationships
that when you're in different places. And I think it's
really important to surround yourself with local people as well,
not just the people that make you comfortable, and usually
those are Americans. So I made it a priority wherever
(17:44):
I was to really invest time and build relationships locally,
and a lot of those relationships I still have. It
also was very intentional about how did I stay connected
with my sort of network and my friend group that
were still I'll call use the word home. And that's
what's I think pretty wonderful. Is this is like before
the Internet and before all the social media, so you
(18:07):
really had to take time. And then obviously social media
made it so much easier. I remember when Facebook came
out and I was moving. I was actually moving to London,
and it was like, oh, this is a great way
to stay connected, and it really was. And it was
also allowed people to see what you were doing. So
many people thought I was in Cia because they're like,
you're in a different country every week. So that and
(18:28):
then you know, I got married when I was in
London and my now ex husband, but my then person
was living in New York and so we got married,
he moved to London and spent a couple of years
in London together before my job. The job opportunity brought
me back to the US, but that was always going
to be the thing that I wanted to do as
(18:48):
my parents got older. But it was definitely it wasn't easy,
but I think you really have to make an effort
and and build that. And by the way, I also say, listen,
I I'm not going to be in touch all the time,
but when I am in touch, let's make the most
out of it. And all of my US trips back home,
I would really make it a point to see the
(19:10):
people that mattered to me. It wasn't just I saw
my parents and my nieces and nephews, which I did see,
but it was like those those friends that I really
needed to to also fill me up personally and also
invest in them. It was important to me and be
there for their special you know, events in their life
and their weddings and experiences. Just because I wasn't in
living in that area didn't mean I shouldn't make time
(19:30):
for it, and I did. So let's talk about when
you started to think about pivoting out of the corporate career.
Was it when you came back to the US because
you stayed in it for a little while? Still, right, Yeah,
I stayed for a couple of years, and you know,
I loved I loved my job. I love managing people,
I love clients, I love deals, and and so when
(19:51):
I when I decided that I was going to leave
banking or at least, you know, take a stop in
that part of my career, it wasn't because I didn't
love it. I think the culture where I was was
not the right culture for me. And I also, in
a very again pivotal conversation with my one of my mentors.
He said, you know, you need to go somewhere and
build your continue to build your career somewhere where you're
(20:14):
able to have a tremendous amount of impact, because that's
when you get I don't want to use the word board,
but you start to feel sort of antsy when you're
not having an impact. And so that was a really
eye opening conversation for me because I'd never ever had
that and I'd never actually looked at myself that way,
but he saw it. He had known me for you know,
(20:35):
close to a decade and he's still a mentor of mine,
and that was a very sparked the idea for me around, wait,
do I have to do this for the rest of
my life just because that's what as a gen xer
I've been kind of told. And then a week or
so later I had another conversation with him and he said, Kay,
what's the worst that can happen? You build new skills,
(20:57):
you do something different. If it doesn't work out, you
can always go back, and your reputation precedes you. And
so for me that was almost like if you heuish
my coach or my boss, like this permission to go
and do something different, not knowing what that was going
to be. And so I decided that I was going
to take a step back from that particular role. And
(21:18):
what did I immediately start doing? Like within two weeks
started interviewing with other banks again, and I said, what, wait,
you didn't do this. You could have just done that
when you were still in the institution you work for.
And it was in that moment that I allowed myself
to think. And I didn't even know that this was
happening at that time, but I came out of an
(21:39):
event and just wasn't what I wanted it to be,
and I thought, I think I can do this differently
and better and actually bring more people together versus we
get so siloed. And I was called my then he
still is my boyfriend, but I was divorced by then
in my divorce, and he said write it down and
(22:00):
I said I'm just spenting and he said, no, no,
you have something and write it down. And so I
spent the next week or two writing it down. And
that was the business plan for Luminary. So what is
it that you were Like what kind of event were
you at? Yeah, And it sparked it, and like, what
were you trying to solve for. So it was a
very i'll call it intimate fundraiser, charitable fundraiser for about
(22:23):
twenty twenty five women, and a friend of mine had
invited me. And when I got there, I didn't have
a job right because I was in this break and
so I really was having a hard time identifying how
to introduce myself. And there was another woman there from
another financial institution. She was like, Oh, that's so bold,
and that's amazing because she was the only person that
would talk that it was talking to me. And so
(22:45):
they went right into this like twenty people, and I'm like,
why is no one getting the opportunity to introduce themselves?
