Meet Claudia

From her plaid skirt-wearing days at all-girls Manhattan high school Hewitt (think original Gossip Girls), to her “social chair” days at all-women’s college Smith, to serving up almost a decade of girl’s night out gatherings for approximately 686,000 women across America (343 event days and still going strong!), Claudia Chan has been honing her aptitude for girlfriend fun for a lot longer than it takes to splurge on a pair of Jimmy Choos.

Claudia decided early on that the answer to a woman’s very challenging life was quality girl time (and all the fun topics and activities that go along with it). So she started a career that would provide women with just that!

At 23, Claudia founded an event networking business named iLounge that helped New York professionals make connections and friendships at events. Two years and many cosmos later in 2002, she merged her business with Shecky’s Media and became Shecky’s President. Claudia evolved the then-nightlife publishing house into a national girlfriend lifestyle and marketing company.

From fashion trends and beauty musts, to dating disasters and girlfriend hotspots—Claudia has broken a lot of heels and nails discovering girlfriend-friendly trends, products, places and people touring America as the company’s Discovery Diva for Shecky’s Girls Night Out events. Tune into new webisodes of Claudia’s Closet to see her discoveries and meet the inspirational girlfriends she connects with with along the way.

A passionate female entrepreneur, girlfriend and shopaholic, Claudia is often featured as an industry insider for both local and national media, offering fun women’s lifestyle advice on news networks including Fox, CBS, CW, NBC’s The Today Show, LXTV and more. Claudia has been featured published in magazines such as, Forbes Woman, The Washington Post, Crains, Wall Street Journal, WWD and Entrepreneur Magazine, and on websites, like WomenEntrepreneur.com. She has also participated as a speaker in The New York Times Small Business Summit, The Women’s Small Business Expo and more.

Claudia also serves on the board of NEST, a non-profit organization dedicated to moving women from poverty to self-sufficiency using a unique combination of interest-free micro-finance loans and mentoring designers.