Contents

Founders Corner 8

GalleriaThis month’s featured photographer is Gail Strebel. 10

By Brooklyn - Meet the Ambassador (as we proclaim) for Brooklyn’s new retail community - Gaia DiLoreto. She tells us why she made the jump from IT manager to gift store owner and what you can expect if you work for her. 16

Inspirational Woman Project - What does it look like when you’re genuinely in-spired to be your best? Bri Seeley talks about acknowledging your fears and why women should be more open to their daily impact on people’s lives. 24

How is it to be you? Sounds simple enough, we head over to the Netherlands to talk with the woman behind the question - Linda Coussement. Linda also explains why “profit over people” just doesn’t work for her. 30

Inkwell Helmets - Being a creative force is wonderful; getting paid to be a creative force, priceless. Danielle Baskin shares her thoughts on why you should launch your business, the best time to create and why she might be tempted to hang up her brush. 36

PREEMINENTPrincipal Contacts

Dean McKinneyFounder & Publisher

dean@preeminentmag.com

Francesco AvittoGraphic Artist

francesco@gmail.com

Gail StrebelFeatured Photographer (Galleria)

Faux Finesseverst2365@yahoo.com

Please direct all editorial & advertising inquiries to Dean McKinney

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior written permission. Preeminent Magazine is published in the U.S., by Preeminent Media. All photographs courtesy of Bri Seeley, Linda Coussement, Gaia DiLoreto,

Danielle Baskins and Gail Strebel. All trademarks and copyrights apply.

When you think of the term “ambassador”, it probably brings to mind well heeled individuals meeting at the U.N. representing different countries in the political & cultural events of our world. Is it purely coincidence that the same city which hosts the United Nations is also home to another type of ambassador? You won’t find her name listed on a roster at the State Department, but Gaia DiLoreto is also an ambassador - and trust that her role is no less important to the retailers & creators of Brooklyn.

PM: Tell us about yourself?

Gaia: I’ve lived in New York for seventeen years. I came to New York after graduating from college in Hartford, CT. I worked for a hotel and restaurant employees union for a couple of years and then decided I wanted to strike out in the big city. When I came to NY, I ended up working on the ad-ministrative side of finance. I worked with Merill Lynch, then a small private investment bank and finally an insurance company. In all of my jobs I was always over qualified or under employed as I like to say. I always ended up turning my job into more than what it was. I was worth more than what they were paying me. I ended up randomly in IT training, one of my strong suits is good people skills. I was training people on common programs, like MS Office, that segued into managing an IT Help Desk. I had a fairly large team of people that I was in charge of but I couldn’t fix them (com-puters)myself.

That was the wake up call for a couple of reasons: first, I don’t know how it all just snowballed and I ended up in this job I didn’t want. Second, it was a 24/7 job because that what IT support is. Third, it was in a space that I could have cared less about. I decided to leave, I knew that I wanted to do something else with my life and I didn’t know what it was going to be. I knew I couldn’t come up with that idea or brainstorm what other opportunities were out there while I was still in that job. I Ga

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walked away from my job in 2009 and people thought I was crazy, due to the economy, but it was the best decision I ever made. I gave myself a few months to hang out and just be me and a few more months to figure out what I wanted to do. I pursued a certificate program in restaurant manage-ment, thought I wanted to get into the food industry and in the process realized in New York City if you go into the restaurant business you’re insane. I knew I wasn’t insane, but I enjoyed the program. It allowed me to finally see myself out of the pigeon holes I’d been placed in when I was working in fi-nance – I could appreciate what my skills and strengths were. Specifically, I’m very good at network-ing and I collect people as I’m good at connecting people to each other. So that experience is what afforded me the vision to even think that I could own my own business. The business concept came from that class, focusing on the farm to table restaurant movement, eating local, all those different things that were happening in 2010 here in NYC.

As I discovered this local maker world I realized I wanted to have an active role in it. So the concept of a store that only sold products made locally came to me. I just celebrat-ed the 4 year anniversary of the store and it’s been a wild success for many reasons - including the fact that Brooklyn as a brand was taking off right when I opened. I stumbled into being an entrepreneur and I love it. But it’s really because I had the courage to walk away from a regular paycheck.

