Cate Luzio: EPISODE LINK

On this episode, we talk with Cate Luzio, the founder and CEO of Luminary. Luminary is a first-of-its-kind, gender inclusive, global professional education and networking platform created to address the systemic challenges impacting women and our allies across all industries and sectors.

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TRANSCRIPT:

COLLEEN: Welcome back to “How Flashes and Cool Topics.” Today we are talking to the founder of “Luminary,” Cate Luzio. Welcome to the show, Cate.

CATE: I’m so excited to be here.

COLLEEN: Well, we first met you when we were doing “Behind the Scenes” with HerMD at the Women’s Health event at Luminary and it was eye -opening what you have there. I can’t wait to talk to you about all the different you know programs and everything but I want to start with what is Luminary and what does it provide?

CATE:Sure so today we are a global networking and professional education platform so really centered in ed tech for our community,
but supplementing or complementing that with in -person experiences. And we do that in our physical space here in New York. We have now close to 40 partner spaces around the country and growing abroad. And then we have an on the road, luminary live experience. And what does that all mean? That means for our community, our members, both our individual members, as well as our corporate members. And we can talk about that. Our goal is to advance women and our allies in the workforce, regardless of professional journey. So if you’re an entrepreneur, if you’re a podcaster, if you’re a banker, if you’re a content creator, if you’re figuring it out, we want to provide the community the content and programming that can help you navigate wherever you are in that journey. And so we do close to 20, 25 events, workshops, and programs every single month, both in person as well as virtually because thanks to the pandemic, we grew pretty rapidly digitally and had to invest.

When we started, we were a physical location in New York and that was our goal. And then a year later, pandemic hit. And so we had to adapt to the environment pretty quickly and that served us very well.

COLLEEN: So with Luminary, you started this, you were in banking for years. Financial executive. Yeah, that’s, that’s a long time. And then in 2018, you decided to start Luminary. Why did you feel the need that women needed this networking platform?

CATE: So I say this often. I didn’t know I would start a business until the day I wrote the business plan. It was simple. I had had come from yet another event that I didn’t find was impactful. I didn’t find the virtual connection. I just felt like I’m just giving a business card out. And that’s not the way I connect. And also that’s not the way I want to spend my time. And I want the content to be robust. Left called my boyfriend who’s still my boyfriend and he said, write it down. And he said, I think you have something here. And I thought, I’m just venting. And anyway, I listened. And literally for the next two weeks, I was writing and realized that in market research and analysis and sort of knowing what I knew after 20 -something years in corporate America, what was missing, but also what was being done well that we could pull together, but for all versus just one segment of the population. And there are a lot of resources that are for senior women and particular women and junior women when you’re starting out but the bulk of the workforce is the middle it’s that 80 % and what’s available to them and at the same time I was just watching all of these women and underrepresented founders start companies and say there’s got to be a better way to do this we’re bringing people together and so I wrote the business plan in March of 2018 eight months later we had completed the demolition and renovation and all the 15,000 square foot space here in the Nomad neighborhood of New York City. And a month later, we opened our doors.

COLLEEN: Wow, that’s fast. What was that?

CATE: Because I didn’t have an investor.

COLLEEN: I was going to say, that’s, that was my next question, you are self-funded. That’s a risky decision. What made you say it is worth the investment for me to create luminary and offer to women in every demographic?
CATE: So first and foremost, I wrote a plan, right? I didn’t just say, I’m gonna launch a business and put all my capital into it and help it works. I did a lot of research. I did a lot of socialization in my networks and my friend groups around, is this something that you would come to, do you need this? And then I started talking at the time to just lots of my friends that were my clients and the companies that they worked for. And there are amazing ERGs, employee resource groups, and most companies, but they never had budget. And so how could we also support them? And at that same time, I was watching, I want to do this now. I also don’t want to wait for someone to tell me it’s a bad idea. And I had saved a lot of bank bonuses and realized that after doing my numbers and financial projections, I could do it on my own. And if my projections were right, by the time, you know, six months into a year, we would be profitable. And I was right. And then the pandemic happened, which we can get into. But I saw that if I waited and tried to go out and raise money, I probably would never have done it because I’m one of those kind of like okay I’m going to take a calculated risk but I’m also going to be a little impulsive and I knew that I had the right plan I had done the work and I had I knew where the money was going and I knew how to make that money back.
Obviously the product had to be great and and so I knew that’s what I wanted to build and if I had waited around for investors I don’t think I would have ever been able to launch because it would have just taken forever especially given commercial real estate in New York City. And then I know I’m pretty much sure that if I had raised and a pandemic hit, I wouldn’t be in business anymore.

