About

“For most of my life, I was told — in ways spoken and unspoken — that I was too much.  Too loud. 

Too dark to be Asian.

Too light to be African.

Too gay to be a boy.

And have boy parts to be a girl. 

I was too ambitious for the room I was standing in.  So I built a bigger room. I have spent twenty years learning — in boardrooms, on television, in closets, on stages, and in the communities I serve — that visibility is not a gift. It is a discipline. A decision. A skill that can be taught, practised, and owned.” Domingo Lumanog.

“I was too much.  Too loud.  Too dark to be Asian. Too light to be African. Too gay to be a boy. And have boy parts to be a girl. “

My grandmother was Black — her family rooted in North America — and she crossed the Pacific to the Philippines, married a Filipino man, and raised twelve children. Her sister eventually returned to North America. My grandmother stayed. She built her life, her family, and her lineage in a city that was not her origin but became her home. My mother was one of those twelve children. My father is Filipino. I was born a product of everything my grandmother carried across an ocean and chose not to let go of. I arrived in Canada in 2005 at twenty-one years old.

Calgary was not the easiest city to arrive in as a young, queer man carrying Black and Filipino lineage in a body that confused every category people tried to place him in. But Calgary is also a city that rewards those who show up fully and give back genuinely. I chose to show up. I chose to give back. And over twenty years, I did not just find my place here — I built it.

I have always been fascinated by what people keep hidden and what they choose to reveal. In fashion, in leadership, in identity — the gap between who we are in private and who we allow ourselves to be in public is where the most important work happens.  Coming out was not a single moment. It was a series of rooms I had to walk into, each one requiring me to decide: do I make myself smaller to fit this space, or do I claim the space as mine?  I chose to claim it. Every time. Not because it was easy, but because the alternative — a life lived at half-volume — was never an option I was willing to accept.  The Chic of the Closet is not named accidentally. The closet is where we hide and where we transform. I built a studio in mine. Because that is what I do — I take the places we are told to disappear into and turn them into stages.

Before I was a speaker, I was a stylist. Before I was a stylist, I was a student of image — spending years at department stores and boutiques, including time in New York, understanding how the way a person presents themselves either opens or closes every door in front of them.  Luxury retail is not about selling clothes. It is about understanding aspiration, identity, and the precise moment a client sees themselves differently in the mirror. I carried that understanding into image consulting, into brand strategy, into national sales leadership, and ultimately into the visibility framework I teach today.  The formula I developed in those years — the one that has shaped every client, every brand, every keynote since — became the foundation of everything MyDomingo stands for.

In 2019, my mother was unwell. She went to four doctors. Four appointments. Four times she described her pain, her symptoms, the weight of something being wrong. Four times she was not fully seen.  The fourth doctor was a woman — found at a walk-in clinic, my mother’s last attempt to be heard. She was the first to listen. The first to look. The first to order the tests that revealed what six months of dismissal had allowed to grow: stage 4 cancer, metastasized to her spine. A diagnosis that could have been made months earlier, had anyone been paying attention.  My mother died in January 2020. 

I tell this story not for sympathy. I tell it because it is the reason I do the work I do. Because visibility — the act of being truly seen by the people and systems and institutions that hold power over your life — is not a leadership concept. It is a matter of survival. For women. For people of colour. For anyone whose pain has ever been dismissed because they did not fit the image of who deserves to be believed.  This is why I co-chair the Calgary Police Service Gender and Sexual Diversity Advisory Board. Why I served on the board of CommunityWise Resource Centre. Why I mentored newcomers to Canada. Why I create content for Calgary Opera and stand as a patron for the Calgary Public Library, Contemporary Calgary and Kids Up Front. They are the places where my values become visible in the world.  I believe that the most powerful leaders are not the ones with the biggest titles — they are the ones whose impact outlasts the role. Building equitable institutions, amplifying underrepresented voices, and pushing organizations to become more human are not side projects. They are the work.  In 2025, the City of Calgary recognized that work with the Tourism Calgary White Hat — one of the city’s highest civic honours. I wore it with the full weight of what it represents. And I wear it for her.

IN BRIEF

Founder, MyDomingo Consulting Services | Host, The Chic of the Closet | Speaker on visibility, leadership, and personal transformation | National Director of Consumer Sales, Berlitz Canada | Co-chair, CPS Gender and Sexual Diversity Advisory Board | Content creator, Calgary Opera | Patron: Contemporary Calgary, Kids Up Front | Calgary Tourism Calgary White Hat Recipient, 2025 | MasterChef Canada | Wall of Chefs | Avenue Magazine Best Dressed — 2019 & 2021 | Cover feature, Village Brewery — Live For The Clink | 20,000+ community across platforms | 1st Generation Canadian · Calgary, Alberta

MyDomingo exists because every person, every brand, and every story deserves to be fully seen.

Not the version of you that fits the room. The version of you that changes it.

The closet was never just a place to store clothes.