My Story

I had my first job at the age of three.

I was put to work selling cigarettes and cigars at my parents’ restaurant, Mah Jong Restaurant, on Long Island, New York. This is when I first learned how to calculate math. Cigarettes were 45 cents/pack. I was usually given a dollar bill and I had two quarters and a nickel ready to hand back over the counter. As I got a little more brazen, I would upsell (“if you want to buy a pack of Winstons, I can give you a cigar for 25 cents”).

I got my first promotion when I turned six. My mother sent me to the bar to help put toothpicks into cherries, pineapple slices, onions, and olives. Had I been given a title; it would have been Barback – the person who assists the Bartender in maintaining smooth operations. I was pretty good at it because I was also asked to squeeze fresh lemons and oranges and stock the glassware on the lower shelves – easy to do because I was 3’6” at the time.

Sitting at the barstool doing my barback services gave me the opportunity to engage in small talk with our customers. “I made the garnishes!”, I would exclaim to the customers who couldn’t resist ordering another round or two as we all admired progressively dramatic variations of my toothpick artwork. My father took note of my ability to cultivate attention and told me to just stay there since I was good for business.

I graduated from the barstool and by the time I was eleven years old, I was thrust into the world of the South Seas when our restaurant became a Polynesian nightclub. I became an exotic hula dancer and a sword dancer during my teenage years.

Little did I know that selling tobacco, fixing drink garnishes, and dancing with sharp knives would be the key steppingstone to my career as an arts executive.

I have long hung up my grass skirt and, over the past 30+ years, have held C-suite positions as Executive Director of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Opera Parallèle, Carmel Bach Festival, as Managing Director of California Shakespeare Theatre, Baltimore’s Center Stage, and Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey. From 2020-2024, I was engaged as the Managing Director for Anna Deavere Smith’s “Pipeline Girls” Project. 

I inherited an ethos of working to enrich the communities where I live and work. I’m so honored to serve as Board President of the San Francisco Community Music Center. I am the past Board Chair of Theatre Bay Area and my past board affiliations include Playwright Foundation, the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, Theatre Communications Group, the Association of California Symphony Orchestras (Board President), and Network of Ensemble Theatres.

My transformative leadership work in the realm of community engagement is featured as one of 13 case studies in “Creative Social Change: Leadership for a Healthy World” in the International Leadership Association Series, available through Amazon, which assembles thought leaders to reimagine leadership in building a healthy, sustainable, and equitable world.

The breadth of my work - as an artist, performer, community builder, event producer, board member, author, mentor, consultant, activist, as well as a CEO - will be archived with the Performing Arts Legacy Project as a resource and a hopeful inspiration for those - particularly women of color - who aspire to take on leadership positions in the non-profit sector.

I am the first arts CEO to have my career archived as part of the Performing Arts Legacy. 

My book, “Dancing in Their Light, a Daughter’s Unfinished Memoir”, published in March 2022, chronicles my life growing up in a restaurant and Polynesian nightclub as influenced by the pioneering impact her family of immigrants have made to advance the fields of research, science, medicine, academia, engineering, arts, humanities, cultural diplomacy, and culinary hospitality in the U.S. 

My recent book, “Year of the Dragon: A Colorable Graphic Memoir” was published in January 2024 and is the first in a series of art books inspired by the power of art therapy. I have a book in development, “Polynesian Nights” which will be the second in the art book series with a scheduled release date of February, 2025.

I still love to dance….and I may pull out my grass skirt back out of the closet soon…..