Cecilia Cuff
Cecilia Cuff is a hospitality designer and innovator and regenerative development strategist whose work revitalizes urban and rural landscapes and redefines how disinvested communities reclaim space, culture, and capital.
As the founder of the Nascent Group, she sits at the intersection of governmental policy and small business, building pathways to ownership for entrepreneurs in underserved communities while revitalizing overlooked corridors through intentional design. Leveraging her career leading resort and hospitality development and design projects globally, Cecilia applies large scale operational insights to grassroots initiatives. Her personal ventures; Bronzeville Winery, South Side Sanctuary, and the Stakeout have become nationally recognized models for blending cultural storytelling, urban placemaking, and entrepreneurship pathways. Her leadership has helped small businesses access over $25 million in public and philanthropic funding, while advancing temporary urbanism and public space activations as tools for community agency.
Cecilia’s mission is grounded in five pillars: equity in entrepreneurship, regenerative design, women in leadership, urban revitalization, and cultural memory through space. She is a builder of systems and stories, cultivating future designers, mentoring young women of color, and advising city leaders on inclusive growth. Her work challenges traditional boundaries between hospitality and policy, transforming spaces of exclusion into places of possibility.