| Kathryn Finney | |
|---|---|
| Born | Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Television Personality, Author, Business Woman |
| Years active | 2003–present |
| Known for | Founder of The Budget Fashionista, Fashion Expert |
| Website | |
| www.thebudgetfashionista.com www.kathrynfinney.com | |
Kathryn A. Finney, author,[1] Television Correspondent,[2][3][4][5] blogger, budget shopping expert [6] is best known as one of the first fashion and shopping bloggers for her blog, The Budget Fashionista.[7]
Kathryn was named in 2010, along with Maria Shriver, Elizabeth Warren, and Suze Orman, as one of the Top Ten Women in Money by AOL.[8] Her site, The Budget Fashionista, was named by MSN as one of the 100 most useful sites on the web.[9]
She has been called "Master of Cheap Chic" [10] and "Scheherazade of the Sales Rack" [11]
Kathryn's popular twitter feed has been listed by numerous publications including the New York Post, Clutch Magazine,[12] and The Grio [13]
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She was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her father, the late Robert Finney, was an Engineer at Microsoft and EMC2 and her mother, Karen Finney, is a philantropist. She is graduate of Washburn High School, where she was Class President. She also attended the prestigious Phillips Academy Andover prep school on academic scholarship.
Ms. Finney's background includes an undergraduate degree from Rutgers University in Women's Studies and Politics, where she was a member of the Rutgers College Student Government, a James Dickson Carr Scholar, and was voted by her graduating class to received the class of 1998 Alumni Award for Outstanding Scholarship and Community Service. During her junior year, Kathryn was a Washington Center Washington Fellow and interned at the White House as well as with the late Senator Paul Wellstone.
She also has a graduate degree from Yale University, where she was a Courtland Van Creed Scholar and received the Weinerman Fellowship for her work in South Africa.
Prior to starting her media company, Kathryn worked for USAID and other non-profits in Ghana, West Africa and South Africa.
She currently resides in the New York area with her husband.
Ms. Finney is considered an icon in the fashion and style blogging community.[14] She found TBF Group in 2004 and the Simply Good Media blog network in 2006.
Ms. Finney started her blog in April 2003 as a hobby, and started blogging full-time in June 2004. Her blog, The Budget Fashionista, which was one of the first fashion blogs,[15] is one of the top fashion blogs on the net.[16][17] The blog currently makes six-figures a year.[18][19]
Ms. Finney is considered to be one of America's best bargain shoppers (Style Network, 2004) and has appeared on several national TV shows such as NBC's Today Show, Fox Network News, CNN, etc. She has also appeared in over 500 articles including Essence, USA Today, The New York Times, LA Times [20] and Redbook, as a style expert on looking fabulous for less. She's also the former fashion editor of Real Magazine.
In May 2006, her first book was published entitled, How to be a Budget Fashionista: The Ultimate Guide to Looking Fabulous for Less by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House. It became an Amazon bestselling book in the Art and Photography category and is now on its sixth printing.
Ms. Finney is credited with coining several major shopping and internet marketing terms, including "The Budget Fashionista" [21] (which she owns the trademark, the term "Love what you buy and buy what you love" meaning shoppers should focus on purchasing items that make them feel and look great and "blogroots" which is a term meaning to aggressively market a product, book, idea, through networking with blogs.[22]
Ms.Finney has served as a spokesperson for several major brands including Marshalls/TJ Maxx, TIDE, Sears, Lane Bryant, and Paypal. Marshall/TJ Maxx sponsored her 17 city book tour in 2006. Since 2010, she's served as a spokesperson for TIDE.[23]
Kathryn been a keynote speaker at top conferences. In 2009, she gave the closing keynote address at the Blogher Business conference.[24] In 2008, Kathryn spoke on Guy Kawasaki main stage SXSW panel.[25] She was also one of the keynote speakers at the ERDA Alliance Money Makeover Summit.[26] She's also spoken at Black Enterprise Small Business Conference, Blogher Business, Women Funding Network, and Professional Business Women’s Conference.
Kathryn is a trustee of The Robert Finney Foundation,[27] a foundation she started with her mother and brother to honor her late father. The foundation provides scholarships to African-American students pursuing studies in the field of technology. Kathryn has also served on the boards of the Hudson Guild