ABOUT OUR FOUNDER!
Calynn M. Lawrence is the CEO of the Calynn Communications & Creative corporation (est 2020) that owns Chicago Talent TV (est 2018) and The Fresh Faces Project (est 2014). She is a 28-year-old, 20x award-winning entrepreneur in the Marketing Management and Editorial industries with heavy ties to the fashion, arts, and entertainment sector! She also is a college graduate with degrees in MS - Management and Leadership (WGU), BS- Liberal Arts and Social Science -SUMMA CUM LAUDE (NAU), AA - Business and Art (Daley), and certificate programs in Persuasive Communications - Public Speaking and Writing + Entrepreneurship - Focused In Emerging Economies + Leadership (Harvard Business School Online). She is currently in school pursuing her doctorate!
She got her start at 15 years old when she started a fashion blog and began a Retail Business/Fashion internship at the downtown Chicago Nordstrom Mall in 2011, where she stayed for 3 years until 2014. They taught her the ropes on all aspects of the fashion retail industry from contributing to marketing, advertising and design to executing sales, merchandising and modeling! She has been blogging and writing/editing articles for a long list of publications, mostly news and opinion, since 2012.
After leaving Nordstrom, she worked in sales at H&M for a few months before going full-time freelancer while in college. She began to build up her blog, and make a name for herself in the industry as a "media personality." This was so much so that she was able to be a part-time Cable Television host for CAN TV in college and shortly after for 2 years, interviewing tens of local minority business owners and covering events!
In her work as a media personality, she has a few years worth of experiences covering upwards of 50 large red carpet events from many of the major Fashion Weeks (New York, LA, Chicago, Paris, Black, Latino, Mercedes Benz) to music award shows to TV premieres. Many of these experiences can be found on her blog here.
She has amassed 20 awards at the local, national and worldwide levels for her work. They include 2 2023 Person of the Year Awards (Media Member & Entrepreneur of the Year), the Global Influencer Magazine UK award for Social Impact Champion of 2023, 4 Chicago Oscars, 1 Red Silk Carpet Award, Woman of the Year, Forever Flame: Alumni Achievement award (after giving the commencement speech at her alma mater several years later after she graduated as Valedictorian), 4 Virtual Visionary Awards, Best Creative Arts Organization, the National Humanitarian Leadership Award, BOSS Women's Achievement award, Best Business Platform, National Community Service Award and the Miss Congeniality America award.
While building her businesses throughout the years and freelancing part-time, she has had clients such as such as Chick-fil-A, The Miss International World Organization, The Miss Black America Organization, Africa International House, All My Friends Are Models, True Elegance Magazine and more. She has also balanced a corporate 9-5 life for the last several years. She's worked in roles including a Creative PR Coordinator at a tech company, an Assistant Director of Marketing and Sales for a performing arts school, Head of Marketing for a sports medicine and physical therapy chain, a board certified pediatric behavior therapist, a communications strategist within the public sector and more.
This is in addition to her work in pageantry having donated monetarily to tens of causes, as well as donating tens of best-selling youth novels to after school initiatives, tens of boxes and bags of food to local pantries, hundreds of dollars worth of art supplies to community organizations and gowns to local prom dress drives! The titles she held are Miss Northern US AE 2019, Miss Congeniality (America) 2019, Miss World America Nation 2020 and Miss USA Universe Tourism 2021 from which she retired her crown and sash to focus full-time on her career and building her businesses.
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