SALT + GOLD
One Sea. Every Shore. Where Icons Bloom.
Celebrating Caribbean Trailblazers in Business, Culture & the Arts
Wi Voices, Elevated.
The people shaping what comes next for the Caribbean and its diaspora deserve to be seen.
Carib Biz Network’s annual Island Icon Honors celebrates Caribbean founders, creators, and changemakers whose work is moving industries, strengthening communities, and carrying our culture forward. Their influence reaches far beyond a single stage or moment. This is a night to recognize the work, the courage behind it, and the legacy it is building.
Date: Tuesday, 10th November | Time: 6:30 PM - 10:30 PM ET
Location: Industry City, Brooklyn, NYC | Dress Code: Black Tie/Caribbean Glam
SPONSORED BY
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
MEDIA & PRESS, BE IN THE ROOM!
Calling all journalists, photographers, videographers, media outlets, and content creators!
Carib Biz Network is inviting media professionals to apply to cover Island Icons Honors 2026, an unforgettable celebration of Caribbean excellence, culture, and impact.
November 10, 2026 | Brooklyn, NY
MEDIA APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN!
Be a Part of the 3rd Island Icons Honors
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Icons Duo Ticket for 2
Bring the person you build alongside. This secures two seats together at the Icons Duo Guest rate, made for you and the one who's in it with you. Here is what to expect for you both:
-Fully Catered Premium Buffet Experience
-Open Bar
- Awards Program
-Networking Moments
- Live entertainment
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Get ready for an evening built for you and the people already building what's next. Here is what to expect:
-Fully Catered Premium Buffet Experience
-Open Bar
- Awards Program
-Networking Moments
- Live entertainment
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Icons VIP Circle
$275.00
Experience Island Icons at its highest level. Icons VIP guests receive:
- Premium seating
- A curated welcome gift bag
- Full event professional photography (access post event)
-Fully Catered Premium Buffet Experience
-Open Bar
- Awards Program
-Networking Moments
- Live entertainment
all creating an elevated experience from arrival to departure.
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Icons VIP Table
Reserve your own table of 8 at Island Icons Honors 2026. This option includes:
- Premium placement and seating for your entire party
- A curated welcome gift bag for each guest
- Dedicated premium wine & champagne at your table
- Professional photography for each guest
Recognizing The Caribbean Icons Of Tomorrow
Meet Our 2026 HONOREES
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Brandon Blackwood New York is a contemporary accessories brand best known for its distinctive handbags that blend timeless silhouettes with a modern, fashion forward sensibility. Designed in New York, handbags sit at the core of the brand’s identity, serving as the foundation for its continued growth and global recognition.
The brand’s design philosophy centers on elevated simplicity, classic shapes reimagined through refined materials, intentional detailing, and a curated palette of colors and textures. Each piece is crafted to feel current yet enduring, striking a balance between trend relevance and long term wearability.
Since its inception in 2015, Brandon Blackwood New York has been featured in leading global fashion publications including Vogue, Vanity Fair, Forbes, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, InStyle, and WWD. Founder Brandon Blackwood is a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, was named to the Time 100 Next list for 2024, and serves on the Advisory Board of Fashion Trust U.S.
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As an event producer Sabrina has created numerous events for the natural hair community. Based out of New York, U.S. she has produced over 50 events since 2013 ranging from intimate affairs to major events with over 1500 attendees. Hitting cities like Austin during SXSW, Atlanta, Dallas, DC, Miami, Cleveland, Houston and Philadelphia to name just a few U.S. locations. She didn’t stay just in the United States; she’s also produced events and activations in London and Jamaica. Beside producing events under Natural Partners In Crime she has also helped produce events for top social media influencers such as Yolanda Rene a.k.a. etcblogmag, CurlsandCouture, HeyCurlie and Avielle Amor. She produced a groundbreaking influencer retreat in Jamaica for Tropic Isle Living with 30+ influencers and in the midst of Covid, April 2021, she produced the first in person influencer event for Palmers. Sabrina and NPIC Mgmt is a powerhouse working with numerous hair care brands to increase their consumer awareness by positioning them in major retailers and also producing activations and creating social media campaigns working with top influencers. She wears many hats such as brand strategist, content creator, event producer but these all are entrepreneurial in its truest essence. HUE Affair by far is her favorite event and her baby! She currently is the Sales Education and Events Lead at PATTERN Beauty by Tracee Ellis Ross. She works with retail partners such as Sephora, Macy's, Nordstrom and Ulta to educate their employees on the textured hair care brand throughout the United States and Canada.