PM: You spent time in corporate America if you will, several years removed and being responsible for your own company now. What are pluses or minuses for today’s woman in corporate America vs. going out on your own?

Gaia: First and foremost, I’m thankful that I had the experience working at Merrill Lynch and my other corpo-rate jobs – they taught me a lot about the way the world works. It may not be a fair world, especially compared to working for a union, I was a ra-ra liberal and out to save the common man. Going from that to the corporate world was shocking. I’m sure it’s changed to some degree, finance is a very sexist world, even if there are women in leader-ship roles. Just the way they are structured discriminates against women and I saw that unfairness unfold on a daily basis around me. I know that when I applied for a job there, I graduated from a very good college, I should have been interviewing for a research analyst position, instead it was for a administrative position. As a well educated black woman, I wasn’t situated for a production role because that was not the structure of Merill Lynch.

What I learned more than anything, is professionalism and the importance of business and what that means – it’s about getting a job done. I learned a lot of negotiation and I was able to see the world from a very different perspective, especially from being up on high at Merrill Lynch which back in the

J. Ruth Gendler the author of “The Book of Qualities”, does something rather unique in that book. She describes human emotions as if they were people, it makes for a very interesting read. When it comes to Fear, this is part of her description: “Fear has a large shadow, but he himself is quite small...he will try to tell you stories. Be aware. He is a master of disguises and illusions...fear almost convinced me that he was a puppet maker and I was a marionette.” The first time I read that de-scription I thought it was brilliant. Here you have Fear, exposed for what it really is - just smoke & mirrors. Knowing that the idea of fear has kept any number of people from pursuing their visions, I wanted to know if it was any more prevalent for women vs men. I spoke with Bri Seeley, the woman behind the Inspirational Woman Project about conquering fear, bad 80’s clothing and why little girls should keep dreaming.

PM: My first question is about the concept of fear, being afraid of certain things and in some cases is that holding women back?

Bri: I don’t 100% percent believe in being fearless, I don’t believe in eradicating all your fears. I don’t know if that’s actually possible for someone to get rid of every fear. For me it’s bout being aware and conscious of my fears and then doing them anyway. If I look at something and think that terrifies Br

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me, 9 times out of 10 I’m going to do it anyway. I had a traumatic experience in childhood with guns and they always terrified me. Someone came into my home with a gun and I told them “to get out.” So in November, I decided I’m still holding on to this fear. I called a friend, said I’ll be in Phoenix, will you take me to the shooting range? I went to the range, it was great. I was still a little uncom-fortable, but at least I did it. So for me jumping head first into my fears is a big thing. In fact I just spoke to my business coach yesterday, I still have that little voice in the back of my head that says” No you’re not”, “Who do you think you are”. It’s important to recognize that, listen to it, but not let it run your life.

You want to give it space, if you attempt to ignore it - it will just grow. I talked to my business coach yesterday and I still have this seed of doubt in myself. Every time I say I’m going to do something and it comes back and says no you’re not. So we were talking about ways to address it.

PM: Do you think it’s something we do culturally that cultivates that type of groundwork here in the states, which makes it that way for women?

Bri: There was an ad or some sort of video a year ago or something, it was men in situations at a desk working late hours and a word came up “dedicated”. Then there was a woman working at a desk working long hours and the word “workaholic” came up. It was the exact same scenario and the perceptions that are imprinted based on the gender they are. Basically, I feel that women are not really taught to embrace and celebrate their successes as much as men. And I found that it’s hard for women to really do that, even little successes. I feel that women aren’t as encouraged to make big leaps as men are. I come from the Midwest, which is a very traditional and conservative mindset. My mom is still being asked, when is she moving home and having babies? Because I’m 32 and that’s what I’m supposed to be doing now. So it’s not as culturally accepted or ingrained for women to take big leaps.

PM: I went to see a movie recently and saw a Microsoft ad where they were talking to girls middle

Here’s the question, have you ever genuinely considered what it’s like to be who you are? Have you given thought to what your life is like today versus yesterday and what it will be like tomorrow? It’s a pretty straightforward question, but how would you answer it? Startup founder and business coach Linda Coussement has plans to travel the globe and find out.

PM: Tell me a little bit about yourself?

