Anna Alimani Has Built a Career That Moves as Quickly as Her Calendar
Anna Alimani has learned how to move through different worlds without asking permission to belong in any one of them.
A model, actress, investor and philanthropist based in New York City, Alimani has built a career that moves as quickly as her calendar. She has walked international runways from New York to Milan, appeared in campaigns and editorials across Europe and the United States and landed covers for Vogue Latin America, L’Officiel, Grazia, Glamour, Marie Claire, Park Magazine and others. At the same time, she recently completed studies at Columbia Business School, where she focused on venture capital and private equity.
“Oh my god, it’s a lot,” she says with a laugh. “I graduated last week from Columbia Business School.”
The fashion momentum has been especially intense. Alimani says she has covers for Marie Claire and Park Magazine out, with additional covers for Playboy, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle on the way. The Harper’s Bazaar cover, she notes, is connected to a Swarovski collaboration she shot in Milan during Fashion Week.
“I shot the Swarovski campaign when I was in Milan,” she says. “They’re going to have the pictures that I shot from that campaign in the Swarovski stores in Europe.”
In the past two years, she adds, she has become far more focused on modeling, transforming what began casually into a serious global career.
“I was dabbling with it,” she says. “I first was not serious. I was kind of playing with it since I was 18.” That changed, she says, when she decided to “double down.”
The results came quickly. She has walked for Christian Siriano and Christina Cowan, appeared in international fashion markets from Paris to Milan to Portofino and become a fixture at red carpets and fashion-world events including Cannes, the Golden Globes and amfAR. Her red carpet style has been photographed by leading fashion and celebrity publications, placing her in the same ecosystem as the designers, editors and luxury brands she once admired from afar.
But Alimani’s ambitions are not confined to fashion. Through her family office and investment platform, she works across private equity, venture capital, real estate and emerging markets. She had already earned a Bachelor of Science in business administration from Purdue University, but Columbia offered a sharper lens.
“I just wanted to kind of embellish my skills and knowledge,” she says. “I live in New York. I live between two great Ivy League schools, NYU and Columbia. So I might as well use the opportunity.”
The decision, she says, was both personal and strategic: “It was to better understand the family business, but also create even more opportunities for myself as a person.”
Acting has followed a similar trajectory. Alimani is a member of SAG-AFTRA, with credits including The Retaliators, Kindred Vampire Tales: Vamp City, Offsides,Good Knight and Unholy Song, for which she also served as associate producer. She also appeared on Bravo and Netflix’s Owning Manhattan.
“Everybody always tried to push me in the acting direction,” she says. “They’re like, you’re such an actress.”
Her goal is characteristically direct. “I do want to score an A-list movie with A-list celebrities,” she says. “Then I can be like, okay, goal achieved.”
The pace is intense. Alimani talks casually about the Golden Globes, possible Tony Awards plans, the Emmys, film premieres, magazine launches, podcasts, music videos and Europe. But behind the glamour, she insists, is discipline.
“Mostly it’s time management skills, to be quite honest,” she says. “I’m super, super organized, focused and I’m really good at having boundaries.”
Those boundaries matter because Alimani’s life is not only red carpets and cover shoots. She founded Women of the Phoenix, a nonprofit focused on mentorship and professional development for women, and is a regular supporter of charitable causes, including animal welfare, cancer research, the arts and ocean conservation.womenofthephoenix.com
“I love, love animals and I love women’s causes,” she says. “Number one, I love to support charitable causes, and number two, it’s like, okay, I’m having a great time, but I’m also supporting a great cause.”
New York remains her base and, in many ways, her engine. She loves the city’s velocity, even while admitting it requires recovery. Sundays, when possible, are reserved for church, long walks, self-care, family calls and quiet.
“There are no plans except the Anna plan,” she says. “New York is such a fast-moving monster.”
Still, she would not trade it. “I love New York,” she says. “It can really elevate your life, make you a very sharp, shrewd person.”
That sharpness may be what allows Alimani to hold together so many identities at once: cover model, actress, investor, philanthropist, student, traveler, New Yorker. She is polished, but not passive; glamorous, but practical; spontaneous, but disciplined.
“I’m a go getter and an achiever,” she says. “When I zoom in on something, I will get it.”