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Vinay Harrichan is the founder and curator of The Cutlass Magazine, launched in August 2020 as a social media platform dedicated to the Indo-Caribbean community and descendants of Indian indentureship. Born in Trinidad, he moved to Florida with his immediate family at age four, and he has since built The Cutlass into a combined social media community, podcast, and virtual museum. The name carries family history: his maternal great-grandparents cut sugarcane on Trinidad's estates, and the cutlass, the tool used in the cane fields, is historically bound up with indentureship.
Through The Cutlass podcast, Vinay hosts conversations on culture, religion, politics, history, and entertainment, exploring the history and social issues of the Indian diaspora honestly rather than smoothing them over. His work is driven by a clear purpose: creating a space where young people abroad can connect with Indo-Caribbean heritage and the story of indentureship in depth. His audience reaches well beyond the Caribbean and the U.S., including people of Indian descent across the global diaspora, and the platform has drawn academic attention for its role in cataloging cultural artifacts.
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Sharifa Murdock is a Caribbean-American fashion executive, community builder, and cultural strategist dedicated to expanding access and opportunity within the fashion and creative industries. She currently serves as Chief Impact Officer at Kith, where she leads the brand’s global social impact initiatives and oversees its nonprofit arm, The Kinnect Foundation. Through Kinnect, she develops mentorship programs, educational initiatives, and community partnerships that connect the next generation of leaders to meaningful opportunities within fashion, business, and culture.
Prior to her role at Kith, Murdock built her career within the fashion trade show industry. Alongside her mentor-turned-business partner, industry pioneer Sam Ben-Avraham, she co-founded Liberty Fairs and helped launch PROJECT, becoming the first Black woman to own a fashion trade show. Her work helped shape the modern trade show landscape and connect emerging brands with global retailers.
Murdock is also the Co-Founder of ENVSN, an organization dedicated to empowering young women through mentorship, leadership development, and immersive industry experiences. Through her non-profit organization and festival, she continues to create pathways for young people to access networks, knowledge, and opportunities that were historically out of reach.
Across all of her work, Murdock is driven by a simple mission: to build rooms that didn’t previously exist and invite the next generation inside.
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Janelle M. Hopkin is President and Managing Director of Spice Island Beach Resort. A graduate of the prestigious Glion Institute of Higher Education in Montreux, Switzerland, she holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in Business Administration and Hospitality Management. Upon completing her studies, Ms. Hopkin embarked on several management internships, most notably at the Four Seasons Hotel, Park Lane, and the Royal Garden Hotel, High Street Kensington in London. These experiences were extremely formative as they helped to crystallize her vision and influence the development of her now-established philosophy on how high-end Caribbean hospitality should be delivered. After returning home in 2006, Janelle spent the next fourteen (14) years learning all aspects of the business under the watchful eye and tutelage of her father, the late Sir Royston Hopkin KCMG, the founder of Spice Island Beach Resort and its former Chairman and Managing Director.
Starting as a Management Trainee, Janelle worked her way through the ranks, with key stops as the Manager of the Rooms Division and Assistant Food and Beverage Manager, eventually rising to the post of Deputy Managing Director in 2015. From that point, she worked closely with Sir Royston until she was appointed his successor in March 2020. Since taking the reins, Janelle has astutely and successfully steered the business through one of its most difficult periods, the COVID-19 pandemic, and has subsequently embarked on an ambitious undertaking to transform the resort to meet the evolving needs of current and future consumers.
