Behind the Brand with TGR Founder Jacquelyn Cornier

Keeping in line with our celebration of Women’s History Month we want to reintroduce you to our impressive founder, who’s an inspiration to everyone at The Girls Room, Jacquelyn Cornier. In creating TGR Jacquelyn sought to carve out a space to uplift and connect women in the business and creative fields, and she’s done exactly that in less than four years. But before she began her path as a budding force in digital media she was a girl from Brooklyn with dreams of making it.

Jacquelyn’s journey has been a long and winding one. It began with early mornings commuting over an hour to get to school when she was a kid. It was then that she first developed a hunger that she says can’t be bought. “Seeing what my mom did for me and my siblings to make sure that we had a good education taught me that hustle mentality,” she said in a candid interview with Off the Cuff. From there her focus and work ethic grew.

At thirteen years-old Jacquelyn, also known as Jacq, Jay, or Jackie, became a summer youth counselor. Then at fifteen she was hired at McDonalds. A year later she became a team lead there. After that she worked as a cashier at Forever21 on 42nd Street, a position that represented a pivotal moment for her. “That was something that really changed my life because I was working a lot, and really hard, and long hours,” she explains. “We wouldn’t close the store until 2am—I was still in high school.”

Around that time she was accepted into Penn State, but just three weeks before classes started, she learned she wouldn’t be able to attend due to the loss of financial support. “I remember just crying, and crying, and crying,” Jacq recalls. She would ultimately pull herself up by the bootstraps and put herself through school at University of Albany.

During that time her hustle never let up. She worked continuously while earning her degree in journalism & film. She made sacrifices others weren’t willing to make. One year during spring break she opted for a credit-earning community service trip to Costa Rica instead of partying with friends, so she could graduate sooner.

No stranger to setbacks, Jay continued to overcome conflicts that were thrown her way. One particular confrontation came in the classroom when a professor tried to kick her out simply for stating she wanted to be a lifestyle journalist. “My professor was an investigative journalist. She concentrated on hard news and from her perspective [lifestyle reporting] was the complete opposite of what she was passionate about,” says Jackie. Not one to back down from a challenge, she persevered, continued to show up, and passed the class.

Throughout her time in undergrad she thrived as a sales specialist at Apple. After graduating the young go-getter relocated to New York City and started working at the SoHo, Manhattan location. The job led her to apply for a coveted camera software engineer internship within the company, which she secured, defying the odds. When the internship ended Jacquelyn returned to her tech support post, and worked her way up. Now she continues to work at Apple while growing The Girls Room.

Where did the idea for the platform come from? A good, old whiteboard brainstorming session—Jacq’s favorite way to get her thought process going. “I thought about, ‘What do I wanna do? Do I wanna be on camera, do I just wanna write,’ but I wanted to do it all, so that’s exactly what I started to do.” She reached out to women she found interesting on Instagram and interviewed them on camera. Then, tapping into her leadership skills from those previous teenage jobs, Jacquelyn built a team and has been leading TGR since 2017.

Working full-time and building her dream business on the side is a balancing act that she undertakes graciously and with gratitude. “If my schedule is busy I don’t complain about it because I’ve seen my mom work two jobs, raise three kids, and still put a smile on her face and still make it happen.”

The advice Jacquelyn wants to give young women chasing their dreams is this: “Trust your instincts and just go for it. Seek opportunities that will give you the experiences you want.” Long-term goals for the TGR brand are to become a large media company with different branches, give back to students, and pave a path for women. If her past is any indication of her future, she’s destined to achieve each one of those aspirations.