Atima Lui - Founder & CEO at NUDEST
The nude nylons Atima Lui pulled over her dark skin as a child were one of the initial small sparks that got her questioning the status quo. Growing up in a white-centric community in middle America, the daughter of a black activist mother and Sudanese refugee father always studied her roots but was well removed from diversity. Years later, Atima combined her passion for celebrating all skin colours with a technical application that no longer pigeonholes nude as one shade of beige. Her company NUDEST is redefining beauty by giving women - and men - the ability to identify their unique skin tone and find garments and accessories that compliment it through NUDEMETER™, a proprietary computer vision technology that algorithmically matches a user's skin to fashion and beauty products online. The NUDEST vision took shape at Harvard Business School (HBS), where Atima fell further in love with entrepreneurship. Her drive landed her work experience with Google, a position with Walmart, and a job offer with Apple, but Atima felt inspired to create her own company. With her brother Nyalia at her side, Atima conquers the hard-knock school of entrepreneurship daily. She has embraced failure and reset her brain to view mistakes as growth, taking her lean startup business to full capacity and successfully championing the truth: that beauty comes in many shades. She grows her company from The Wing, a home base and social club for women in New York, and encourages anyone interested to connect with her about anything as she strives to make a lasting impression on the world.