Klaudia Zinaty Capalbo, Professor, Marketing Consultant and Director of Corporate Relations at the Toronto Fashion Academy was appointed as the 2020 FGI Regional Director for Toronto. Impressed by her numerous accomplishments and wanting to get a sense of the energy that drives her, Spencer Magazine arranged for an interview in person.

Rose Marie Bresolin: Klaudia, I know how busy your schedule must be, so thank you for agreeing to the interview. Perhaps we can start with where you’re at right now by having you tell us about FGI.

Klaudia Capalbo: Yes, of course. FGI stands for Fashion Group International. We’re a global organization situated in 7 countries with 29 chapters all over the world and our headquarters are based in NYC. I handle the Toronto Division and we have about 200 members right now and growing. We have 12 Board members, including myself. We are a non-profit organization with approximately 5,000 members all over the world: we’re in The Dominican, Seoul, USA and London, England to name a few. It feels incredible to be leading an organization in Toronto with this kind of global reach and potential!

   The organization is here to support, grow and develop, not just the fashion industry but anything that touches on fashion – interior design, visual arts, beauty, film and photography. We organize monthly events for our members, whether it’s bringing in professionals and guest speakers from the industry or providing a platform that gives our members an opportunity to network and collaborate. At our Toronto Division we provide a unique event we call Mentor’s Dinner, where we bring in 10 mentors from different facets of the industry. They sit with our members for an intimate dinner and answer questions about their careers or industry. We’ve had George Pimentel, Jessica Mulroney, Cheryl Hickey, Peter Papapetrou, Aluad Anei, Stephan Caras and Vanessa Craft to name a few.

The Mentor’s Dinner for this year was held at the Shangri-La in March. The guests were seated with the mentor of their choice and asked questions that could help them with decisions. It was a great opportunity for our members to have their moment with a mentor. Also exciting was that each mentor shared a personal story from their own career path. Another event we do, called the Visionary Awards happens in October where we celebrate key people from different sectors of the industry who have made an incredible impact on it. We really try to recognize people who give back.

To read the full story in Spencer Magazine’s Winter issue, please click here!

Rose Marie Bresolin is the Managing Editor of Spencer Magazine. She is also an Author and Personal Coach. At Spencer we look to bring the world to you. And by also promoting Toronto to the world, we seek out things that are happening in one vibrant sector after another. Beginning with the showcasing of Queen St. W., presently in the works, we believe that you will come to expect that high level of integrity in all our future articles. In bringing the experiences of others to you, we hope to open you to the curiosity to check into them for yourselves. We hope that the reading opens doors to new and positive connections. In choosing through a cornucopia of stories that peak our human interest, our aim is to both entertain and inform our readers of what’s going on around us, and globally. Some will find the experiences empowering. Committed to promoting the arts, Spencer has initiated a dialogue with institutions positioned to make a difference on how creativity is viewed both in education and by the work force. Our research tells us that the public stage is ripe and ready for ideas. Our mandate is to contribute with conscience to the evolution of the world of magazines. The Team at Spencer hope to convey a sense of the excitement and the bustle behind the scenes, as we attempt to bring to you the dream we started with! You can follow her blog at: https://www.rosebresolin.com

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.