Who

Socialite Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos is omnipresent at black-tie benefits around town.

Backstory

Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos wasn't born into riches: A native of Bogota, she moved with her family to Corona, Queens as a kid, and attended high school in Forest Hills before heading off to Cornell. Dayssi was waiting tables at the Italian restaurant Canastel's when she joined party promoter Marc Biron's social networking clique, the Junior International Club, which introduced her to some of the rising young socials she calls friends today. She's since managed to climb over the tall hedges to join the high-society scene herself, a process doubtless eased by her prodigious gift for social climbing. (She reportedly once used an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of the acquaintances she made as well as their family backgrounds and interests.) A regular at events for New Yorkers for Children, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, the ABT, and Save Venice, Dayssi has also earned ink in Vogue, Town & Country, WWD, Harper's Bazaar. But her ascent through the ranks hasn't necessarily endeared her to other members of the social set: Several years ago, she reported that she'd received racist hate mail.

Personal

Dayssi is married to the real estate developer Paul Kanavos, who currently serves as the CEO of Flag Luxury, which developed the St. Regis resort in Anguilla and the Ritz Carlton South Beach. They have three kids—Nicholas, Sophia and Peter—and live on the Upper East Side. In 2007, they purchased a 2.75-acre Southampton mansion on Captain's Neck Lane for $17.495 million. It features nine fireplaces, eight and a half bathrooms, a four-car garage, 1,250-square-foot pool, and a sunken tennis court.

True story

When Olarte married her husband, she adding a "de" before his last name in the hopes of, as W put it, "giving her husband's family tree a round ring of aristocracy."