Niurka Castaneda
Founder and Owner of Amor Umbrella
Niurka Castaneda grew up in Cuba and comes from a family of entrepreneurs and artists. Her grandfather was a poet and her parent’s Cuban entrepreneurs. They were very resourceful people and why she believes she always has been enterprising and artistic. She felt the call to serve her new home, and a year after arriving to the US, she joined the Army to serve this great country. The military offered her many new experiences, and she learned skills like resilience, flexibility, self-motivation, determination, self-discipline, goal setting and risk tolerance. She combined those skills with her life experiences as a mom, a writer, an enthusiastic traveler, and her Supply chain management knowledge of more than 25+ years of technical expertise.
It was only natural to transition from the military to become an entrepreneur. She founded AMOR Umbrella in Miami, FL which initially started as a class project in college but quickly became a life changing endeavor. It lit the fire of entrepreneurship and sparked a journey of creativity, problem solving, personal empowerment and constant innovation in Niurka’s life.
Entrepreneurship was a way for Niurka to find her identity after transitioning from the military and building a brand out of a HEART-shaped, bright red umbrella combining her military skills, education, experience and innovation with her dreams of traveling. Along the way, she became an author, a podcaster, a store owner, the TV producer, host and director of AMOR Umbrella TV on a mission of “Giving and restoring HOPE One Story at a Time” by highlighting organizations and individuals that give back to our military and veteran communities with a HEART and hand instead of just saying thanks, in order to help heal and empower our military and veteran families, with a voice and a mission to live in alignment with who they are and who they can be.