A proud mother of one, Janelle has served on the Board of Directors of the Grenada Tourism Authority since 2022. She also serves as a Trustee on the Board of the Queen Elizabeth Home for Children where her passion for the underprivileged and disadvantaged shines through. Spice Island Beach Resort is family-owned and operated and continues to earn the praise and accolades of both industry professionals and guests for the resort’s unwavering commitment to providing the definitive 21st century luxury, Caribbean experience with the highest levels of quality and service. Situated directly on the powder-white sand of Grenada’s world- renowned Grand Anse beach, Spice Island Beach Resort currently offers 64 elegantly appointed suites and is proud of its complement of over 200 highly trained managers and staff who are constantly striving to exceed the expectations of their guests.
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Edvin Thompson is a Jamaican-American fashion designer and the Founder and Creative Director of THEOPHILIO, the Brooklyn-based fashion label known for merging the vibrancy of Jamaican culture with the energy of New York City.
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Thompson immigrated to the United States at age nine, later living in New Jersey and Atlanta before establishing himself in Brooklyn. His multicultural journey has become central to his creative practice, with THEOPHILIO serving as a “wearable biography” that explores migration, identity, family, community and the Caribbean diaspora through bold color, expressive silhouettes and cultural storytelling.
Thompson launched THEOPHILIO independently and quickly emerged as a distinctive voice in American fashion. In 2021, he was named American Emerging Designer of the Year at the CFDA Fashion Awards and was a finalist for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. He subsequently became a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. His work has been presented at New York Fashion Week and featured by institutions and publications including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vogue, W Magazine and CFDA.
Through THEOPHILIO, Thompson has expanded his creative language beyond the runway into collaborations, cultural experiences and global partnerships. In 2026, THEOPHILIO partnered with Macy’s on an exclusive collection celebrating American fashion, with Thompson drawing on the airbrush art, graffiti and visual culture of his Jamaican childhood.
At the heart of Thompson’s work is a commitment to celebrating where he comes from while redefining what contemporary American fashion can look like. Through fashion, collaboration and community, he continues to build THEOPHILIO as a platform for Caribbean creativity, immigrant narratives and a distinctly Jamaican-American point of view.
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Steven Baboun is a Haitian artist, photographer, creative director, producer, and educator from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, based in New York City. His interdisciplinary practice spans photography, video, textiles, performance, installation, and design, exploring Haitian identity, history, memory, liberation, queerness, belonging, land, politics, and the Haitian experience. At the center of Baboun’s practice is world-making: creating imagined spaces and immersive experiences that reframe Haitian existence beyond narratives of crisis and colonialism. Rooted in nan rèv (“in a dream”), Haitian Vodou, and the sewing practice of his grandmother, his work explores ancestry, spirituality, collective memory, and new possibilities for Haitian futures.
Baboun is the founder and creative director of Studio Baboun, a creative house based in Brooklyn, and co-founder and CEO of NativRoots Collective, a creative agency serving entertainment, nonprofits, live experiences, and brands. He serves as Creative Director of Stage, Showrunner, and Stage Manager for Michael Brun Presents: BAYO Tour. He holds a B.A. in Film and Media Arts from American University and an M.F.A. in Photography from Parsons School of Design.
His accolades include a NYSCA 2025 Grant, being a 2022 Aperture Portfolio Prize Finalist, and recognition by the New York City Council and New York State Assembly for contributions to arts and culture.
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The Armstrong-Commissiong Family
Their story began at Howard University, where Nicole Commissiong, of Marabella, Trinidad and
Tobago, met Darnell Armstrong, of Brooklyn, New York. Grounded in faith, education and
service, they transformed a shared ambition into a family tradition of leadership and impact.
As Co-founder and COO of Dynamic Service Solutions (DSS), Nicole leads alongside Darnell,
President and CEO, whose engineering expertise and vision have helped build a formidable
enterprise with over 500 employees, specializing in engineering, emergency management and
project management. Nicole extends that impact as Executive Director of the
Armstrong-Commissiong Family Foundation and through her Trinidad Guardian column, Living
Well On Purpose, championing education, empowerment and purposeful living.
Their children advance this legacy through distinct paths. Award-winning filmmaker Sea
Armstrong founded Ancient Well Productions an independent film studio that interrogates
dominant narratives and explores unconventional ways of understanding the world through
cinema. Simon Armstrong, Co-founder of Yatts, brings entrepreneurial innovation to the creative
economy. Sampson Armstrong III serves as CFO across all family entities and leads the
development of their Family Office, shaping the financial stewardship that will sustain their vision
for generations.
