Kim Bolufé Named IAOTP's Top 25 Global Impact Leader

The International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP) will honor Kim Bolufé at their Annual Awards Gala in NYC at the Plaza Hotel

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, September 14, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- KIM BOLUFÉ NAMED IAOTP TOP 25 GLOBAL IMPACT LEADER: FROM A 10½-YEAR-OLD GIRL IN A NEW YORK CITY SEWING FACTORY TO AN INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED ENTREPRENEUR

From a $267 entrepreneurial beginning to NASDAQ Times Square and two upcoming national television features, Kim Bolufé’s American Dream journey is one of entrepreneurship, resilience, reinvention, and empowerment.

The International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP) is proud to announce that Kim Bolufé, Founder and CEO of Bolufé Designs, LLC, has been selected as one of IAOTP’s Top 25 Global Impact Leaders for 2026 for her outstanding leadership, dedication, entrepreneurial resilience, and commitment to empowering others.

Being included among IAOTP’s Top 25 Global Impact Leaders is an extraordinary distinction recognizing individuals whose leadership and work create meaningful impact and positive change. Kim will be honored at IAOTP’s Annual Awards Gala in December 2026 at the iconic Plaza Hotel in New York City. Her story will also be featured in a dedicated chapter in Volume 3 of IAOTP’s Top 25 Global Impact Leaders publication.

For Kim, this recognition represents more than another career milestone. It reflects an American Dream journey that began decades before the awards, Times Square recognition, global clientele, and national television.

Born in Hong Kong, Kim immigrated to the United States with her family at age four and was raised in New York City. At just 10½ years old, she began working alongside her mother in a small New York City sewing factory. For approximately seven years, she was immersed in the fashion trade, apprenticing under her mother and learning the craft from the ground up.

Those formative years taught Kim far more than fashion construction and craftsmanship. From her mother, she learned discipline, integrity, perseverance, personal responsibility, and a work ethic that would become the foundation of her entrepreneurial journey.

At just 19 years old, with only $267 to her name, Kim made the decision to build something of her own.

She began designing one-of-a-kind semi-precious jewelry by hand. With no investors, mentors, business partner, blueprint, or advertising budget, she took her creations directly to New York City’s busiest subway stations.

With a $10 folding card table and the jewelry she had created by hand, Kim began selling her pieces one customer at a time. Through freezing New York winters, rain, snow, and summer heat, she continued showing up, learning business through experience, determination, and the willingness to keep moving forward.

That modest beginning eventually evolved into Bolufé Designs, LLC, formally established in 1993. Over the decades, Kim expanded into multiple boutique locations throughout South Florida and built a global clientele of men and women, including CEOs, executives, entrepreneurs, and public figures.

Today, Bolufé Boutique’s headquarters on Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach, Florida, continues to attract clients from around the world for Kim’s personalized approach to fashion, transformational confidence, and empowerment.

Kim’s entrepreneurial journey has increasingly gained recognition on a national stage.

Kim was recently filmed for two television features scheduled to air later in 2026: Lifetime Television’s Elevate – Empowering Women and PB à la Mode, premiering on Lifetime Real Women (LRW).

Kim has also been featured three times on the iconic NASDAQ billboard in Times Square, with a fourth appearance scheduled for December 2026. She is a contributing author to the international bestselling book The Top 50 Fearless Leaders, Vol. 5 and was featured on the cover of TIP (Top Industry Professionals) Magazine in 2024.

Her television and media experience also includes providing fashion styling and image consulting for Entrepreneur Magazine’s Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch and Billion Dollar Showdown, working with entrepreneurs, investors, executives, celebrities, and featured guests preparing for national television.

Throughout more than three decades in business, Kim has learned that longevity requires the ability to evolve.

She has guided her company through major economic shifts, the aftermath of September 11, changes in retail and consumer behavior, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Each challenge required her to adapt, reinvent, and find new ways to reach her clients.

During the pandemic, Bolufé expanded its digital presence through live interactive styling, e-commerce, social media, and a mobile app. Together with her daughter and business partner, Alexandria Bolufé, Kim has hosted more than 300 episodes of The Kim Bolufé Show, building an engaged community around fashion, confidence, transformation, entrepreneurship, storytelling, and entertainment.

At the heart of Kim’s work is her belief that fashion can become a vehicle for something much deeper. Through transformational styling, she helps clients rediscover themselves, move beyond their comfort zones, and experience greater confidence in how they present themselves to the world.

Her philosophy is captured in the words:

“Fashion is the vehicle. Confidence is the destination.”

Throughout her career, Kim has received numerous professional honors. Her IAOTP recognitions include Top Entrepreneur and Celebrity Fashion Stylist of the Year and Empowered Woman of the Year in 2024, Top 50 Fearless Leaders and Top Celebrity Fashion Stylist of the Decade in 2025, and Top 25 Global Impact Leader in 2026.

Today, Kim continues to evolve the Bolufé brand through media, storytelling, products, partnerships, and new opportunities for growth. She hopes her journey encourages others, particularly women, to embrace reinvention, pursue purpose, and recognize that new possibilities do not come with an expiration date.

The principles Kim first learned beside her mother in a New York City sewing factory remain at the foundation of her life today: work hard, act with integrity, continue learning, adapt when circumstances change, and never allow fear to determine what comes next.

From a 10½-year-old girl in a New York City sewing factory to a 19-year-old entrepreneur with $267 and a $10 card table, from building South Florida boutiques and a global clientele to Times Square and national television, Kim Bolufé’s journey is a testament to the American Dream and to what can happen when opportunity is created through courage, determination, and resilience.

ABOUT KIM BOLUFÉ

Kim Bolufé is the Founder and CEO of Bolufé Designs, LLC, an entrepreneur, media personality, contributing author to an international bestselling book, and Global Confidence and Empowerment Fashion Stylist. For more than three decades, she has built her business around fashion, personal transformation, confidence, entrepreneurship, and meaningful relationships with clients around the world.

ABOUT IAOTP

The International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP) is an international professional organization that recognizes distinguished professionals across industries through its awards, publications, media exposure, and annual awards gala.

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Annette Natoli
IAOTP
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