Jen Rubio

Jennifer Rubio is an American businesswoman. She is the co-founder, president, and chief executive officer of Away, a luggage manufacturer and retailer.^[1] Rubio was head of social media at Warby Parker^[2][3] and global director of innovation at fashion company AllSaints.^[4]

Early life

Rubio was born in the Philippines, and moved to New Jersey when she was seven years old.^[5] She grew up traveling, and lived in seven cities on three continents.^[4][6] When she was young, Rubio bought a lemonade stand from another child who lived on her street for $20 which she borrowed from her father. She has called it her first merger and acquisition.^[1] Rubio later went on to attend college at Penn State University, where she pursued a supply-chain management major. She was placed at Johnson & Johnson as part of Penn State's co-op program.^[7] After discovering her desire to be a businesswoman, Rubio dropped out of Penn State just a few credits shy of graduating, in order to pursue a full-time role at Neutrogena, a company with whom she did another co-op.

Career

In 2011, Rubio joined Warby Parker, leading the company's early content and partnership work as its head of social media.^[8] She met Away co-founder Stephanie Korey during her time at Warby Parker.^[9] In 2013, she left Warby Parker and went to London,^[10][11] where she was global director of innovation for clothing brand AllSaints.^[3][12][13] She spent much of a year traveling for the position.^[14]

Before Warby Parker, Rubio held different marketing and social media roles, working for brands on the agency side and in-house.^[15] She also taught social media as an adjunct professor at Miami Ad School.^[16] She has been a guest lecturer at Hyper Island, New York University, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University, and Harvard University.^[17]

Rubio co-founded Away Luggage, a direct-to-consumer travel and luggage company, with Stephanie Korey, who also worked at Warby Parker.^[13] By 2017, Rubio and Korey had raised $31 million, making it one of the largest seed financed female-backed startups.^[18]

Personal life

In May 2019, Rubio got engaged to her boyfriend, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield.^[19] They married in 2020 and share two children.^[20]