Honoring Women Entrepreneurs
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Women entrepreneurs from a variety of industries were honored last night at the annual event. The women were selected for excellence in innovation, market potential, community involvement and advocacy for women.
Our founder, Mimi Feliciano, was one of the 25 women entrepreneurs recognized. Feliciano, founder and CEO of FEM Real Estate, was honored in part for her role, along with her husband Eddie, in starting the Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship, which has a special mission to nurture and encourage women entrepreneurs. That mission is achieved in many ways, including the Center’s first annual Women Entrepreneurship Week, which is held each year in October.
Two Montclair State alumnae, and , cofounders of , were also honored. Doyle and Fiordilino met while studying psychology at Montclair State and eventually decided to start a business together.
Leading Women Entrepreneurs is run by , CEO & Founder. Besides the annual awards event, LWE offers other educational and networking events and global retreats, and also has a publishing arm.
Wellbrock was the MC for the event. was the honorary kick-off speaker, and Mary Alice Williams, news anchor of was the keynote speaker. Williams got perhaps the loudest applause of the night when she said, “This is my favorite thing: a room full of Jersey girls.”
, publisher of magazine, which was the media partner for the event, also spoke. Other sponsors were TD Bank, CohnReznick, Strategic Meetings & Events, and SocialFix, which provided video interviews of the 25 award winners that were shown during the event.
The event also recognized Alfa Demmellash, founder of , as the nonprofit recipient.
Finally, Dee O’Leary, founder of was the global recipient. A native of Cork, Ireland, O’Leary when Leading Women Entrepreneurs traveled to Cork County as part of a global entrepreneurship retreat organized with a networking group run by , and Cork Innovates. Part of the prize for O’Leary was coming to the U.S. to meet with relevant industry leaders to expand her business into the U.S.