Zaidy Eliana Mora Quintero Women Leadership & Global Impact Honoree at New York Fashion Awards 2026
At the New York Fashion Awards 2026, held on September 8 in New York, Zaidy Eliana Mora Quintero was honored with the Women Leadership & Global Impact Recognition, celebrating a woman whose influence extends far beyond professional achievement.
The recognition highlighted a journey shaped by leadership, entrepreneurship, social responsibility, service, and a commitment to creating opportunities for women and future generations. For Zaidy, however, recognition has never been the final destination. An award is a platform. The purpose is people. That philosophy captures the essence of a woman who has transformed her personal story into purpose, her leadership into service, and her influence into a legacy designed to open doors for others.
There are women who reach important positions.
Others build companies. Some achieve public recognition. And then there are those who, after conquering professional spaces, understand that true power is not simply about reaching the top—it is about creating a path so others can rise as well. That is the story of Zaidy Eliana Mora Quintero. Leadership With Purpose. A lawyer, Doctor of Law, entrepreneur, social leader, speaker, mother, and founder of the Mujeres Empoderadas movement, Zaidy has built a multifaceted career connecting academic excellence, corporate leadership, social service, and a profound commitment to the transformation of women and younger generations.
Her legal education has been one of the foundations of her professional journey. Her advanced academic background includes doctoral studies connected to Public and Private Law at the University of Salamanca in Spain, in addition to multiple master’s degrees and specialized studies that have contributed to a multidisciplinary perspective on leadership and decision-making. Throughout her professional career, she has held positions of responsibility across both the public and private sectors, gaining extensive experience in institutional leadership, management, strategy, and executive decision making. Today she serves as President of Grupo Empresarial Colmundo, where she promotes a vision in which business, communication, social responsibility, and purpose can move in the same direction. Yet perhaps the most meaningful chapter of her story began when she decided to transform her own life experiences into a platform for other women.
Mujeres Empoderadas: Healing Before Conquering Zaidy Mora is the founder of Mujeres Empoderadas, a movement built around a philosophy that challenges conventional conversations about female empowerment. Before teaching a woman how to conquer the world, Zaidy believes we must first help her reconcile with the woman she sees when she looks in the mirror. Behind an entrepreneur, professional, mother, wife, executive, or seemingly successful woman may exist wounds, grief, disappointment, abandonment, fear, and dreams that were placed on hold while she worked to fulfill the expectations of everyone around her. For that reason, Mujeres Empoderadas proposes a journey that begins within: healing emotional wounds, rebuilding identity, rediscovering self-worth, and reconnecting with one's original purpose. But for Zaidy, healing has never meant remaining focused on what caused the pain.
Healing means dreaming again. And dreaming again requires action.
This philosophy has become one of the movement's most transformative dimensions.
Through education, training, entrepreneurship, leadership development, and practical tools, Mujeres Empoderadas seeks to help women move from pain to identity, from identity to dreams, and from dreams to tangible action. Her message is also deliberately removed from competition between women and men—or among women themselves. Zaidy's vision of empowerment is rooted in identity, responsibility, preparation, family, purpose, and collaboration.
For her, a woman who is secure in who she is does not need to diminish someone else's light to prove the strength of her own. El Sembrador: When Influence Becomes Service. Another fundamental expression of Zaidy's leadership can be found through Fundación El Sembrador, where she supports social initiatives and promotes a culture of service that she has also passed on to her daughters. One of her strongest convictions is that privilege without purpose can become simply comfort, while privilege placed at the service of others can become an instrument for social transformation. That philosophy has deeply influenced the upbringing of her daughters, Valentina Chamorro Mora and María Paz Chamorro Mora, who today serve as official ambassadors of Fundación El Sembrador. It through them that Zaidy's story begins to evolve from influence into legacy. Valentina: Entrepreneurship Can Begin Young Valentina Chamorro Mora represents a new generation of young women who have learned that dreams require preparation.
From childhood, she discovered a passion for pastry arts. While completing part of her international education in Switzerland, that creative interest continued to develop until it evolved into an entrepreneurial vision. While still very young, she created Valenchu Bakery, her own pastry brand, demonstrating that entrepreneurship does not have to wait until adulthood. Valenchu Bakery represents more than desserts. It tells the story of a young girl who transformed talent into a brand and whose experience now connects with a broader vision dedicated to empowering young female entrepreneurs. For Zaidy, accompanying her daughter through this process reinforces one of the principles she seeks to share with other mothers:
We should not raise children simply to receive opportunities. We should prepare generations capable of creating them. María Paz: Turning a Crown Into a Platform. Zaidy's younger daughter, María Paz Chamorro Mora, currently Miss Teen of the Universe Colombia, represents another dimension of that legacy. Her platform is intended to reach beyond a crown or runway. María Paz has begun bringing the message of Jóvenes Empoderadas to teenagers and younger generations, encouraging conversations about identity, purpose, self-esteem, and service.
Both María Paz and Valentina also participate as ambassadors of Fundación El Sembrador, learning from an early age that visibility acquires greater meaning when it is used to serve others.
Through this family and social vision, three concepts come together: Mujeres Empoderadas, Jóvenes Empoderadas, and Jóvenes Emprendedoras Empoderadas. They are not isolated projects, but different expressions of the same philosophy. Because in Zaidy's vision, when a woman heals, it is not only one personal story that changes. A family can begin to heal, and the narrative of an entirely new generation can be rewritten. An Influence Crossing Borders Zaidy's work has been acknowledged across different platforms through national and international distinctions, speaking invitations, publications, interviews, and media appearances.
Her Women Leadership & Global Impact Recognition at the New York Fashion Awards 2026 represents another important international milestone in that journey. Yet she remains committed to the belief that recognition should never become the center of the story.
Awards create visibility. Visibility creates opportunity. And opportunity, when guided by purpose, can open doors for many others. Her journey brings together worlds that are not always seen in the same story: law and sensitivity, business and service, academic achievement and human transformation, leadership and motherhood, influence and social responsibility. Perhaps that is precisely where the strength of her profile lies.
Building More Than a Personal Brand
Zaidy Mora is not interested solely in building a personal brand. She wants to build a legacy.
A legacy that can be seen in a woman who chose to heal and entrepreneur who found the courage to begin. It a young woman who discovered her identity before allowing the world to define it for her. It a transformed family. In a daughter who learned that a crown becomes more meaningful when transformed into a platform, and another who discovered from childhood that her own hands could turn passion into enterprise. Her vision challenges the traditional definition of success. It not enough to travel far if no one else can move forward because of the road you opened. That is why the next chapter of Zaidy Mora's journey cannot be measured only in companies, academic titles, stages, or award. It is measured in women transformed, opportunities created, and generations impacted.
Lawyer. Doctor. Entrepreneur. Mother. Social leader. Speaker. Founder. And now, New York Fashion Awards 2026 Women Leadership & Global Impact Honoree.
Yet behind all those titles remains a definition that perhaps captures her story best:
Zaidy Eliana Mora Quintero is a woman who chose to transform her wounds into purpose, her opportunities into open doors, and her leadership into a legacy for other women.
And perhaps that is one of the most powerful expressions of empowerment:
Not reaching the destination alone, but turning every place you reach into a doorway through which others can discover just how far they, too, can go.
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