Devoted to women of color in business

It's Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and wow, we had some fun at the mayor's proclamation in San Francisco last week. There was Food! Dancing! Singing! and Centenarians (we were celebrating 100 years of heritage since the1906 SF earthquake)!

And there were even more exciting people and presentations, including the ever-photogenic and extraordinarily charming Gavin Newsom (I had never heard him speak in person before) and the ever-popular Supervisor Fiona Ma. There were also a number of elected officials, including Norman Yee, chair of the school board.




Ten-year-old Dennis Wu sang the Star-Spangled Banner in this photo by Luke Thomas.

Claudine Cheng was my contact for this event: we did the website for the San Francisco ceremonies and she serves as chair of the celebration committee: she found us through my former employer Andy Wong at JMPT Consulting.

It was great to see such a wide variety of business, political, and civic participants gathering together to celebrate in the War Memorial Opera House.

One thing I noticed was that, in the last three years of developing this event, each year has grown exponentially in terms of exposure, publicity, and participants. Much of this comes from Cheng's and the committee's drive and ability to manage and engage all types of people, from donors, sponsors, volunteers, and nonprofit and government representatives. The first year of the official San Francisco celebration, there were a handful of participants at City Hall: last year over 1000 attended, and this year the 3000+ seat theater was almost overflowing.



Website: www.apiaheritagesf.org

The businesses who  signed on were a valuable addition to the community celebration: many of the restaurants offered tasty treats (the rolls from Blowfish Sushi were my favorite) and luscious desserts, wines, and other treats.

What I learned from this event is that:

1) we all need great management/great management teams to provide a tight focus: it's good to have a strategy, a plan, and an extended team so everyone works towards a shared outcome;

2) it's beneficial all-around to support a philanthropic, community, or civic event (pick an issue that you care deeply about) because of the increased exposure and the ability to support a cause with an in-kind or cash donation;

and 3) it's important to celebrate community achievements: that may be something as complex as a heritage month or as simple as the anniversary of  launching your business or special division.

Happy APA Heritage month, everyone. Let's move onwards and upwards...