Marie Claire’s Power Play summit made its Southern debut in Atlanta on Thursday, May 15, and the day was filled with powerful conversations led by even more powerful women.
Sponsored by Clinique, women from Atlanta and across the U.S. enjoyed makeup activations, a communal sound bath session, a matcha bar that became a popular fixture, and panels from trailblazing women in sports, fashion, entertainment, and business. The event is usually held in San Francisco or L.A. However, Nikki Ogunnaike, Marie Claire’s editor-in-chief, said bringing the annual event to Atlanta has been a mission of hers since she joined the fashion media brand in 2023.
“It has always been a hotspot of creativity and momentum. There’s amazing music coming out of Atlanta. Beauty founders, art, sports, business — it’s a place that really has been fortified by the sort of trends that come from coastal cities,” Ogunnaike said. “It was really important to me to not just stay on the coast, but to really take Power Play on the road and drop into women’s lives where they are.”
While its location is new, the event’s focus on highlighting and celebrating influential women is not. Last year’s speakers included conversations with Courteney Cox, Sophia Bush, and Tina Knowles. When curating this year’s panelists, Ogunnaike said they wanted women who would reflect Atlanta’s hotbed of sports, arts, music, and culture.
This year’s keynote speakers featured Kandi Burruss, Marsai Martin, Jordan Chiles, and Natasha Lyonne. They were joined by other speakers including Morgan Shaw Parker, the Atlanta Dream’s president & COO; DJ Miss Milan, Grammy Award-winning DJ and Emcee for Doechii; Leyte Winfield, the director of Spelman College’s cosmetic science program; and Chelsea Fishman, owner of Atlanta’s first women’s sports bar, Jolene Jolene. Sports reporter Tabitha Turner-Wilkins, comedian Hannah McMahan, author Daisy Auger-Dominguez, and Ogunnaike moderated the panels.
Amid a background of burnt orange flowers and an audience of passionate women, the discussions ranged from handling internal and external pressure, building your own career table, bridging the gap between science and beauty, being multidisciplinary, taking risks that turn into rewards, and navigating executive burnout. The St. Regis Atlanta was transformed into a space where women could relax from their day-to-day, make meaningful connections, and learn what exactly “Freedom and Your Future” — the event’s 2025 theme — meant to them.
“It’s something that I always think about as a Black woman who works in corporate America and lives in America. My parents moved here from Nigeria in the 70s, and so freedom has always been top of mind for me. At Marie Claire, when we think about the sort of key parts of our DNA, power and purpose are two of them, along with style. In thinking about those three things, and of course, considering the climate right now, freedom seemed like an obvious choice.
“When we were thinking about freedom, we of course think about the political ramifications when it comes to that word, the right to choose, women’s reproductive rights — that sort of thing. But we also think about other types of freedom. There are many different ways and many different choices that women have, now more than ever. So, women are able to follow career paths that aren’t linear. They can run for office, they can be stay-at-home moms, share their lives online, and create community. We wanted to explore the different ways that freedom presents itself in a woman’s life.”
From business owners and chefs to DJs and authors, the event was a masterclass of watching power in play as attendees networked with one another in an intimate, invitation-only setting. Ogunnaike shared that, in the future, they hope to host the event in cities such as Miami, Austin and Chicago.
“This is just the beginning. There are incredibly powerful women, and we can be of service to them as well.”