COLLEEN: We hear that from several businesses that we have spoken to that they started. It was like a lot of people started right before the pandemic, and then it hit and some of them didn’t make it. When you created Luminary, what was the plan that you would have a membership based program and what did the membership offer women and what does it offer women?
CATE: Sure, sure. I mean, again, if you go back to that to early 2019, we have this amazing, incredible, when you’ve been here, space, right? And it’s very flexible. So you have social space and event space, you have conference rooms and FOBUS. It’s not a traditional co -working space and I’m very vocal about that. I wanted to build a community and so we have two very distinct audiences, our B2C community which is our individual members and part of that was I don’t want to create something that’s going to keep women and our allies out and so we have no application process that is by design because I wanted to remove barriers for women, not hook them up and maybe the judge of who gets in and who doesn’t. And then on the B2B side, because that’s where I came from, it’s like, how do I move the needle faster? And so working with big companies and helping them invest in their talent pipeline and helping them invest and identify customers that may not look like them today, and that’s women -owned businesses and just women in general, those are two very distinct audiences. Those membership models look different, but they access the programming, the content, and the community the same. So whether you are an employee of J .P. Morgan or Kimberly Clark or Tiffany’s, or you are an entrepreneur that’s running your own jewelry company or your own bakery. You access everything that we offer the same way. You’ve got a digital platform, you’ve got the physical space, you have access to the partner network that we have built, and you have access to all of the events and programming, which we feel is a differentiator, given the the true number of workshops and events that we’re putting on every single month, both in person, as well as digitally and all of our in -person events are also live -streamed to our digital audience.
COLLEEN: Since our audience is mid -life women and we talk to a lot of women who want to start a business. They want to become entrepreneurs a little later in life. How can these resources help them do that?  They don’t know where to start.

CATE: Exactly. And that is, I think that’s the biggest challenge. Or they’ve got a phenomenal idea and they just spend money because they know it’s a great idea and they just want to get going. You know, for me, and I get on my soapbox about this all the time, is you, you know, you really need a plan. Most people don’t do things in life without some kind of plan. And so if you are going to take the greatest risk of your life, which is starting a business, especially if you are, as we say as women here at Luminary, stiletto is strapping because it’s harder. You better have a plan. It’s why I teach every month a business plan bootcamp, to get people prepared, whether they’re running their business already or they’re starting or they’re thinking of something different. I think one, helping our members understand that they’re not in this alone, it feels very lonely and isolating as you know, but that they’re not in this alone. That’s why we have this community. And so everything from building your brand to creating your financials to social media and SEO and influencer marketing, we’re taking in aggregate all of these topics that we know are challenges for our business owners because we do a lot of surveys and get a lot of feedback and then building that programming around them.
The other thing is more than 70 % of our programming comes from our community. And so we’re tapping into this incredible resource of thousands of members around the world that are experts in certain topics that have built businesses that have navigated their career and finance or in the law firm, and we’re bringing all of that back into the community. And that for us is you’ve invested in a membership with us, we’re investing in you by bringing you, amplifying everything that you have done and everything that you do. You saw that in the Luminary Harmony Health Summit, it’s really about amplifying those voices. So for those that are sort of thinking, I don’t know where to even start,
start by talking to a friend and saying, hey, you built a company, you’re an entrepreneur, give me the five things that you didn’t know when you started. ‘Cause I will tell you, there’s so much you don’t know.

The second is what are the communities that you tap into as an entrepreneur? Obviously, we hope luminaries were one of them. And if it’s not, we just hope that you tap into a community. And then three is start writing everything down. You have to have a plan. And the last piece is your numbers. I know I’m a banker, but the financial keys to success are your numbers, right? And so when we look back on that 70 % of small businesses in America, bootstrap or soleto strap, right? And so that’s a large percentage, some out of necessities, some because they want you like me. But if I’m not prepared financially to know what’s coming at me, the headwinds, and then also the tailwinds, how am I going to be prepared for if there’s a recession, if there’s a pandemic, if there’s an amazing opportunity. So I think those financials are critical. And so we’re constantly putting out programming to support the community in those entrepreneurial. And by the way, that’s not just entrepreneurs, that’s entrepreneurs as well, within companies, because there’s a lot to be said about those that are intrapreneurial and building companies and businesses. That’s what I did in banking. That allowed me the skills to be able to say, I’m going to build this business plan, I’m going to write the financials, and then I’m going to have that plan, and I’m going to stick to it. And I’m going to adapt as things change.