Like I don't know who these people are. And so
I stopped everyone and I was like, I know we're
at this dinner, but could we go around the room
and introduce ourselves and tell a little bit of our stories?
And you would have thought I'd eight heads. And these
are all women that I thought well, and most of
(23:08):
them were not working anymore. They had left to raise
their families or do philanthropic things. And these were amazing
and credible women that had these awesome stories, and yet
then none of them wanted to tell their story. And
I don't know why, but for me, it felt like
I didn't get an opportunity to know any of them.
(23:30):
I got a business card if I was lucky, and
there was no connection. And I think because people weren't
sharing their stories about themselves and maybe they all knew
each other. I don't think that's the case, but I
realized that so much of what connection is is being
open to hearing about someone else and wanting to help
(23:51):
if that's an opportunity, but also sharing our own stories.
And then I looked around and said, wait a second,
are we doing that in corporate America? How are women
doing that? Is this holding us back that we're not
doing this? This goes back to advocacy and advocating for ourselves.
And then at the same time, I really was watching
all of these women starting companies which I had no
(24:13):
interest in, to be honest. And after I wrote this
what now I know was my business plan, it was
then I started really doing research and saying, Wow, there's
an opportunity here that I think is untapped. And I
was only thinking about New York, right, I didn't even
(24:34):
think about more broadly outside of But I needed that
community when I came back to New York and I
didn't have one. What was the original business plan? So
the original business plan was a physical space in New
York City that women and allies because we've always been
gender inclusive, but predominantly women, because we were trying to
advance one of the workforce would come and learn and
(24:56):
connect and collaborate. However, the first audience that was in
that original business plan was really targeted at corporate women
because that's what I knew. And it wasn't until I
started to do more research that I saw so much
focus on entrepreneurship and women in entrepreneurship and all also
the lack of capital and all of the things that
(25:18):
we know, and I was like, wait, that's a whole
different audience. So what if I got both audiences and
also women like me that are in transition. But what's
really interesting is that original business plan didn't have the
word digital or virtual at all. I did a word search,
like when the pandemic hit, not one, so it was
all around physical and then a year later it changed overnight.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, so I want to just stick with the original
business plan for a second to understand. I mean, you're
talking about three pretty different audiences, bringing in women who
are within corporate structures, women who are entrepreneurs, and then
women who are in transition. How did you think about
marketing to each of them to bring them in and
to let them know that they were included and like
(26:04):
really wanted. Like I feel like there's often if you
market to one of those communities and the others feel excluded.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I think as a banker and walking
into that room of other women that were mainly philanthropic
and there's nothing against that, but that was in me,
I felt immediately excluded. I also had gone through the
process in London for many years of trying to get
into the Shortage House, which is part of the SOHO House,
and I was never accepted because I was a banker
(26:33):
and they were very clear, we don't want you. That's
changed now, so nothing against them, but well, once they
didn't take you, I'd hold it against them. Yeah, So
when I launched the Luminaria is like, I don't want
anyone to feel that way. And so that's actually the
experience that allowed me to say we're not going to
have an application process because if it's a true community,
(26:53):
we break down barriers for people. We don't put up
barriers for people trying to get in. That's not what
I experience in a supportive community. And so that was
always part of the business plan. I remember sort of
fake pitching it to friends in finance and BC and
private equity and they're like, Oh, this is never going
to work. You have to have an application process. But
that appl not having that application process broke down that
(27:16):
original barrier that we were talking about around well, that's
for women in corporate America, that's for people in entrepreneurship,
that's for people in transition. And so now I'm not judging,
I'm not there's no criteria around what you do in
your background. I think the other thing is we forget
that the topics and themes that challenge us or potentially
(27:37):
hold us back, or things we need to invest in,
whether you're climbing the corporate ladder or you're just navigating it,
whether you're in transition, you're in a lot of those
are topics are applicable across right, So advocacy, negotiation, relationship building,
everything that we do on a that we lack or
(27:58):
we need to invest in. It doesn't matter if you
are sitting and working for a two hundred and fifty
thousand percent organization or you're running a two person organization.
