Girl Influence Power with Nadia Lee

Our guest is the young, intelligent and well spoken professor and author Laura Huang. Laura is the author of the book “EDGE- Turning Adversity into Advantage”. Her book EDGE talks about how to gain an edge given the confines of who we are, where we are and the circumstances that we have to work with in order to gain an edge and game the system of bias. Basically anyone who understands how to master and navigate using Laura’s principles can excel in work and life. Laura, or as her students would call her, Professor Huang, is currently a professor at Harvard Business School. As one of the BEST business school professors under the age of 40 by Poets and Quants, she spend her entire academic career studying interpersonal relationships and implicit bias in entrepreneurship and in the workplace. Laura before her days as a professor has previously held jobs in investment banking, consulting and management working for companies like Standard Chartered Bank, IBM Global Services, and Johnson & Johnson. Laura received a combined Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in electrical engineering from Duke University and an MBA from INSEAD, and a PhD from the University of California, Irvine.

Today we have the unstoppable entrepreneur Chewy Jang with us.     Chewy Jang is the CEO of Kid’s Dream, a special occasions kids clothing brand that inspires young girls to feel the wonderment of being a princess through its beautiful dresses that captures the magic of their childhood. As a family-owned kids apparel brand designed and made in Los Angeles, Chewy takes pride in her active involvement in her business and locally in her city. Kid’s Dream is sold directly online as well as through an extensive wholesale network that spans over 35 countries through authorized retailers. Taking control of how COVID has suddenly impact her business, Chewy quickly pivoted to make fabric face masks and started LA Face Masks. She is now also the CEO of LA Face Masks. As a local manufacturer located in Los Angeles, Chewy quickly produced face masks to save her business and also donated thousands of masks to hospitals and frontline workers. Chewy grew up in Los Angeles since immigrating from South Korea at the age of 5. She graduated from Marlborough School and received her Bachelors in Finance and Management from Santa Clara University Leavy School of business. Chewy is heavily involved with the Asian American business community and serves on the board of the Asian Business Association and ACE NextGen (Asian Pacific Islander American Chamber of Commerce & Entrepreneurship). On her spare time, Chewy is also a licensed real estate agent and investor. She loves to connect the community and mentor new start-up entrepreneurs. She is most proud to be in the LGBT community. 

Today we have entrepreneur and women extraordinare Penny Ledbetter with us!  Penny is CEO, wife, mother to 4 children, 2 step-daughters, 5 son and daughter-in-laws all of which are all very accomplished in their own fields and grandmother to 9 grandkids with one more coming in September.  I have known Penny for many years as she was one of the few women CEO in my Vistage Group. For those who don’t know about Vistage, it is CEO coaching and peer advisory organization that meets monthly. Penny is the CEO of C. Sanders Emblems. C Sanders is an advertising specialty company that designs original promotional products. They are best known for their beautiful lapel pins that goes on baseball hats, shirts for sports teams like Little League Baseball, clubs like Elks Clubs & RSVP and companies like Disney. Under her leadership, Penny was voted in 2017 by PPAI, PROMOTIONAL PRODUCTS ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL, her industry’s trusted professional organization as BEST BOSS to work for. In her early years, Penny spend many years as a teacher before retiring to full time mom after her four kids were born. As Penny’s leadership still could not be contained to just staying at home, she would volunteer in her community that eventually led her to be the PTA President for 3 years, PTA Council President, First District PTA Board for the San Gabriel Valley and Board member on many foundations and committees.    Penny is also the ultimate role model for knowing how to balance work with family and still raise successful children. All of Penny’s 6 children graduated from University with 3 having earned a PhD, all in completely different field. Because I know Penny personally I know how accomplished her kids are truly.  

Today we have the fashionably glam and well spoken Jennifer Chan with us!     Jennifer Chan is an established fashion and beauty editor, media personality and on-air host with over 15 years of experience having worked for leading media outlets including InStyle Magazine, E! Online, ELLE.com, The Kardashians , Fashionista.com and more.     She has appeared on-air as a style correspondent and industry expert for TV networks like CNBC, MSN Entertainment, Sky News, Total Beauty and BET Network. Jennifer has interviewed dozens and dozens of A-List stars, attended countless exclusive industry events as well as attended many runway shows as well being the host on numerous fashion shows for retailers like Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s. Most recently, she was on the launch team for the Kardashian/Jenner apps and web sites, as Senior Editor to both Kim Kardashian West and Kourtney Kardashian. 

For this episode, we have the young beautiful and stylish Serena Laurel with us.Serena is Award-winning actress, singer-songwriter, brand ambassador and social media influencer. She has a combined following over 100K+. Serena Laurel is best known for her songwriting and music style is a fresh blend of acoustic indie-pop sprinkled with jazz. She’s been playing her own sets of original songs in Southern California and her home towns on the East Coast for many years. Serena is also known her lead role as "Lucy" in the feature film Summertime Dropouts . She was also awarded Best Actress by Film Fest LA Live in the Fantasy Film category for her starring role in Bird Song. Serena has received 6 Best Actress Awards as “Georgia Dean” in the thriller Nasty Habits. She has also received award recognition for her series role regular as "Jessica" in NC-16 TV and is also known for her role in the Brat TV series Total Eclipse. Serena has been selected as the Style Icon for Runway Dubai Show: Music Meets Fashion. Her singer-songwriter style provides a blend of acoustic pop jazz. Her new single CAR TALKS just dropped in February of this year and her single GOLD is currently available on all music streaming platforms. Serena uses her music as an artist advocate to mentor and support Breaking the Chains Foundation.org, The Starlight Children's Foundation, and Free2Luv.org. On her spare time, Serena writes music and partners with brands as brand ambassador. 

For this episode, we have the beautiful and fearless woman in our studio, Louise Grasmehr. Louise is a powerful business woman and an impactful influencer in her area of work. She currently heads LMG Public Relations, LLC, a strategic communications consulting firm in Los Angeles.  Her firm specializes in crisis communications and messagingfor public and agency policy, as well as branding, change management, executive coaching and communications strategy.Louise herself is a National Strategic Consultant for Casey Family Programs, the country’s largest operating foundation focused on safely reducing the need for foster care across America. Louise assiststhe foundation and agencies throughout the country with its mission to provide, improve, and ultimately prevent the need for, foster care.  Prior to starting out on her own, Louise previously served as the Director of Communications for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, the largest child welfare agency in the country. She has over 25 years of experience in journalism and communications, working in newspapers, magazines, Fortune 500 corporations, government, and non-profit organizations. Her career includes 17 years working in the field of national child welfare, helping organizations and executives with advocacy, strategic communications and thought leadership.  On her spare time, Louise also is a social media influencer with an engaging blog and Instagram handle known as “Cursing Ballerina”.From her blog name, you can guess, Louise also has a passion for ballet as well as giving women over 40s fun fashion and lifestyle advice.