Serena Guen
She started SUITCASE magazine from her dorm at university, is on the committee for UNICEF's Next Generation London and founded #CookForSyria to raise money for UNICEF's Syria appeal. And she’s is only 27. Ana Santi meets the publishing superstar.
Serena Guen, SUITCASE Magazine. Photography by Kim Turkington
She spent her childhood surfing the waves of Delaware beach, determined to be Kate Bosworth in Blue Crush. Her mother is half Italian, her father half German. Next on her itinerary is a trip to Borneo for SUITCASE, the travel magazine she founded five years ago. So Serena Guen’s answer to “if you had 24 hours to yourself, where would you go?” comes as a surprise. “I’m really excited by England at the moment,” she says, after a long pause. “I’d love to go somewhere around Bath, find a cute pub for lunch then go for a long walk.”
But it’s an answer that characterises her today. Guen cites Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel as inspiring her to rethink her mission. “We have this mentality on holiday where we relax and do things we actually like, but when we come back, we force ourselves into a routine. So I’ve started to focus on small things, like reading again. I’m in the middle of the Elena Ferrante novels. I feel like I’m so sucked into their world I need to know what’s happening!”
The years leading up to this point – founder and CEO of SUITCASE Group, which includes a media agency – were full-on. Guen launched the magazine (who starts a print product in 2012?) as a side project to her degree at New York University. Print sales are up 146% on last year. She is on the committee of Unicef’s Next Generation London and set up #CookForSyria in 2016 to aid Syrian children. What began as one dinner turned into hundreds of restaurants offering a Syrian twist to their signature dishes, a best-selling cookbook and more than £500,000 in proceeds. Guen is 27 years old. (Reader, if you’re asking yourself what you’ve been doing with your life, you’re not alone).
“If I knew how hard it was going to be when I started, I don’t know if I would’ve done it,” Guen laughs. “You need a bit of craziness.”