A lot of those topics are applicable across the journey,
and so what we've done is one make them accessible
and to when we're talking to a specific audience is
(28:20):
really tailor it around them.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Okay, so you've created a physical space. Your entire business
is raising dedicated on people being in a close knit
strangers being in a close knit space together. The pandemic hits,
what did you do? Yes? More after the break.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
So luckily we had a member who are unluckily for her,
but she gets she was stuck in China and she
we chatted me and said, it's worse than they're saying
it is. So this like two week thing not happening.
And either way, we hadn't shut down yet, New York
had not shut down yet, but I knew that people
(29:12):
were less and less people were coming in. And also
I was worried about my staff, and so I called
an intern in, one of our interns, and I said, hey,
have you ever heard of this thing called zoom? Can
you just get us a zoom and we'll just see
what that looks like, because we had all this programming
for the rest of March it was Women's History Month,
and I needed to continue to deliver that whether it
(29:34):
was two weeks or two months. And she called me
and she goes, it's free for thirty days. I said,
do I have to put a credit card down? And
she said yes because after thirty days. I said, oh, well,
we won't have it for after thirty days. Yeah, here,
I have like one hundred zoom counts already now. And
that was it. So overnight, before New York, even before
the physical space even shut down, we went online and
(29:56):
I remember our first program was don't touch your face,
don't touch your four oh one k because everyone was
talking about like you, you know, touching your mouth, and
then everyone was panicking, Oh my gosh, you know, it's
going to be like two thousand and eight, and so
that really for us, it was we didn't know it
then because we were in sort of fight or flight
(30:17):
mode because we didn't know if we were going to
make it, But it was the beginning of such an
amazing opportunity for us to think about how do we
reach more people and have more impact and make what
we were doing much more accessible. Than just in New York,
and that's really what what transpired. But it was those
first March, April, May June was the hardest for the
(30:40):
six months of my career, hands down, way harder than
the Financial crisis.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Wow. Wow. And I was a banker, right, I mean,
that's that's quite a statement, to be harder than the
financial crisis. Why do you think this was harder? How well? One?
Speaker 1 (30:53):
You know, I don't. I mean, even with all of
the cuts during the financial crisis, I don't think I
ever really feared for my job. I was, I was,
you know, really doing a great job. And I don't
think I ever really thought, am I going to lose
my job? When everybody in that company relies on you
to pay their rent, or their mortgage or their childcare,
(31:15):
it's it's a real rude awakening of the of the
realities of what's happening and also the pressure of what
was going on. And so we knew we had to
adapt very quickly in order to just stay alive for
a couple of months. And I think I went back
to that original business plan and said, what could we
(31:36):
do that could be innovating but also still at the
core of our community. And if you remember so many individuals.
So we have two you know, very again distinct audiences
in that we have B two C and B too.
B B two C. Everybody's worried. It's like, oh my gosh,
like I'm going to pull back on my spending B
(31:57):
to B. It was trying to figure out all these
company these were trying to figure out how do they
stay close to their people and connect them. And so
we had already had some great companies that we were
working with, and I called them and said, I think,
you know, let's double down. And now it doesn't have
to be in New York. I can reach your women
and your allies anywhere in the world. And that sort
(32:19):
of I think innovation and adapting and a pivot in
a way was huge for us.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah. It created a different way of thinking and a
different pathway of opportunity.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
But while she was finding her stride with Luminary, behind
the scenes, she was dealing with a diagnosis that changed
her life. After the break, Kate dives into the personal
that was behind her professional career. You know, the crux
(32:57):
of this show is that these personal things that happen
outside of us, like that we can't control end up
opening up different opportunities. Like they're hard in the moment,
and then they end up opening up different opportunities that
we couldn't have even thought of. And a long which
is basically this, I'd say, but this is still even
kind of professional. You yourself have had a variety of
(33:19):
health challenges that have taken you in different directions. Can
you talk through that for us? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (33:25):
And I think it's you know, it makes you feel
really human when you go through something that you never expected.
