We are 5 mothers, living in New York
and with strong ties to Venezuela.
We understand that the only way to ensure
a brighter future for Venezuela is to help
educate the children.
Claudia Benshimol
is a business leader in the Beauty space with almost
20 years of experience. Claudia is currently the
SVP/General Manager of Estée Lauder
and AERIN Beauty for North America.
Claudia is responsible for the development and
execution of the North America go-to-market
strategy for the Estée Lauder Companies
flagship brand. Prior to that, she was Associate
Principal at McKinsey & Company,
where she advised companies primarily
in the consumer and luxury goods space.
She holds a BS in Production Engineering from
Universidad Simon Bolivar in Caracas, Venezuela
and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Cinthia Fernholz
is an experienced investment banker and entrepreneur,
with particular expertise in strategy, finance,
operations and planning.
She has worked at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup,
Deloitte & Touche and Goldman Sachs.
She is a former CEO and founder of Coucou LLC,
a children’s clothing wholesaler,
which she sold after achieving profitability.
She is currently focused in assisting non-for profits,
providing them with strategic and operational
improvement consulting services.
She has recently been appointed as project coordinator
for the Arts & Culture Committee of
Harvard Business School Community Partners in New York.
She serves on the Board of Park Children’s Day School of NYC,
and is a member of the Pediatric Support Committee
for Weil Cornell. She is a native of Bolivia.
She holds a BS from University of Virginia
and received her Harvard MBA in 2002.
Morella Machado
Is a real estate broker specializing in residential luxury markets in New York and South Florida. Her team at Compass is well known for transacting well over 2 Billion dollars in sales.
Morella has lived in London, São Paulo, Paris and Caracas before settling in New York with her family for the past 17 years. Morella studied Culinary Arts at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York, and French History at Sorbonne Université. She is a mother of two and was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. She is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and French. She also serves on the board of “Guerreros Azules”, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting children with type 1 diabetes, and she is an active member of Convent of the Sacred Heart.
Isabel Mendoza
is a business leader in the entrepreneurial world.
She is currently the founder and CEO of
Childrenchic Inc, an apparel and footwear company
which manufactures for the biggest retailers in USA.
Isabel manages retail, e-commerce and
wholesale operations globally for the brand.
Her business experiences double digit growth annually
since launched. Prior to founding her company,
Isabel worked at Limited Brands in the international sales team
growing the travel retail business for VSBA.
Isabel also has experience in commodity trading
and logistics while working in Cargill as an operations manager.
Isabel holds a BS in Business Administration from
University of Miami (Cum Laude/Dean’s List)
and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Melissa Ramirez
Melissa is a seasoned business and finance professional,
sports enthusiast and mom of 2.
She is an Investment Banking Director at Citigroup in New York,
responsible for Mergers and Acquisitions and Capital Markets
transactions for Central America.
Prior to joining Citi, Melissa held Finance and Strategy
positions at Procter and Gamble.
She currently serves as the Treasurer and Co-Founder of
For a Brighter Venezuela, a journey that started as a personal
search to find ways to give back to her home country.
Her and her husband's (Douglas) strong ties to Fe y
Alegria Venezuela Foundation, helped plant the initial
seeds to what is now For A Brighter Venezuela.
Melissa holds a B.S in Production Engineering from
Universidad Simon Bolivar in Caracas, Venezuela with
Summa Cumlaude honors and an MBA from Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (“MIT”) with specialization in Finance.