Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Leigh Cort. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Leigh thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
The Hospitality Industry has nurtured me, educated me, comforted and healed me. But mostly, it has encouraged and challenged me to share its riches that nothing else could equal…FRIENDS and associates in the Womens Food Alliance!
Beginning the journey as Party Director at the NY C’s distinguished Trump Tower during the 1980s, producing and promoted galas for the international ‘Rich & Famous’ ~ I also became the ‘Party Doctor’ ~ writing and starring on TV for Nabisco & Lifetime TV. Then under the watchful eye of Vincent Sardi, I hosted the show-business crowd in Manhattan at Sardi’s Restaurant. A decade later, The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island filled the ensuing years with special events for the international travel partygoers.
Although the Womens Food Alliance still hadn’t been created, during the next twenty years I ran my own food, travel & lifestyle public relations business. I hosted international media to visit my hospitality clients who owned and managed historic hotels, vintage bed & breakfast inns and many start-up restaurants along the East Coast…from St. Augustine Florida and Peachtree City, Georgia to Spring Lake, New Jersey.
In 2013, I recognized the meteoric growth of professional women achieving successes in the hospitality/food/beverage/events industry. It was TIME to launch the first www.WomensFoodAlliance.com in northeast Florida that has continued for a decade with our original Mission of:
The Womens Food Alliance cultivates and advances networking, education and collaboration for women in the culinary & hospitality industry ~ as we support, mentor, partner and lend a helping hand ~ remembering that it’s Friendship First!
With 150 members representing 18 varied categories of the hospitality industry, we have expanded to membership in Georgia and Louisiana.
