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New York CIty, USA
Hello,
I'm Krissy
I’m a mother, wife and entrepreneur based in New York City. I love building businesses, reading books, the smell of old libraries and stargazing with my family.
A little about me
I’m a proud New Yorker, born and raised in Upstate New York, Dutchess County, home to President Roosevelt, the original 1940's IBM plant, the Birth of Steely Dan, the Vassar Boys, Bear Mountain State Park, West Point Academy, one of the first built, family owned, drive in theaters, and many other important U.S.A. Made, Main Street, family owned businesses.
I launched NYC STRONG in Spring 2020 to help small businesses and New York’s economy survive the pandemic. The idea struck a nerve and I was soon hearing from women all over the country who wanted to build local versions of our burgeoning New York community. In Fall 2020, I launched usastrong.IO as an umbrella brand and technology platform designed to support grassroots state, ecommerce marketplaces, selling a wide range of USA-made products.
I discovered that one of the challenges local manufacturers face is proving to shoppers the authenticity of their products.
Since being able to tell those who care whether a product is locally made, made in American or home-grown is so important, I wondered: What if we could verify that the products sold on usastrong.IO were made in the United States?
Business owners were enthusiastic about the prospect and I introduced STRONG Blockchain™ to the site to help manufacturers verify that their products are made in America.
My work on usastrong.IO is informed by my two decades of marketing and supply-chain leadership at major apparel brands, most recently URBN (Urban Outfitters). As a member of the original founding team of Free People, I helped grow that retailer into a billion-dollar brand by 2019 before taking over as President of URBN. Earlier in my career, I worked on major ad campaigns at Calvin Klein and helped build BCBG into a powerhouse in a then-brand-new contemporary market.
See Krissy's author profile on Inc.com.
Learn more about Krissy.
Entrepreneur
USA Strong Marketplace & Community
usastrong.IO provides a technology platform for sellers offering made-in-the-USA products and verified American-made products to consumers.
usastrong.IO is a community as well as a marketplace. It was born out of a movement for transparency.
It supports local manufacturing.
With 200-plus sellers from 50 states, it’s the first marketplace to provide curation and verification using Strong Blockchain™ technology for American manufactured goods.
There’s been a shift in the customer and USA Strong is a response to that. Shopping locally, honesty and transparency go hand in hand. Where a product is made, how it is made, who made it, is important to people.
Many states are passionate about local. When one local business discovers usastrong.IO, they bring 12 more.
Vendors sell a wide range of products on the site including organic honey, fashion, skateboards, home décor, kids’ products and cosmetics. www.usastrong.IO
We highlight vendors on our Friday Live! show every week.
Not only is there a growing movement to support the small and medium-sized businesses that sell these goods, but consumer interest in responsible and sustainable supply-chain practices continues to grow.
It’s a beautiful thing to watch businesses coming together and male and female entrepreneurs complementing each other. Currently, almost 70 % of our sellers are female entrepreneurs.
Our mission is to bring transparency to the supply chain, support local manufacturing, support local businesses and help create jobs.
www.usastrong.IO
Mother
Proud Mother
Being an only child, it was a dream to have a big family.
My desire to do what I can to create a better world for us all is fueled by my six kids.
It’s important to me that they feel seen and heard by me, that I encourage them to appreciate themselves and explore the world.
I relish my role as their Mom and encourage and educate them to be responsible citizens of the world.
Sometimes I struggle to stay atop the demands of an exciting career I have chosen with being a great mother, I’m still learning how to do it all.
Every weekend I take the younger boys to the beach. Alex and I love looking at the stars with the boys and chasing the lighting bugs around the yard at night when we visit the countryside.
The challenges are sometimes more than I want, but the rewards are always enormous.
Wife
Wife of Alex Mashinsky
Alex and Krissy have been inseparable since they met in 2005.
They married in 2011 and are parents to three girls and three boys age 5 – 21 and this is really what they consider their greatest team work.
Krissy likes to follow rules, color inside the lines. Repetition is her friend. “I married the exact opposite,” she said.
Alex is Krissy’s biggest supporter and fan. He said of their early courtship, “I didn’t even know I was on a date. If I had known, I might have said stupid things. I realized there’s a real business person behind this beautiful face.”
Recently, the couple teamed up again to launch usastrong.IO.
Alex a serial tech entrepreneur who has started, developed and exited several tech companies, is CEO of Celsius Networks.
