Alicia Towns Franken, Wine Educator, Board of Directors, Wine Unify, (Boston, USA)

Alicia Towns Franken, Wine Educator, Board of Directors, Wine Unify, (Boston, USA)

Cathy Huyghe
bipoc, black wine professionals, Educator, Entrepreneur, Events, Sommelier

Years In Industry:
I have been in the hospitality industry since I was 19. I just did the math, it’s been 35 years! Starting as a server during my undergraduate years, transitioned to wine director, currently working as a Wine Consultant & Event Planner.

My Biggest Challenge To Wellness:
If 2020 has revealed anything to me, it’s that I had been coasting on fumes for years. Hospitality people like to make everyone happy - family, friends, clients, community organizations and even complete strangers. It's always been difficult for me to say no to anyone asking for my help, whether it was to donate my time or my expertise or just facilitate a connection. But when we were all forced to slow down in March, I realized that I was completely exhausted.

I had overextended myself, spreading myself to the point of almost breaking. My body hurt (couldn’t find time for yoga), my head felt disconnected from my body, (meditation no longer came easily). I literally felt like I was running on a treadmill but not getting any traction. So this year was the birth of NO, for me. I took inventory of where and how I was spending my time, and made difficult decisions and brutal cuts.

How I Keep It Together To Stay Well:
Reclaiming my time! I have stopped living my life on autopilot. I want to be there fully for the people and the organizations I truly love. I am trying to simplify and live more intentionally, finding joy and peace, in the smallest of things.

Exercise is key for my mental health. What helps me keep it together are yoga, meditation, boxing and acupuncture. Not having to be in person at the gym and the increase in online access has afforded me more flexibility and less excuses. I should also mention dance parties with my husband and our teenagers are a great mood elevator. Oh and bubbles, because who can be sad with a glass of champagne in their hands, its like popsicles for adults!

Lastly, identifying and staying involved in a select group of organizations and causes feeds my soul. In June, I helped launched Wine Unify, a non profit platform that champions diversity and inclusion for underrepresented minorities in the wine industry. I also serve on the board of The Esplanade Association, the Advisors of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Leadership Council of The Posse Foundation. Diversity, equality, inclusion, land conservation, museum and education, family and friends - check, check and double check.

You can connect with Alicia on Instagram for her personal page and Wine Unify, on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Cathy Huyghe
bipoc, black wine professionals, Educator, Entrepreneur, Events, Sommelier
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Cathy Huyghe

Cathy Huyghe is a dynamic media professional with a special interest in wine and the spirit of hospitality. She is also an effective, engaging public speaker on subjects ranging from wine and gastronomy to digital media and entrepreneurship.

Cathy is the co-founder and CEO of Enolytics, a big data startup providing business intelligence for the wine industry. She also currently writes for Forbes.com about the business and politics of the wine industry, and for Inc.com about entrepreneurs with a special focus on women. She is the author of the award-winning book Hungry for Wine: Seeing the World through the Lens of a Wine Glass; she was a finalist for the 2016 IWSC Wine Communicator of the Year award; and she won the 2016 Innovator of the Year award from Diaz Communications.

Cathy's writing has appeared in print and online for both general-interest and wine industry publications including the Harvard Business Review network, The Atlantic, Decanter, Food52.com (where she was the "Wine, Unfussed" columnist), DailyBeast, The Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Wine Enthusiast, GlobalPost, Grist.org, and Daily Candy. She has also been featured on the BBC, WNYC, WGBH, and Nevada Public Radio.

Cathy is the founder of 365daysofwine.com and Red White Boston, a digital media company for the wine industry. Red White Boston produced daily content, monthly tasting events, and a location-based iPhone app of video wine recommendations from their network of 30+ local partner stores. While in Boston, she also managed the wine cellar at WGBH public broadcasting station and managed wine events for donors and the public.

Cathy’s restaurant experience started when she knocked on the kitchen door at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. She also has worked for Jean-Pierre Vigato in Paris (at Natachef bistro and at his two-star restaurant, Apicius) and for Thomas Keller at Bouchon in Las Vegas. She studied at La Varenne École de Cuisine in Burgundy, France; she completed the Wine Studies program at Boston University; and she received Advanced Certification from WSET (Wine and Spirits Education Trust). 

Cathy received a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard in 2004 and a second master’s degree in Journalism in 2010, also from Harvard. Before that, she received a master’s degree in comparative literature from the City University of New York in 1998 and a bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania in 1995. She is also a trained mediator, and worked for two years at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School on a project in the Middle East.

In April 2008 she founded the Harvard Alumni in Wine and Food special interest group, which provides educational and networking services to the Harvard alumni and current students. She has also served as the President of the Harvard Club of Georgia, and she has begun a term of service on the Board of Directors for the Harvard Alumni Association.

Her other non-profit involvement includes the Women's Solidarity Society at the new National Center for Civil & Human Rights (Atlanta), grant reviewer for the Food Well Alliance (an Atlanta-based organization that supports the local network of 350 urban farms and community gardens), Coach at GOTR (Girls on the Run) in Atlanta, Board Member at the Greening Youth Foundation (Atlanta), Board Member at The Food Project (Boston), and Mediator at the Neighborhood Justice Center (Las Vegas).

She lives in Atlanta with her husband, their twin boys, and their Bernese Mountain dog, Coco.

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