Celebrating Asian American Entrepreneurs for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

Asian Pacific American Heritage Thirty day period acknowledges and celebrates the contributions of Asian and Pacific Islander Individuals to the United States’ history, tradition, and achievements.

Rubicon is proud to help our Asian and Pacific American Islander colleagues, associates, and prospects. Be part of us as we rejoice notable and up-and-coming Asian American business enterprise entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs who have reshaped the lifestyle of The us, and the globe at significant.

Sarah Lee and Christine Chang

Korea has turn out to be a leader in exporting lifestyle all over the world, especially in The usa. K-Pop, Korean films and tv, Korean foods, and on the internet personalities from Korea are now mainstays in American pop lifestyle. With these sensations flooding the United States, it was only a subject of time before Korean elegance developments designed their way in this article.

Korean American attractiveness gurus Sarah Lee and Christine Chang both started off in the elegance sector at L’Oréal. With backgrounds in skincare and advertising, Lee and Chang rapidly rose by way of the L’Oréal ranks till they were in positions that had them regularly traveling to Korea for company.

Enamored with South Korean magnificence tendencies, Lee and Chang co-launched Glow Recipe, a skincare firm that curates a broad selection of Korean magnificence merchandise for sale in The united states. They brought Glow Recipe to Shark Tank and had been offered a deal of $425,000 for 25 % of their business. Even though the offer never ever formally closed, by means of this tv look Glow Recipe had observed an viewers.

Sephora, a well known chain of splendor outlets, at this time features Glow Recipe products and solutions in their 2,700 storefronts. In 2021, Glow Recipe described $100 million in gross sales for the yr.

Vera Wang

Known currently as 1 of the most notable wedding day gown designers in the earth, Vera Wang pretty much embarked on a pretty diverse vocation route in an equally glamorous business: figure skating. Wang started skating when she was 8 and was even highlighted in a January 1968 version of Athletics Illustrated, on the other hand, her skating ambitions glided by when she unsuccessful to make the U.S. Olympic workforce.

Vera Wang graduated from Sarah Lawrence College or university in 1971 and straight away joined Vogue journal. Immediately after just one particular calendar year with Vogue at the age of 23, Wang was promoted to Senior Vogue Editor, a title she would keep for the up coming 15 years. She remaining Vogue in 1987 to be part of Ralph Lauren, where she worked for two several years.

As she planned her wedding day to longtime boyfriend Arthur Becker in 1989, Wang was frustrated by the deficiency of offered exciting bridal put on, so she created and commissioned the design of her very own gown. A year later, Vera Wang opened her 1st bridal boutique in New York City, and the rest is record.

Wang has built bridal have on for quite a few celebrities, which includes Ariana Grande, Mariah Carey, and Victoria Beckham. Whilst she did not pursue figure skating, Wang never ever forgot her enjoy of the sport—Nancy Kerrigan, Michelle Kwan, Evan Lysacek, and Nathan Chen have all worn Vera Wang costumes during the Winter season Olympics, earning Wang a place in the U.S. Determine Skating Hall of Fame for her contributions.

James Park

James Park is a Korean American entrepreneur whose mother and father moved to America in the early 1970s. James was recognized into Harvard to examine laptop or computer science but, like a number of properly-acknowledged business owners, he dropped out for the duration of his junior year to pursue his personal company passions.

James had some wins during the early eCommerce decades with two various startups, but his real success came shortly after obtaining the new Nintendo Wii movie sport console in 2006. The Wii introduced an progressive control system that made use of movement sensors and accelerometers within the controller to precisely command what was happening in the sport. Park was straight away infatuated with the controls but needed a way to bring the interesting engineering outdoors the dwelling room.

With his business enterprise spouse Eric Friedman, Park invented a wearable unit that would revolutionize the conditioning field: Fitbit. First unveiled at the TechCrunch50 meeting in 2008, Fitbit introduced a new attractive way to monitor your exercise development as a result of a wearable unit on your wrist. Park experienced hoped for a few dozen pre-orders right after their presentation—he gained above 2,000 by the finish of the working day and over 25,000 by the time Fitbit was formally launched to the public.

Wearable fitness trackers are now have to-have accessories in the work out neighborhood, but James Park was the initially person to realize how beneficial these units could be. Following lots of decades at the helm of Fitbit, James Park sold the corporation to Google in 2019 for $2.1 billion.

Jensen Huang

Jensen Huang was born in Taiwan in 1963 and arrived to The united states with his mother and father when he was nine several years previous. He gained his electrical engineering diploma from Oregon Condition University in 1998 and his master’s degree in electrical engineering from Stanford College in 1992.

On his thirtieth birthday in 1993, Jensen Huang co-founded Nvidia, a technologies company that makes software program and graphics processing models (GPUs) for significant-performance computing. With only $40,000 in the bank at its inception, Nvidia’s GPUs served video game titles develop into the premier leisure business in the planet.

Previously at the forefront of one era of computing, Huang has his eyes on creating the upcoming new period: modern day synthetic intelligence. Thanks to Huang’s GPUs, it’s achievable to construct additional in depth neural networks that greatly enhance the knowledge of AIs. In 2016, Nvidia GPUs helped reduce Apple’s Siri AI error fee by fifty percent.

Some of Jensen Huang’s lots of honors and awards for computing involve:

• The Robert N. Noyce Award (Semiconductor Business Association’s best honor)
• Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award
• One particular of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential Individuals of 2021
• Rated #1 on Harvard Organization Review’s 100 Greatest-Doing CEOs

Ann McFerran

When Ann McFerran moved from Thailand to The usa at 7 a long time of age, she had no concept that she would quickly be managing a natural beauty empire. The to start with man or woman in her loved ones to attend college, McFerran attained her psychobiology degree from UCLA, where by she also dabbled in artwork. Following pursuing her creative dreams for a several years, she decided to take a look at her entrepreneurial competencies.

McFerran was teased as a little one in Thailand for her looks, and turned towards makeup as a resourceful outlet that made her experience additional confident. 1 of her biggest frustrations with the beauty business was how challenging bogus eyelashes with glue are to set on and manage in the course of the working day. Magnetic lashes experienced existed for some time, but they, too, were tough to use. Ann noticed an option to produce a new magnetic eyelash that actually worked, 1 that would simplify beauty routines and be accessible to all. Hence, Glamnetic was born.

Considering the fact that its humble beginnings, Glamnetic has taken the natural beauty environment by storm. In its initially year of existence, Glamnetic was approached by ULTA Magnificence for a partnership that would place Glamnetic eyelashes in a great number of outlets across the place. In 2020, Glamnetic brought in a lot more than $50 million in product sales.

Ann McFerran carries on to run Glamnetic, which now focuses on making sustainable products for a really Do it yourself elegance routine that anyone can use at house.

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Editor’s Take note: References manufactured to firms/companies in this submit are not intended to convey affiliation with or endorsement of Rubicon by individuals corporations in any way.

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