Lady Kinvara Balfour

Kinvara is a director, producer, writer and speaker. Her work spans the worlds of fashion, tech, theatre and film. Kinvara has advised and directed the launch of several major tech start-ups in UK and USA. She hosts conversations with global game-changers on stage and directs them on film. She speaks at conferences around the world about fashion, tech and the zeitgeist. She has also written and performed in several plays. She is currently developing a docu-series about creative visionaries and mavericks, filmed with the iPhone and set to air online later this year. As of 2014, Kinvara hosts Fashion in Conversation with Apple Inc., an exclusive series of interviews with creative icons at the Apple store in London and New York which is available to an audience of over 900 million on iTunes. As a public speaker, Kinvara speaks at events around the world for global brands and corporations including Procter & Gamble (for whom she compiles an International Trend Report), Richemont, MARKA, Metail, BFC Fashion Forum, Beyman, Canon, Jimmy Choo and Coutts. Kinvara has lectured at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. In 2014, she was one of a few young women invited to speak at President Obama’s Global Entrepreneurship Summit. In 2015, she spoke at the Access Leadership Conference with a roster of speakers including Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak. At 17, Kinvara won the Lloyd's Fashion Challenge, a national competition in fashion design, as judged by Vivienne Westwood. Kinvara went on to assist Westwood in her design studio. She then joined British couturier Tomasz Starzewski. Roles at Condé Nast and Telegraph Magazine, where Kinvara was Style Editor, followed. In 2004, Kinvara was appointed London Editor, and then Senior International Editor, for US web phenomenon DailyCandy.com by founder Dany Levy and co-owner, entrepreneur Bob Pittman. Kinvara launched the brand to mass acclaim. (In 2008, DailyCandy.com was acquired by US media giant Comcast for a reported $125million.) In 2011, Kinvara joined the launch of luxury deals site Keynoir.com for a team including lastminute.com co-founder, Brent Hoberman. In 2012, she launched a blog platform for Time Out under new ownership by Oakley Capital. In 2014, she was appointed Founding Partner of tech start-up Style-Card.co.uk. In the same year, she was invited to help launch the AOL BUILD Speaker Series in NYC. In 2016 (January-March), she acted as Digital Consultant for Vanity Fair UK, directing the publication’s online content and Instagram platform. In 2016, she was invited by IWC Schaffhausen to host the brand’s #IWCTalksTo YouTube series. After university, Kinvara trained as an actress at Central School of Speech & Drama and later completed the Royal Court Theatre writers’ programme. She has written two plays. Her first, ‘Dazed & Abused’, was staged in Edinburgh, London and New York.