COLLEEN: I wanted to tap into that a little bit more, because you say that a lot of the information can be about SEO, can be about social media. Our demographic of women, it’s a little challenging for them to get into that modern social media platform. And Cate is pointing to herself. One of the things that I was really impressed by when we did our, we did the behind the scenes of the luminary was the intergenerational aspect. There were younger women, there were women of our demographic and everyone was talking. How have you created that kind of platform to help women who may not be familiar with some of these aspects of being self -employed?
CATE: So when I, you know, I think it starts with the culture of the community itself. It’s like, okay, leave your egos at the door. You say this all the time. You know, first of all, none of us get to where we are by ourselves. There’s always somebody that we lean on. And so we want to be one of those communities that you lean on. And so if you’re coming in thinking there’s this big stage and and your ego is so large,
this is not the place for you. If you’re coming in thinking, I want to take as much as I give, right? I want this to be a two -way street. I want to learn from the people around me. I want them to learn for me and making sure that everything that we do is building that culture you know and because we’re gender inclusive right predominantly women but we have a lot of male members and those that identify as male the three things they say when they’re whether it’s digital or or in the spaces everyone is so welcoming two there’s no ego and three,
people are smiling, right? And so a kindness goes a long way. And I think that’s so much a part of the culture so that when you walk in the door physically or virtually, you’re not feeling intimidated, which we often do especially ’cause most people don’t like to network. So taking that, we say taking the work out of networking is really important and just we all have good intentions, right? And that’s part of why we’re here, so let’s help each other.

And one of the other things that I would say is accessibility. I mean, you saw me in the space I’m usually at the space every day in some capacity. I offer to our members, anybody, anyone that’s a member can meet with me. They just have to book time on my calendar.
And I will prioritize any member of our community over anyone else that asked me for time. And I think our team does that, and what that’s done over the last five years is, now everybody does that, right? It’s like, hey, Bridget, how can I help you, right? Hey, Colleen, I have a question for you. I’d love to know X, Y, Z about how you promote on your Instagram. In return, let me tell you what I can help you with on, you know, writing out your financials or staying focused on your projections. That’s what we see happening all the time and I think that’s just this and on the road in the space digitally. That’s the culture that I think we’re we’ve created and I my expectation is everyone that’s part of the community leads by example.

BRIDGETT: Right, and that’s something I really noticed when we were there for the her and the event that I just noticed everybody that work there was happy And that was so impressive to be somewhere for a very long day where everybody seemed happy. And then you just feel, there’s the first step, you feel welcome, you feel comfortable, and you feel like, I really, I left that day feeling really uplifted just by the diversity of the people that were there, just everything that I had to offer there. I just, and I didn’t even, you know, I was behind the scene, so I didn’t really get to see the talk. But, but still, you could just, you had that feeling there. And I think that is really, that is something commendable. But that’s something that was very impressive that Luminary has to offer. And I don’t know if you’ve talked about the different types of memberships yet with Luminary.
COLLEEN: We have not gotten to that.

BRIDGETT: If you could share with us some of the types.

CATE: Sure, so as I mentioned earlier, we believe in breaking down barriers, especially for women and underrepresented communities. And so that’s why we don’t have an application process. So we consider ourselves a members first, join our communities. So at any time someone can go online or walk into the space or when we’re on the road and join. We have five tiers of membership on the individual side. So we have a digital only. So that’s someone that just wants to join our events digitally, wants access to the content platform, wants access to the member directory. And by the way, all memberships have access always to all of our events and all of our content. There’s no pay walls behind them. We have a digital plus membership that also includes access to our space a few days a month as well as our partner spaces and then we have three other tiers where it’s more physical where maybe you’re in Philly and you’re coming once a month,
maybe you’re in Westchester, you’re coming twice a month, maybe you just want a space in New York or you really want the opportunity to leverage and utilize those partner spaces because you’re traveling all the time. So we’ve built it as flexible as we think possible but we’re always taking in ideas and feedback.We acquired a company last year called The Cru, which is peer -to -peer coaching. So now we have crews, which is you get in a crew, it’s eight, it’s seven or eight other individuals like -minded and those run for six months. So right now that’s part of our membership, but we’re going to be launching a crew only where you don’t feel like you need the membership yet, but you definitely need a crew around you. And then, so those are the individual what we call our B2C memberships and then B2B we work with now over a hundred companies in different ways to help and support not only their employees, not only their leaders, but also as they think about customers. We’ve just launched a fellowship program today actually with one of our long -term partners with UBS that’s specifically focused on women of color business owners and giving them access to the resources they need to build their business. So we’re constantly adapting and evolving and innovating because we take in so much feedback. If I had an investor or had investors, I wouldn’t be able to act so nimbly and quickly and really make changes once we take in that feedback.
BRIDGETT: When you have investors, you also have to be careful about them wanting to take over. I that that is a really a scary aspect of it too. And I know this, just I can tell that this is your vision and what you want it to want to see. Yeah, and it’s our vision, right?