Linda: Let’s start with my name - Linda Coussement, it’s a French name, you pronounce it in a Dutch way. I’m 35 years old and my background – I grew up in Holland and I went to study in the south of Holland. I did International Business studies over there, because when I was around 18 I thought that what I wanted to be when I grew up was a big important manager with lots money, a big house and a big car. I’m ac-tually in a student special of a very popular magazine saying that. Well, I actually did all that. I did studies and I started my career at Vodafone, a big telecommunications company.

So that’s where I started and I sort of rolled into it, while I started working on my thesis. I wasn’t really happy with studying and I just wanted to get going with the work. I figured out that consulting was something that I really liked, the interactiveness with clients and other people. So, I did that for a couple of years for a great employer who allowed me to learn about business, about people but also about myself. I kept on doing that for a few years. It was really all business, all career making, pro-motions a lot of learning and growing – proper stuff. I had a nice salary, nice car, bought the house that I wanted and it looked all really nice. Fine and dandy on the outside, but in parallel I also had my non business side, my actual people side and that went a little different. I started out with my first job and I had a boyfriend, we lived together. We had cats, bought a house and we had the whole picture, but I realized it wasn’t for me. I felt enclosed. He was a great guy, but it wasn’t for me; it felt like being stuffed in a bowl that was too small. I moved to Amsterdam and got into a consulting firm, I started doing yoga, something I never did before and apparently I really needed it. I realized that I actually hadn’t had any emotions in the previous years. I mean literally.

Looking back at it, I went on holiday and big things without happiness, without any joy. I wasn’t even sad when I broke up with my boyfriend. When I started doing yoga and making friends I finally realized there was this whole piece of me that was missing. That’s when I started working on that, next to the business and next to the career. Because yoga was working for me, I did a teacher training. I also went to Nepal for a couple of months for another teacher training - where I met some other people who I had a lot of crazy personal development conversations, discussions and fights and beautiful experiences with. Next to the career that kept on going I was developing myself as a human being, I discovered that I’m a really emotional human being. I had been really proud of not having to cry ever and not being a girly girl. Then I realized I had to cry, a lot, or at least I had to then. When all the emotions came out, the business side and personal side ran into each other. It felt really Lin

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weird at one point they didn’t run in parallel anymore it wasn’t possible. At one point at another big corporate employer is where things just collided. Where my humanity, because that’s what I dis-covered, I’m very human - who cares a whole lot about other human beings and their happiness. I can’t always make everyone happy but I do care for it. I did see that people in the corporation were unhappy. I was unhappy, people on my team were unhappy. There were some managerial decisions that were unacceptable for me.

So I quit, even though I didn’t know what else to do and I was terrified of what was coming up. I had the house, the mortgage and a certain lifestyle I was used to. I did quit because I didn’t want to work there anymore, I decided working for a corporation wasn’t for me. I went to freelancing and did that for about 9 months in a company of around 500 people, made a great deal of money - it was a good project. But after that project my brother founded a startup. He had an idea and a website, 2 or 3 leads, zero money, nothing. Because I had the money and he’s my brother and I can do something for him, I decided to give him a hand for a few months and that ended up being 2 years. Together we set up his startup which is in sustainable energy and grew that from less than zero to 10 people doing really well with an actual product on the market. We did the proper startup thing which is fascinat-ing, but again I wasn’t entirely happy. I was struggling with the decisions, I’ve said “no” to what i didn’t like and I’m doing what I want to do, at least I thought so. But still I’m not happy, it took me awhile to figure it out. It was because I was working on my brother’s dream instead of my own. Even though it was fun and interesting to work with him, it wasn’t for me.

That was a big moment for me, I just decided I’m not going to work for this startup. It took me awhile again to figure things out, I finally figured out startups and small businesses that want to make a change and make a difference to their customers and people who they work with - that was fun. Plus with my consulting and coaching skills I can add value, that’s how From Startup to Grow up came into existence.

Some people will spend their entire lifetime living a life that on the surface looks and feels like it’s what they want. Linda had just described it to me: house, car, boyfriend, traveling on holiday - who wouldn’t want that life? It’s everything that you work for; then a new variable gets intro-duced and that world which was humming along smoothly, begins to stall.