I actually it started actually in March of twenty twenty
because as everything was shutting down, we were now locked down,
and I started getting sick and I thought, oh, it's
just like cold, and then no, it was COVID. So
it was the original first strain, if you want to
(33:48):
call it that, and I was trying to keep the
company in business. I was going through PPP, the paycheck
Protection Program, and it was really really rough on my body.
And I think what should have been a two week
maybe three week sickness lasted well into six to eight
weeks because I wasn't getting any rest. And I think
that took a tremendous amount of a put a tremendous
(34:10):
amount of strain on my body. But then I didn't
stop right, so I just kept going and it's the
pandemic and I've got to keep the business going. And
then in twenty twenty two, after failing to go to
a mammogram for two years, I was like, oh, I
guess go to collegist said you have to do this.
You're not leaving my office until you go schedule your mammogram.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Fine, do it.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
And then I was going to get on a zoom
for about five hundred people one of our corporate clients,
and my phone rings literally like two minutes before, and
it's my doctor and they're like, hey, you know, very
matter of fact, your biopsy came back because I had
to have a biopsy. You have stage one breast cancer
and now we need you to get in touch with
(34:51):
the rest surgeon did and I remember not even listening.
I was like, wait, what would they just say?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (34:56):
And I'm trying to take notes while also thinking I
have to go lead this gigantic zoom session. And I
hung up and I get on the zoom and my
COO at the time, who's still our advisor and our
general counsel, could see my face and she DMed me
in the zoom and said do you need a minute?
And I said yeah, as I just needed to collect myself.
(35:17):
I got back on into the zoom and then she
came into the beauty bar, which which is where I
was doing the zoom from, and she said what happened?
And I had to say it out loud, and She's like, Okay,
you're leaving, You're going home. I'm going to walk you home.
And I'm getting a little emotional now because I don't
think if she had done that, I think I would
have just kept powering through that day. But it was
(35:38):
really I just couldn't believe and I knew that it
was stage one and it was all that was curable,
and I was in New York City and the best
city in the world for medicine. But you think you're
invincible and then that happens, and it was. It has
been a journey, and I have not been as open
(36:00):
about it, not because I'm not open. I'm an open book,
but I think I've also had to behind the scenes
deal with having surgery, having treatment, getting ontomoxifen, which is
the absolute worst medicine in the world, but it's a lifesaver.
Then having so many complications from breast cancer and the
(36:20):
medicine likely that led me to have a hysterectomy, a
full hysterectomy in January of this year. And if I
thought I needed help when I was going through the
breast cancer, boy, what did I underestimate what kind of
help I was going to need when I had a
full hysterectomy. And coming from someone who never had children, unfortunately,
you know, I never I didn't have any of that
(36:42):
sort of like what happens when your body goes through trauma.
So that has been May of twenty twenty two, that's
when I was diagnosed and then I had my full
hysterectomy January, and I would say, I'm still on the
on the journey.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Do you think that you've had to adjust the way
you think about your work, your impact, your time as
you've been recovering and gone through these different phases. Yes,
and no.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
I don't think my focus and my drive and my
determination are different, but how I do it is. And
I think the hysterectomy. If you had asked any of
my team when I was going through the breast cancer
and all that I don't think they would have said
that there was a huge change because I just sort
of got on with it and I kind of managed
(37:27):
things around it. When the doctor told my surgeon told
me that I was going to have to take at
least six weeks to eight weeks for recovery for the hysterectomy,
I just said, no, that's got to be a joke.
That's a long time. And I had to mentally come
to the grips with it. I needed to let go
and this was going to be not a huge opportunity
(37:50):
for me and the team, and they just were incredible.
They have been incredible and continue to be incredible, and
so for me that almost the entire month of January,
it did not do one video. I did a few zooms,
but I really and I told people, I'm on short
term medical leave and this is who's handling things in
(38:11):
the team. And I really had to let go of that,
and I think it was one of the best things
that I could have done as a leader for me,
but also for my team, because oh did they shine
and they continue to and I saw that when I
was going through COVID and we were all at home
and we got to see different strengths from our team members,
and I think I temporarily forgot that that people really
(38:35):
can step up to the plate and shine and if
you give them the opportunity. So that's really what's come
out of this for me, and not holding on so
tightly to every single thing just because it's my company
and really allowing people to have wings and sort of
take flight and own it. Yeah, there's opportunity, but it's
(38:57):
hard for people to do, especially when they found company
and continue to run it. Yes, and I think I've
learned a lot too.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
I also learned.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
I think that it is really important outside of work
to lean on the people that love you. And I
think I've always preached that right so to my family
and to friends, like lean on me, lean on me,
and I don't think I ever really practiced what I preached.