Together, the Armstrong-Commissiong family makes legacy a living commitment, measured in
lives uplifted, barriers removed and doors opened for those who follow.
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From the heart of Barbados, Andre "Puffy" Parris is the celebrated DJ who has set the world alight with his infectious energy and genre-blending style. A Red Bull Thre3style World Champion 2016, DJ Puffy's journey from wildcard entrant to global phenomenon has cemented his legacy as one of the most skilful DJs of his generation. He is recognized for pioneering a Caribbean-EDM sound that brings crowds to life, transcending borders and electrifying audiences worldwide.
Music runs deep in Puffy's veins; born in 1991 into a family of musicians, it was no surprise that he developed a passion for sound at a young age. His professional journey began in 2009 after being discovered by Dream Real Projects' CEO, visionary Matthew "Fewwture" Ashby. What began as a teen hobby quickly evolved into a passion-fueled career that continues to inspire audiences globally.
Puffy’s big break came in 2016 when he stunned the world on the stage of the Red Bull Thre3style World Championship in Santiago, Chile. There, he captivated judges and fans alike with his unique, eclectic sound and unmatched turntablism. His commanding presence and masterful skills earned him the championship title, judged by legends Nu-Mark, Scratch Bastid, Craze, Z-Trip, and DJ Jazzy Jeff.
Since that moment, DJ Puffy has travelled the globe, performing hundreds of shows across the Caribbean, Central America, North America, and Asia. Beyond his exceptional DJ sets, he is a trailblazer who produces original music and hosts unique events that celebrate Caribbean sound and culture.
His dedication and passion have also earned him a Caribbean Music Award for International DJ of the Year in 2024, marking a historic achievement for a DJ from Barbados and the Caribbean.
Adding to his impressive accolades, DJ Puffy won the Red Bull Culture Clash with his crew No Long Talk, a thrilling event showcasing his versatility and ability to connect with audiences on a massive scale. This victory further solidified his position as a force in the music world, showcasing his dynamic style and captivating performance skills.
Andre "Puffy" Parris stands as a true Caribbean icon, continuously pushing boundaries and redefining the art of DJing with his magnetic presence, groundbreaking music, and unstoppable drive. His journey is far from over, as he continues to innovate, inspire, and take the world by storm, one set at a time.
Meet Our 2026 Nominees
100+ Nominees in 12 categories, representing excellence and impact within the Caribbean diaspora.
THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE: Best Caribbean Digital Comedy Creative of the Year (U.S.)
THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE: Best Caribbean Podcast of the Year
What to Expect
Whether you're a proud Caribbean creative, entrepreneur, or ally, this night is for you. Together, we'll honor the ones who bloomed anyway, and remind the world that Caribbean excellence is global excellence.
Red Carpet & Welcome Cocktails
Featuring the ICONIC Caribbean Eats of NYC - a consortium of the best Caribbean restaurants and brands in NYC
Recognizing excellence across business, tech, wellness, fashion, culture, and community leadership
Honoree Awards Ceremony
ICONIC Caribbean Eats of NYC Menu
An incredible featured menu with 12+ Caribbean food partners.
ABOUT ISLAND ICONS HONORS
Celebrating Wi
Every year, Carib Biz Network honors the entrepreneurs, innovators, and cultural leaders who are putting the Caribbean on the global map, in business, tech, fashion, wellness, food, and beyond. Island Icons Honors is our way of saying: we see you, we celebrate you, and the world needs to know your name.
From first-generation founders to established industry leaders, this is a night dedicated to honoring the people driving Caribbean excellence forward, on the islands and across the diaspora.
Questions? Reach out at info@caribbiznetwork.com
Stand With Caribbean Excellence
Sponsorship puts your brand in the room with the founders, creators, and leaders shaping the diaspora economy. Connect with us to join us in 2026.
2026
ISLAND ICONS HONORS
Presented by Carib Biz Network
November 10, 2026 ◆ 6:30 PM — 10:30 PM ◆ Brooklyn, NY◆ Black Tie/Caribbean Glam