With her venture, she’s honoring her heritage and uplifting others

Growing up, Sofia Urrutia had a keen awareness that her family tree spanned several continents. Her parents are both Panamanian. Her grandmother is French. Her cousins are Italian. Born and raised in Maryland, Urrutia has fond memories of traveling to Panama—taking in the sights and sounds, smells and flavors of her family’s heritage. When she was a student at Northeastern University, Urrutia studied abroad in Rome, soaking up Roman architecture and sensibility.

In Rome and dreaming of Panama, Urrutia—who has always been drawn to fashion—found herself designing jewelry that pulled from elements of both cultures, transformed by the alchemy of her own sense of style.

Urrutia could feel that she was onto something. When she returned to the U.S., she enrolled in Northeastern’s Sherman Center Venture co-op, twice. The program, designed to give founders the opportunity to develop their venture over the course of a six-month period, enabled Urrutia to iterate on what would eventually become Palmarosa, a jewelry brand with roots all over the world—just like its founder.

“I’m focusing on uplifting emerging markets through women and artisans,” Urrutia says. “​And so I’m collaborating with them to make my designs and, in the process, teaching them a little bit about business and entrepreneurship, based on what I’ve learned at Northeastern. I’m helping them lift up their own individual businesses while also teaming up to make my products in an ethical way, with mutual respect.”

Urrutia grabbed the attention of the judges for this year’s Northeastern University Women Who Empower Innovator Awards. The annual awards honor entrepreneurs for their innovative, boundary-pushing work. This year’s recipients—students and alumni from the Northeastern community—were selected by a panel of judges and will receive a total of $500,000 in funding.​ In particular, Urrutia was honored among undergraduate student award winners.

“Sofia is an ambitious and creative entrepreneur with an eye for the world of fashion,” says Rachel Domb, founder of Rooted Living, and a 2023 Women Who Empower Innovator Award winner. After both participated in the Sherman Center co-op, Urrutia counts Domb among her mentors, Urrutia says.

About Urrutia, Domb adds: “She’s incredibly thoughtful about the things she puts her energy into and is always eager to create a positive impact. Palmarosa speaks to people who want to share and wear their culture in a beautiful way.”

Put another way, “Palmarosa is celebrating the roots and cultures of people across the world via the design of fun and exciting jewelry, providing a marriage of self-expression and self as cultural history is reflected in the pieces they wear,” says Theo Johnson, director of the Sherman Center.

Urrutia, who graduated from Northeastern in May 2024, is living in Panama for the time being, focusing her efforts on building Palmarosa the right way by building relationships with local artisans, and even reconsidering the venture’s business model.

“I’m not after growth at all costs,” she says.

There have been unexpected challenges along the way. Some of the artisans with whom Urrutia is eager to work, for example, live in remote villages with unreliable electricity and postal services. Even when it’s easier to communicate, working with craftswomen overseas comes with its own difficulties.

“If there’s an issue with a sample, for example, then you have to pay shipping and send back and think about import fees, sometimes more than once. There’s just a lot of different facets like that, that make it very complicated,” she says.

When Urrutia would get frustrated, she focused on a piece of advice Domb gave her: You have to define success—and failure—for yourself. While it would certainly be easier to outsource her designs to bigger manufacturers, Urrutia has found that even the most ethical factories may not be doing enough to push her mission of uplifting and empowering the women and artisans she aims to work with.

“There are people who build a business for 10 years before it takes off,” Urrutia says. “I guess the learning curve is really just working at it and growing it, because of your passion for the impact. And for me, the thing that makes me even more excited now is thinking about: what’s the impact I want to make? It’s really about helping these artisans lift up their own livelihoods and businesses through their craft because they’re all very talented.”

Urrutia reflects back on a lesson she learned in a class about international conflict and negotiation, part of her course load in Northeastern’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business. The professor, she says, taught the class about citizen diplomacy—the notion that all citizens, regardless of their profession or social status, can serve as representatives of their nation to the rest of the world. And in some cases, Urrutia learned, the thoughtful use of citizen diplomacy can enable countries to skirt intractable government negotiation processes. She saw an opportunity to use Palmarosa in such a way.

“My goal is to make an impact of some sort and their quality of life,” she says of the artisans with whom she works. “And, at the same time, to be able to produce my own designs in a way that I can feel proud of.”