CATE: Right. When I started in banking, the bank that I started with over every door in any building they had around the world, it’s a think of yourself as a customer. The only door it didn’t have it over was the bathroom. So, But every other door, that’s what you thought about. And for me, that’s what I think about every day. So why would I want to sell something that somebody doesn’t want? And so I want to take the feedback. I want to listen and then, you know, so much of what we’ve evolved to over the last five years, especially since the pandemic, has come from our members and our community. The reason we’re on the road eight times a year in different cities is because our members were coming to us and saying we love the digital and I’m in LA and I’m in London, but we’d love to see you also in real life if we can’t get to New York. And so Luminary Live was born. So we really, really take our time and also take that feedback very seriously around what’s working, what’s not, and certainly around topics. The whole Women’s health summit that we did in partnership with HerMD came out of lots of feedback from the HerMD community, luminary community around women’s health and not just physical health, as you know, mental health, financial health, sexual health, reproductive health, and then partnering with great women at HerMD to bring it to life.
That came out of the community. That didn’t come out of Kate.

COLLEEN: You talked about luminary live traveling. So can you talk a little bit about what people can expect? You have eight cities a year that you go to?
CATE: Yes. So we just finished our 18th in two and a half years. We were last week in Los Angeles and San Francisco. And a month before that we started in the Twin Cities. So we did Minneapolis and St. Paul. And then upcoming we’ll do something in New York. We’ll have Nashville, Miami. We started this in the middle of 2022 because our members were saying, please come to our city and I’m not going to build spaces in every city that is not what luminaries been designed to do and it’s why we have a partner network but we have members in those communities and so I wanted to give them a taste of the experience that you have in the space for a couple of days. So it’s usually two to three days of different kinds of programming and content that brings again, just like luminary does multi -generational intersectional very diverse group of speakers topics as well as attendees. And so that’s why we say it’s the luminary live experience so you’re not here in New York but let’s we’re taking it on the road. And and we absolutely love it. We do one full day in every city, just focus on building your business, entrepreneurship, take scaling your business. And then depending on the city, we’ll do stuff around professional development,
advancing your career, it could also be also, and we really tap into the communities locally for our speakers as well, and food and beverage. So want to build that ecosystem where we’re investing in women and BIPOC own businesses, the same as far as our speakers and our content.

COLLEEN: When you get to Nashville, we have lots of recommendations of amazing women.

CATE: Wait, yes, I’m so excited because we started Luminary Live in April of 2022 in Nashville.

BRIDGETT: Oh, that is amazing. Now, and another thing I might have missed, I know you said you partner with different areas, you do, you have a place you partner within Nashville, is that correct?
CATE: We do, they’re in Franklin, the Sapphire suite.

BRIDGETT: Okay, I knew there was, and that’s right where we live.

CATE: So we’ll be doing an event there, just so you know.

BRIDGETT: Well, we are happy to help in any way because we don’t miss it.
COLLEEN: With, so what Bridget just said, there are locations, you were saying, I think 40 different locations. – Close to 40. – So any state, can people contact, like go on Luminary to find the listing?

