“You are too young, too smart, and too nimble.” These are the words that Lilliana Vazquez ’98 heard from an executive at ABC when she decided to leave her reliable, steady jo”E! news” to become a fashion and lifestyle creator Since starting her brand on social media in 2021, she has amassed a combined following of nearly 590k on Instagram and TikTok, and she earns tens of thousands of views on the majority of her reels. 

Before she was an Emmy-winning superstar, though, she was a student at Fort Worth Country Day. She started at FWCD in third grade and took advantage of every opportunity that the school offered. From taking AP classes, to writing for the newspaper staff, to working with the yearbook, to taking photography, she was always busy. She participated in cheerleading, ballet, field hockey, and soccer and earned the prestigious presidential scholarship, a full academic scholarship, along with a D1 athletic scholarship to attend George Washington University in Washington,D.C.

“She’s always packed a lot of punch in that little body with personality, and she’s always been very driven,” Caroline Lamsens ‘99, Vazquez’s former cheer teammate and friend, said. 

Vazquez double majored in international business and entrepreneurship at GWU, inspired by her parents. 

“I wanted to do entrepreneurship because both of my parents were very much entrepreneurs… They were looking to be self employed, and… really make something for themselves. And to me, that spirit is at the core of being an entrepreneur,” Vazquez said. 

Vazquez used the skills she learned to build the brand and image she currently has, but first, she dove head first into the competitive world of fashion media. 

She worked at “W Magazine” right after college and started a fashion blog in 2008, CheapChicas.com. As for the television side of her work, it was slow at first. 

“My hosting stuff on TV was literally whatever job would hire me to be on camera,” Vazquez said. 

She worked at QVC for a while, struggling to stay live for two hours and meet the sales goal for the segment. Vasquez said it was the best preparation she could have asked for because it prepared her and trained her to such an extent that a three-minute section on the “Today Show” was no problem. 

“Eventually [I got] onto the ‘Today Show’ as a correspondent and [continued] to build my blog and my brand in tandem with that experience,” Vazquez said.

On the “Today Show,” Vazquez was initially just a fashion correspondent, but she quickly broke out of that box, covering whatever she had the opportunity to cover. She shared stories that were “business focused, women centered, and tech driven.”

“[At the ‘Today Show’] you have to be really deeply involved in research and pitching, and then you really have to take ownership for shepherding an idea that you believe in. And that also means that you’re gonna get shut down at multiple meetings,” Vasquez said. 

So she just kept pitching ideas and fought her way up to the top. And it worked.

Vazquez has won two Emmys: one for a live coverage of the Golden Globes red carpet and one for another story that she completed while living in New York. 

“Winning an Emmy is so different because it’s recognition from your peers,” Vazquez said.

She moved to “E! News,” then COVID-19 hit, and her son was born – two major events that contributed to her leaving conventional media for the influencer life. It wasn’t an easy decision, but the world was changing, and Vazquez had to change with it.

“We were moving into a digital first format with a digitally-native audience, and TV and traditional media, legacy media, was not keeping up with that change,” Vazquez said.

So she spoke to one of her mentors, the ABC Executive aforementioned, and ultimately decided that she was “too young, too smart, and too nimble.”

Vazquez started giving everything to her social media platform in 2021. It has taken her four years of hard work, but she has now built a large brand based on fashion tips and what’s trendy, but also confidence and life tips for women. She talks about success, family, and life in general.

“You want to jump with a parachute… the best entrepreneurs are really well-informed, well-researched, and well-planned. I wouldn’t have taken this jump without a plan,” Vazquez said. 

She has built her brand on being authentic and affordable, which is a large part of her attraction to her online audience. 

“The more I started to kind of step into more authenticity and how I showed up on social [media] and the stories I was telling and what I was focusing on… I kind of saw my success change and the numbers change,” Vazquez said. 

But this authenticity is not something that Vazquez fakes, or even something she just discovered; it’s something Vazquez has possessed since her time at Country Day. 

“I think, really, I’ve always admired [that] she is very authentic and so true to herself, and I think it’s just been really fun to see her success and see her live in that authenticity, even now,” Lamsens said. 

Now, Vazquez is focusing on her family and on growing her platform and her Substack, Off Camera, which she says she uses like her own personal idea board. It’s an even more authentic version of her that people can use to see off camera. 

“I don’t want to be a blip on the radar. I want to build something that lasts, and I think that’s the difference between chasing virality and building a life’s work,” Vazquez said. 

And she certainly has.