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Women Mean Business Luncheon 2024

Thursday, April 18, 2024

The Plaza Hotel
770 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10019

11:30 AM Reception | 12:00 PM Luncheon

Keynote Speaker
Jennifer Egan
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author

Corporate Honoree
PURE Insurance

Emcee
Cindy Hsu
CBS2 News Anchor & Reporter

About the Event
Each year, more than 400 of New York City’s most accomplished and engaged leaders gather to attend the Women Mean Business Luncheon, which supports the Coalition’s First Step Job Training Program. The event features program graduates sharing their moving stories and experiences. Past events have also featured guest speakers including Eve Ensler, Arianna Huffington, Hillary Clinton, Christine Quinn, Anna Quindlen, Ashley Graham, Darlene Love, Adenah Bayoh, Dari Alexander, and Alicia Graf Mack.

First Step gives homeless and low-income women the skills and confidence needed to achieve financial independence. Our innovative 14-week curriculum offers computer and job skills training, an internship with a major corporation or nonprofit organization, mentoring, job placement assistance and extensive post-graduate support.

 

First Step Advisory Board

Cindy Arnold, Chair
Yvette Arsenec-Weir
Vanessa Barnett
Christy Burke
Marisol DeLeon
Austin Fremont
Sara Fusco
Barbara Kolsun
Deborah Krulewitch
Natalie Lederman
Susan Lerner
Natsayi Mawere
Rachel Noel
Ruth Pryor
Wendy Samuel
Joan Sapinsley
Jane Singer

Benefactors
Jennifer and Peter Wallace

Patrons
The Estée Lauder Companies, Inc.
Friends of Deborah Krulewitch and Jane Singer

Advocates
Kramer Levin
Joan M. Sapinsley and Richard H. Lewis

Partners
American International Group
Arnold NY
Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu, P.C.
Fundamental Advisors LP
PURE Insurance

Sustainers
Susan and Scott Douglass

Supporters
Clutter Therapy, LLC
Diane M. Coffey
Deloitte
Eimear Fischer
Susan C. Lerner
Marcia Lynn Sells
Steve Madden Ltd
Sullivan & Worcester LLP
Eileen Vahey

Friends
Vincent and Shelly Fremont
Rudolph Landin

 

As of March 11, 2024

Jennifer Egan
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author
Keynote Speaker

Jennifer Egan is a journalist and fiction writer. Her 2017 novel, Manhattan Beach, a New York Times bestseller, was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was chosen as New York City’s One Book One New York read. Her previous novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her new novel, The Candy House, a companion to A Visit From the Goon Squad, was named one of the New York Times’s 10 Best Books of 2022 and one of President Obama’s favorite reads of the year. As a journalist, she has written about homelessness, self injury, fashion models, Catholic seminarians, and an array of other topics. She recently completed a term as President of PEN America and is currently Artist-in-Residence in the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania.

 

PURE Insurance
Corporate Honoree

 

 

 

Cindy Hsu
CBS2 News Anchor & Reporter
Emcee

Cindy Hsu is an Emmy Award-winning anchor and reporter who has been at CBS New York since 1993. Her passion is sharing stories about children, seniors, education, adoption, animals and mental health awareness.

Cindy has earned Emmy Awards for stories including “Smuggled from China,” exposing the horrific plights of Chinese refugees trying to make it to America. Her most poignant story, was the two-part series “Bringing Rosie Home.” Through home videos, she brought viewers to China as she adopted her daughter Rosie as a single mother. The series won the New York AP Broadcasters Award for Best Feature and was nominated for an Emmy.

She has worked as a journalist throughout the country, including Richmond, Virginia, Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Steubenville, Ohio.

She spends much for her off-duty time in community work and is open about her struggle with depression, hoping to break down the stigma surrounding mental health. She has worked with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and is strongly involved in the Asian-American community. Some of her past and present philanthropic affiliations include: The Asian Professional Exchange (APEX) which is a big brother/big sister program. Cindy and her little sister have been together for more than two decades. She’s also worked with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, The Humane Society of New York, The Children’s Miracle Network and the Museum of Chinese in America.

Cindy served as President of the New York Chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association, and paddled for years on a championship Dragon Boating team called Women in Canoe.

Cindy’s parents immigrated from China. Her father was a Coast Guard pilot, so the family moved every two to four years. Cindy was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, and graduated from Virginia Tech. She lives in New York City with her daughter Rosie and their rescue dog Lilo.

 

Jennifer Egan photo credit: Pieter M. Van Hattem