Identity Unveiled

Barbara Adachi and became the first minority and female partner to lead the national human capital consulting business at Deloitte. Barbara's passion is advancing women's leadership and is as a champion of diversity and inclusion. She served as National Managing Principal for Deloitte's award- winning Women's Initiative (WIN) for the entire U.S. firm from 2007-2011, achieving a significant milestone of 1,000 women partners, principals and directors. Named one of the “100 Most Influential Women in Business” by the San Francisco Business Times for 10 consecutive years from 2003 through 2012, Barbara was then endowed as Forever Influential. Shes also been honored as part of the Working Mother's Hall of Fame. In 2020, Barbara received the CEDAW Women's Human Rights Award for International Comity. The accolades and achievements go on and on—needless to say she is force for advancing women leaders in the workforce.

As the last episode of the year, we thought it would be fitting to end with a story about legacy and resilience. The Gee Family is known as one of the first Chinese immigrants to arrive in Houston. Today, they are a famous name in the Chinese American Houston network and highly active in the city's political and philanthropic landscape. In this episode, meet Claudia Gee Vassar, President of Houston Botanic Garden. She talks about growing up in the Gee legacy, her dual identity as a German and Chinese American, and her spirit of giving back to the community.

Listen to Rena Van Tine's story on becoming the first South Asian American female judge in the nation to serve on a state court.

Yabing is the Chief Information Security Officer at HEB, a privately held supermarket chain based in San Antonio Texas. HEB is a $25 billion dollar giant that employs over 100,000 people through more than 340 stores. Building and maintaining the technology that powers this organization is no easy task. In 2021, cybercrime is predicted to inflict $6 trillion dollars in damages globally. In April of this year, HEB brought in its first CISO, Yabing, to focus on protecting HEB from these cyber threats. She's a first generation Chinese American and has traversed a fast paced career to be one of the few executive women holding a seat in the cybsecurity space. Here she talks candidly about how she did it and the importance of leading from a place of authenticity.

Pooja became the first South Asian Flight Director of NASA at the age of 33. She gets candid with us about career, family, motherhood, and the type of mindset she led with that eventually helped her do what no other South Asian woman has done yet.

The Asian community has faced an immense backlack since the onset of the pandemic. We invited Dr. Karen Eng, Board Chair of National ACE, to speak about the work of their campaign #AAPIStrong. Through #AAPIStrong, National ACE is raising funds and providing programming to help AAPI small business owners across the country survive shutdowns from the pandemic, AAPI bias, harassment, and violence. Karen is also an optometrist and CEO of a global engineering company. Since the inception of the Illinois College of Optometry 144 years ago, Karen became their first female and minority Chair of the Board of Trustees. She also reached a notable milestone with the Export Import Bank of the United States, that after 80 years, she became the first Asian American to sit on their Advisory Committee.

Leilani is the founder of a company called “Be the Change” - an HR consulting organization, but unlike any other, with a social entrepreneurship mindset. What drives Leilani and her work is her dedication to end human trafficking. We covered a broad range of issues from human trafficking, mental health, D&I and asian hate crimes, and the covid impact on organizations with her on this episode.

Mythili Sankaran is Co-Founder and Managing Parter of the Neythri Future Fund and of Neythri.org. Listen to learn her story on becoming a pioneer in creating a fund dedicated to South Asian women entrepreneurs.

A trailblazer in corporate America, Maria Racho pioneered the intrapreneurs program at Allstate. The program helps to build an entrepreneurial spirit for corporate Intraprenuers and has now grown to over 650 members, a Shark Tank, and a hackathon where people take ideas from concept and to pitch to executives. We chose Maria as our guest, inspired not only by her achievements in the startup ecosystem as a Filipino American woman, but also by her ability to create connections, create community and inspire others.

Joining us is Serafina Lalany. She is a veteran innovator with experiences as a Venture Designer and Chief of Staff at Houston Exponential, who went off a beaten path despite the chagrin of her parents and the cultural expectations of financial security. Today Serafina is the VP of Operations at Houston Exponential, a non-profit dedicated to accelerating the development of Houston's innovation economy by fostering a robust ecosystem that supports high-growth, high-impact startups. We chose Serafina as our guest on this podcast inspired not only by her achievements in the startup ecosystem being an Indian American woman, but also by the somewhat unorthodox experiences she had along the way.

Joining us today is Kiran Khalid.  It was her on-air debut as a reporter in 1996 for a CBS affiliate in Corpus Christi, Texas that made her the first Pakistani-American woman in broadcast news. She is a veteran journalist with more than 15 years of newsroom experience having worked across affiliates of every major network—ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX— in markets across the U.S. and reporting on events around the globe.  Today Kiran is the VP/Editorial & Media Lead for the Energy sector team at Edelman, the world's largest public relations firms. We chose Kiran as our first guest on this podcast inspired not only by her achievements in journalism being a Pakistani American woman, but also by the somewhat biopic experiences she had along the way.  We couldn't share all of the experiences  that would make for a great 2.5 hour movie, but what you will be privy to is the wit, grit and  the fierceness of her journey and resilience to become the first Pakistani American woman in broadcast news. **Please note: In the interview for this podcast, Kiran referred incorrectly to a case she covered as one that determined if a defendant would be tried for manslaughter or homicide for the death of a baby delivered prematurely after a drunk driving accident. The defendant, Frank Flores Cuellar, was charged with intoxication manslaughter. The Texas case questioned whether a person can be held criminally liable for harming a child who had not yet been born when the criminal activity occurred.