And this was a great exercise. If you will on,
(39:27):
you have to lean on the people that are around you,
and you have to ask for help and you tell
everyone that, but you're not doing it. So start role modeling, Kate.
So that was a wake up call for me too.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah. Around the time of your Hysteric d Mags, a
little bit after you had written on your Instagram that
you were angry, that you were angry that the organ
that you had never gotten to use to have kids
was now the thing that was making you sick.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Yeah, it still makes me angry because I think there's
obviously a societal thing that says, like, women, you're here
to pro create and to have a family. And I have,
you know, brothers. I have a brother on each side.
I have ten incredible nieces and nephews who I love,
and so I always wanted to have a family. I
really it was such a big part of what at
(40:18):
some point I was going to be able to do.
And when I wasn't successful, I beat the shit out
of myself. Right, I can be successful at every single thing,
but I can't do this and my body won't work.
And so fast forward I went. I mean, I went
through a lot of IBF and then to have to
find out that they're going to take everything that that
(40:39):
sort of like makes you a woman. That didn't work
on me. I didn't think it was going to be
a big deal. Emily, I didn't. And then it just
hit me one night that I had to grieve something
that I could never do. But it still felt like
a loss and how that is. And I know that's
(41:01):
you know, we get into that and there's lots of
people that have way worse things. But I just felt
in that moment when I posted that I am angry
because something that I wanted so badly in my life
was enabled could happen. And now even though I the
doctors had always told me after the IVF, I was
not going to be able to be successful, I think
(41:22):
once they take it out, it's like, well then it's
really never going to happen. Not that it was going
to happen anyway, but it was just cemented that. And
I'm still grieving that because it's it's a hard thing
to go through and by the way, it puts you
an immediate menopause and that's also you know, terrible. So
it's it's just a lot to deal with and emotionally
(41:45):
and mentally, and I think for me cathartic to just
share that on Instagram or even here, because I don't,
you know, there's definitely still a lot of anger in there.
And I the more I share, the better I feel.
And the other thing is the more I share, kind
of like what we were talking about the beginning this
group therapy, Like the more I share or I really
open my heart and my eyes to listen to others
(42:07):
about their experiences, and I learned so much.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
You know, often at this point in the interview, I
would ask somebody to maybe like how they got through it,
But I don't think that's a fair question to ask
you right now. You're in it and like you're still
having these waves of anger, maybe angry all the time.
So how do you move through life with these big emotions?
You know?
Speaker 1 (42:30):
One is I always have something that I am focused
on professionally and personally, right so I'm a goal oriented person.
I always have something, and so for me, a little
bit of is it And I'm again I'm not I'm
not saying this is the best way, but I want
to kind of just like move on, get on with it,
(42:50):
and keep going because it will get better. I have
learned in this kind of moment. Is my boyfriend Joe,
who is amazing, would say, you know, you're all a boss,
and he doesn't mean that in a negative way, but
he's like, you're so tough and you have to let
open yourself up. So part of me is still trying
to figure out how to do that. I do that
with my mom, my poor mom, every day. But that
(43:12):
helps me move on. And also knowing that I have
remarkable team and I have remarkable friends that if I
need them, I can call on them, and even if
I don't call on them, just knowing that they're there.
But the other is I've got all these people in
my community watching me, and I have nieces, and I
(43:34):
want them to know it's okay to be honest about
how we're feeling and that life is shitty sometimes and
that we have to ask for help. So as an entrepreneur,
you know, we have this emotional rollercoaster of like the
terrible highs and lows. I think as humans we have that,
and I just have to embrace both of them, because
if you try to fight the lows all the time,
(43:57):
I think you just get stuck in it even more.