CATE: Yep, if you go on, we are luminary .com and look about us, you drop down and there’s a partner page and you see all of the locations.So from LA to Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta, Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, Detroit, Dakar,
Senegal, and sort of everything in between. And we keep getting connected to these amazing women that have started Spaces. And it’s actually, for me, the best of both worlds, because we’ve created this Luminarity Partner Network where everyone’s a part of it, it’s this reciprocal opportunity. And at the same time, I’m amplifying their businesses. In LA, we have a partner, Blackbird. It’s in Culver City. And so we actually hosted our large luminary live full day event at their space. One, I love the founder Bridget Cheeter -Coulter. Two, their partner, three, it amplifies their space. And hopefully she gets more members out of that. We did the same when we were in Houston.
I’ve done the same with Alola in Atlanta. So we’re always actively looking at how do I amplify our partner network, because we want them to stay in business, we want to stay in business as well. But if we do this together, I’d rather have a slice of the pie than the whole pie, because I truly feel like if one woman wins, we are actually failing, because because I really want all of us to succeed.
BRIDGETT: Yeah, and that is such a, it’s so great to see that women that really want to build each other up, which is really the goal, that Colleen and I always feel like that, that we want to build each other up, we want, our voices are stronger together, and when we meet people like you, and we see other women doing this, it just

CATE: I’m having a hot flash, so, sorry. – Rise is all

BRIDGETT: Yeah, go right ahead.

COLLEEN: Oh yeah. – We completely understand that.

BRIDGETT: We get it. I’ve got my fan back here.

CATES: I think one of the things that we really try to make clear is, Bridget, you have a version of success. That’s yours. Colleen, you have a version of success or definition. That’s yours. I have my own. I don’t want to jam anyone, something down someone that this is what it means to be successful. And I think, unfortunately, as much as we need, absolutely need more women in leadership, more women in boards, more women getting access to capital, there is a, I think, a big myth out there that the definition of success is when you hit the C -suite. And so we’re forcing everyone to think, well, the only way I’m successful as if I’m in the C -suite. Well, lots of women, that’s not their definition of success. And by the way, our lives ebb and flow. So maybe today it’s not, maybe in my year it is, maybe in 10 years. And so we wanna create pathways for our members of all genders to be on their own path,
right? To decide what their version of success is. So those ABCDs is really meant for you to advance and invest in your skills, but also to help you navigate wherever you’re at on that path. It’s not designed to say, you know, you’ve got to go up, up, up and ascend. That’s not realistic for most people’s lives and in particular for women.
So we’re here to support and compliment the skills and the community and propel you forward as fast or as slow as you’d like.

BRIDGETT: One of the things that we were talking about off air is your relationship with MasterCard. Can you talk about what is happening with that?

CATE: Yeah, so we’ve had a partnership with MasterCard the last couple of years internally. So we work with their women’s network for the last couple of years and designing training and workshops for their women and then giving their women access to luminaries programming and the community as well. So at the same time, we do so much with small businesses. Mastercard has a huge focus on small business. And so in pretty short order, I think we announced last week this incredible partnership with Mastercard. If you think about your credit cards today, and you open them up, you have all of these card holder benefits, right? That could be points in Amazon and Uber. Well, for MasterCard, for their small business card portfolio, any of their issuers, Luminary is now a card holder benefit for those cards.
So what does that mean? That means if you are a small business card holder that’s issued by MasterCard, you have access to a 30 % discount on any luminary membership designed again, to provide small business resources for entrepreneurs. Oh, that that’s fantastic for women. That is, you know, because, well, you know, how it is with a small business, and you’re watching your budget, and you’re really trying. Wow. What a great partnership that exactly. Yeah. And that’s also why we have our fellowship, because during the pandemic,
so many of our business owners were coming and saying, I need this community, I need these resources, but I literally have to watch every dollar, and you should, cash flow is so important. And so we launched our fellowship program originally, our first was with Unilever, and we’ve done now 14 or 15, and all of those fellowship programs between summer 100 business owners summer 15,
those provide free resources to those business owners for at least one year, so that they can truly focus on their business without worrying about this monthly payment or an annual payment. And what we ask in return is you pay it forward. It’s not about joining, it’s not about, you know, but it is about supporting other business owners on your journey. We are a luminary .com.
COLLEEN: We’ll have all that information, right? Everything.

CATE: Yes, we are. Yes. If you go, we are a luminary .com and just search around on your memberships, you’ll find about membership and the fellowship program. Um, right on our homepage, you’ll find, you click on master card partnership, and that’ll take you to all of those resources and how to take advantage of them. So our website as well as are social, which is also out. We are luminary on Instagram and we’re on LinkedIn as well. Um, you can find all of those resources.

COLLEEN: Thank you so much for everything you’re doing to support small businesses, entrepreneurs, women, diversity, you name it. It’s such a wonderful platform and we appreciate your time today. Thank you so much.
CATE: Thank you for having me. It’s wonderful. And I’m so glad I was introduced to you guys at the Her MD Luminary Summit.

BRIDGETT: We are too. It was wonderful. We were so glad. We were so happy to be there.