PM: You mentioned that you worked for Vodafone and other corporate groups. As a young lady growing up there in the Netherlands, is that the expectation – you’re expected to get your degree from university and move into the corporate world?

Linda: Not necessarily, not in general as a culture, but it was expected from my parents. My parents never had the chance to go to university. They both had to work from a pretty young age and they were always struggling for money. So everything they did was to give me and my brother a good ed-ucation. I wouldn’t say they forced us, but they did push us. It was never in my mind to do anything else. It’s not a must do for everyone here in Holland.

PM: What was it about the management decision that was the straw that broke the camel’s back? Was the decision profit vs people?

Art and commerce don’t always make for a great pairing. One is about the pure expression of ideas and thoughts, the other is a tool to generate revenue. You wouldn’t expect these two to hang out together if they were actual people. So anytime that you can marry the two together into a effective and genuine working environment good things usually come forth. Danielle Baskin is currently sitting rather successfully at that crossroad and what makes her success even more unique is the canvas that she’s chosen to express her talent.

PM: I saw something while reading about you and I just wanted you to clarify. You started your business in a 3’ x 5’ crawlspace?

Danielle: (Laughs.) I’ve had a few different studios, one of my studios was actually a walk in storage facility in the East Village. I started painting helmets in my dorm room in college, before I even had a business I was just painting helmets for my friends. My first studio was a storage unit, for a few months then I found an office.

PM: How did you get anything done in a 3’ x 5’ space?

Danielle: Oh, that. I was working out of the area above my closet, that was 3’ x 5’. I had ropes going across my room and I had a ladder going up to this crawlspace - that was in between the storage unit and finding studio space. I’m actually leaving my current studio which is 6’ x 7’ and I’m moving into a new space in June. I’m gradually growing the studio size every year.

PM: Now that we’ve cleared that one up, for the readers that may not be aware – give us a quick rundown on Danielle?

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Danielle: I didn’t intend on having a painted helmet business. I just ride a bike in the city and I al-ter my things, like clothes that I buy. And I just repainted my helmet for myself – but so many people asked where it came from. I felt the need to turn it into a business, because people were asking where can I get that. But I also had a ton of ideas. My company grew not because I was trying to start a business, I realized the market place needed it and I was the person to create that product. It kind of grew from that and also cycling became popular around the same time. I also a have a salesman’s personality, I’ve had a few different companies and also I make other products. I make things that I find useful and talk to people about them because I’m excited about them. But setting up websites and marketing my helmets came naturally to me.

PM: For you it was the right set of circumstances and the right timing?

Danielle: Yeah. I try not to convince people that they need something, I make it and gauge people’s responses to it. If they are excited then I think it’s worth making. Naturally, people asked me where I got the helmet and I got the idea. It’s a great canvas, I made 10 helmets before I launched the website and because I got so much positive feedback it turned out to be something worth pursuing.

PM: I understand during your Senior year in school (college) you had a unique way of selling your helmets?

Danielle: I created my website in 2009 when I was a Senior, I was painting helmets in my art class – which I’m not sure I was supposed to be doing that. I was having people come over to my school and meet in the street outside the building and try on the helmets.

PM: You were dipping out of class, mid day to sell helmets?

Danielle: I was very seriously involved in my company while I was still a student, even though my classes in school were unrelated to my helmets. I was still trying to run a business and support myself while I was still a senior. I would meet the clients outside, but that was only a few times. I went to bike shows as well. It took time for me to get traction on my site, this wasn’t even my full time job until 3 years ago. There were points where I had sculpture and painting projects due that were not related to helmets and I didn’t prioritize well. I prioritized my business because at the time I thought it was practical that I would have a job after graduating. If I put that on hold, it would be hard to live in the city and start a business. It made sense to start while I was here for school.

PM: How did the opportunity with the Brooklyn museum come about?

Danielle: I was doing a show at the Javitz center, it was the international gift fair. I was in a collec-tive called Model Citizens a group of designers. Because it’s expensive to have a booth there, 14 of us split a booth and had a few of our products there. My helmets were visible and the Brooklyn muse-um really liked them – they saw them. I didn’t pursue them.

PM: Are the helmets just displayed or can you buy them?

Danielle: No you could buy them. This was 2 years ago and they had 12 helmets at the time. They

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