And so I have good days and bad days. I
have good hours and bad hours, and that's really how
I just kind of move I'm learning to move through it.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Yeah, that's a very real answer. You've referenced something that
I think over the course of interview, something that I
think about a lot is redefining success for myself at
different points in my life. How do you think you're
defining your success for yourself right now at this point.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Doing my best every day. You know, I tell my
team all the time, we're never going to make everybody happy,
and it's hard to run a company and whatever job
you're in. I think if you go to work every
day or show up in your personal life every day
with the best intentions and giving it your all, and
it sounds kind of like a TV commercial from the eighties,
but that's how I was raised, and I think at
(44:44):
forty nine, so much of how I was raised is
really being reinforced now that I'm in that sort of
you know, my mid life and my definition of success
really now changes kind of daily. It changes in the
way that if I had a really great conversation with
an employee, too, I had a productive conversation with you know,
(45:08):
my boyfriend too, I had an impactful dialogue about, you know,
supporting someone's journey through menopause or loss or getting a promotion.
So for me, it's it used to be. It used
to be just everything about my career, and that is
definitely still me and I own that and I love
that part of me.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
But I can do that.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
I can still be relentless on my career and everything
we're trying to build by also having a life and
really embracing the love that I have in it.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
That's so beautiful. What is one thing that at the
time you saw as being like a negative or a
setbacker really a low, and now in retrospect you see
it's having really launched you into the success you.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Are right now. So I really when I when I
decided to do the sort of leave banking, and I
kind of sort of say it was like a temporary
exit because you never know and never say never. But
for about two months, I was really in a state
of depression. And I think this is important for people
that are going through transition. Whether you've been part of
(46:16):
a job for production or you've made the choice to
do something different and you're kind of figuring it out.
It's really lonely because everybody else is at work and
you're making this huge decision and everyone's going this is
so inspiring and amazing, and I can't believe you're doing this,
and you're feeling like, oh my god, what did I do?
And I really felt that I was really depressed and
(46:38):
I didn't know what to do. And no one knew that.
Nobody knew that except for my boyfriend and my mom
and maybe a few close friends, but very few. And
I was so tied and tied up into my identity,
which was work. And it was really like, oh my god,
I don't have this thing that has defined me for
(47:00):
twenty years, and now I've totally redefined that for myself.
And I didn't even know that that's what I was
going to do. And so I just think of myself
those almost two months sitting in my bathroom of my
apartment and thinking what did I do? I just blew
up my life in lots of different reasons and ways.
And now I look back and said I had to
(47:21):
go through that because now I can be a better advocate,
I can be a better leader, manager, founder, because now
I can put myself in the shoes of different people before.
I don't think I think I've said I could do that,
and I don't truly think I could have. There's so
much now on social media, and there's so much and
(47:42):
we can create these great brands and personal brands and stories.
But I truly feel like every day that I show up,
I'm honest and I'm open and I'm direct and sort
of what you see is what you get, and that's
me and I'm okay with that. And someone doesn't like it.
They don't like get One of my old bosses said,
not everybody's gonna like you, but hopefully they respect you.
(48:04):
And so I think whoever's listening, whoever out there, is
like just own who you are, whether you're twenty five
or forty nine or seventy whatever it is. And so
for me, it's like, I am tough, I am relentless,
I am I'm not as emotionally in touch with myself
as I should be. I don't have a skincare regime,
(48:25):
and that's okay because that's who I am, and I'm
pretty happy with that.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Kate, thank you so much for joining. She pivots so
good to have you on.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Likewise, I'm so happy to be here and it's so
good to see your face too.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
No, I know this just flew right by. Kate and
Luminary are still in New York City, so if you're
in the area, consider joining in person to truly tap
into the magic of her community. You can visit their
website we are luminary dot com to learn more. For
(48:59):
more on Kate. You can follow her on Instagram at
Kate Luzio. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to this
episode of she Pivots. I hope you enjoyed it, and
if you did, leave us a rating and tell your
friends about us. To learn more about our guests, follow
us on Instagram at she pivots the Podcast, or sign
(49:21):
up for our newsletter, where you can get exclusive behind
the scenes content on our website at she pivots thepodcast
dot com. Special thanks to the she pivots team, Executive
producer Emily eda Velosik, Associate producer and social media connoisseur
Hannah Cousins, Research director Christine Dickinson, Events and logistics coordinator
(49:45):
Madeline Snovak, and audio editor and mixer Nina Pollock. I
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