Kathryn Finney
Encyclopedia
Kathryn A. Finney, author
, Television Correspondent, blogger, budget shopping expert is best known as one of the first fashion
and shopping bloggers for her blog, The Budget Fashionista.
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. Her site, The Budget Fashionista, was named by MSN as one of the 100 most useful sites on the web.
She has been called "Master of Cheap Chic" and "Scheherazade of the Sales Rack"
Kathryn's popular twitter feed has been listed by numerous publications including the New York Post, Clutch Magazine, and The Grio
, 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 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, is one of the top fashion blogs on the net. The blog currently makes six-figures a year.
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 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" (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.
. Marshall/TJ Maxx sponsored her 17 city book tour in 2006. Since 2010, she's served as a spokesperson for TIDE.
main stage SXSW panel. She was also one of the keynote speakers at the ERDA Alliance Money Makeover Summit. She's also spoken at Black Enterprise Small Business Conference, Blogher Business, Women Funding Network, and Professional Business Women’s Conference.
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, Television Correspondent, blogger, budget shopping expert is best known as one of the first fashion
Fashion
Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...
and shopping bloggers for her blog, The Budget Fashionista.
Kathryn was named in 2010, along with Maria Shriver
Maria Shriver
Maria Owings Shriver is an American journalist and author of six best-selling books. She has received a Peabody Award, and was co-anchor for NBC's Emmy-winning coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics. As executive producer of The Alzheimer's Project, Shriver earned two Emmy Awards and an Academy of...
, Elizabeth Warren, and Suze Orman
Suze Orman
Susan "Suze" Lynn Orman is an American financial advisor, author, motivational speaker, and television host.Orman was born in Chicago and received her B.A. in social work. She worked as a waitress in Berkeley, California before becoming a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch...
, as one of the Top Ten Women in Money by AOL. Her site, The Budget Fashionista, was named by MSN as one of the 100 most useful sites on the web.
She has been called "Master of Cheap Chic" and "Scheherazade of the Sales Rack"
Kathryn's popular twitter feed has been listed by numerous publications including the New York Post, Clutch Magazine, and The Grio
Early and personal life
She was born in Milwaukee, WisconsinMilwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the...
, but grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
. Her father, the late Robert Finney, was an Engineer at Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
and EMC2 and her mother, Karen Finney, is a philantropist. She is graduate of Washburn High School
Washburn High School
Minneapolis Washburn High School is a four-year public high school serving grades 9–12 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. By enrollment, Washburn is the fourth-largest high school in the Minneapolis Public School District.Principal Mrs...
, 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
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
in Women's Studies
Women's studies
Women's studies, also known as feminist studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field which explores politics, society and history from an intersectional, multicultural women's perspective...
and Politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, 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
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, 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
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
and South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
.
She currently resides in the New York area with her husband.
Professional
Ms. Finney is considered an icon in the fashion and style blogging community. 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, is one of the top fashion blogs on the net. The blog currently makes six-figures a year.
Ms. Finney is considered to be one of America's best bargain shoppers (Style Network
Style Network
The Style Network is an American cable television network based in Los Angeles.Owned by NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of General Electric and Comcast, its sister channels include E! Entertainment Television, USA Network, Syfy, G4, Golf Channel, and Versus, among others.-Network Overview:Style's...
, 2004) and has appeared on several national TV shows such as NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's Today Show, Fox Network News
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, etc. She has also appeared in over 500 articles including Essence
Essence (magazine)
Essence is a monthly magazine for African-American women between the ages of 18 and 49. The magazine covers fashion, lifestyle and beauty with an intimate girlfriend-to-girlfriend tone.-History:...
, USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, LA Times and Redbook
Redbook
Redbook is an American women's magazine published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.-History:...
, 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
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
. It became an Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
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" (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.
Spokesperson/Endorsement Work
Ms.Finney has served as a spokesperson for several major brands including Marshalls/TJ Maxx, TIDE, Sears, Lane Bryant, and PaypalPayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
. Marshall/TJ Maxx sponsored her 17 city book tour in 2006. Since 2010, she's served as a spokesperson for TIDE.
Public Speaking
Kathryn been a keynote speaker at top conferences. In 2009, she gave the closing keynote address at the Blogher Business conference. In 2008, Kathryn spoke on Guy KawasakiGuy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, bestselling author, and Apple Fellow. He was one of the Apple employees originally responsible for marketing the Macintosh in 1984. He is currently a Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, and has been involved in the rumor reporting...
main stage SXSW panel. She was also one of the keynote speakers at the ERDA Alliance Money Makeover Summit. She's also spoken at Black Enterprise Small Business Conference, Blogher Business, Women Funding Network, and Professional Business Women’s Conference.
Philanthropy
Kathryn is a trustee of The Robert Finney Foundation, 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 GuildHudson Guild
The Hudson Guild is a community-based social services organization rooted in and primarily focused on the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founded in 1897 by Dr. John Lovejoy Elliott as a settlement house, with the intention of helping to alleviate the problems of the...