Tag Archive for: inspiring women

Tiara Henderson: Corporate and Investment Banking Head of Women’s Segment and Commercial Real Estate Head of Diverse Segments, Wells Fargo

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“It’s about making connections at a deeper level and not just transactional or at the business level. We really are on this journey together,” says Tiara Henderson. “So many of our new and existing clients are excited to know that there is a group that is solely focused on engaging and retaining diverse-led and diverse-owned firms while delivering the entire spectrum of Wells Fargo products and services.”

Diversifying The Advantage of Financing

As a psychology major at Davidson College, Henderson recalls, “What we learned in liberal arts was to think critically and the rest will fall in place. That skill is of paramount importance in every job or career, no matter the industry.”

During her senior year, Henderson interned for a developer, her doorway into commercial real estate and development, which led to her early career path, which included working for affordable property development (Hope VI) to mixed-income property development to Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS). She joined Wells Fargo ten years ago, originally in the Commercial Mortgage Loan and Securities Finance group which provides credit facilities to non-bank commercial real estate lenders.

Advancing to her current role in August 2021, Henderson wears many hats as both Head of Women’s Segment for Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB) and Head of Diverse Segments for Commercial Real Estate (CRE). Her two roles have one mission: identifying, engaging and retaining more diverse bank clients.

“What drew me to this role was the opportunity to create something new while having an impact on women and other diverse owned and led firms. It’s the chance for me to bring them to the table and watch their platforms grow as we surround them with support, resources, and access, and not just access to capital, but access to information, people and ideas.”

She iterates that it’s not only her passion, but a Wells Fargo priority.

“Having the support of the leadership at Wells Fargo in the work that we do has been tremendous – necessary, but also tremendous,” says Henderson. “There is a positive spotlight on our group at all times and when people speak of Diverse Segments as an ‘initiative,’ senior leaders will quickly step in and say, ‘no, this is part of the fabric.’”

Building Relationships with Diverse Owners

Henderson spends her days finding and engaging with new clients, deepening relationships with existing clients and re-engaging previous clients – including outreach through panels, conferences and events. Her group, (led by Danielle Squires – Head of Diverse Segments, CIB) is set up to foster close collaboration with her banking and markets diverse segments partners to meet the multi-functional needs of a given customer. She says her people-oriented personality is core: really listening to what clients are looking for and what their needs are and making the right introductions for them.

“Because of our differentiated approach to client management, we are able to engage and have an immediate connection with clients,” she says.

Henderson’s team creates events that bring in a wide array of clients from smaller and larger diverse-owned firms. While she loves to golf, for example, some of her clients might not be drawn to such a traditional networking event. So, when her team put on the Women’s Leadership Summer last October, they tailored it to their audience.

“It’s hard to get people out of the office for three days to travel, especially when we’re talking about CEOs and women in the C-Suite,” she said. “We were hoping to get 50 or 60 people, but we had 90 women enrolled, because this was an event created and curated for women, and it resonated.”

She adds the biggest feedback she received from the women’s leadership conference was it should be longer and no suits or heels – only yoga clothes allowed. Wells Fargo is no stranger to hosting events that celebrate diversity. For example, Wells Fargo sponsors the Spoleto Festival, and last spring, her clients (some with their families) traveled to Charleston for Memorial Day weekend and the world premiere of the opera, “Omar” – based on the autobiography, translated from Arabic, of West African Muslim scholar, Omar ibn Said, who was enslaved in the Carolinas, after being captured at the age of 37. The opera was composed by Grammy-winning artist, Rhiannon Giddens.

“These events reach our clients on a deeper level and it’s why they are so successful,” says Henderson. “We are connecting in a more meaningful way, and they appreciate and enjoy engaging with Wells Fargo.”

If You See Her, You Can Be Her

Henderson can be trusted to bring candor, connection, and industry knowledge to the table. Being regularly in the room with top senior leaders to witness firsthand how strategies and ideas can be pulled apart has leveled up her own strategic thinking – for example how to engage with women or build up the CRE diverse segments platform.

“Keeping that leadership lens and the lens of ‘who is my audience’ at all times is a skill that I’ve had to sharpen and will continue to hone as we evolve our strategic priorities and throughout the implementation of our strategic plan,” she says.

As a woman of color in the banking industry, Henderson comments, “I’m competitive and I like a good challenge. If someone says ‘it can’t be done,’ well that is probably the best motivator for me.”

Recently, she wrote an internal piece: “If you can see her, you can be her” – highlighting the importance of having diverse leaders who blaze the trail since it encourages others to envision themselves as future leaders too. She notes that it has traditionally been harder to find diverse representation in banking, and cites seeing more diverse representation on the Wells Fargo CIB operating committee (eg. Kara McShane, head of CRE, the largest real estate platform in the country and her own boss, Danielle Squires), as a sign of measurable change.

“That motivates different people to envision a career in banking, because now they see the path to leadership,” says Henderson. “That can change the mosaic of our future leadership.”

But she admits she’s catching up to seeing herself as that person who others will aspire to be: “Many women in leadership roles still don’t give themselves enough credit that we are, indeed, leaders. We feel like we never get ‘there’,” she observes. “The first time someone reached out to ask for time on my calendar, I had to take a step back and realize I have gone through this 25+ year career path and people are interested in connecting with me as a leader. But I also know it’s a two-way street. There is always something we can learn from each other, no matter what your level is within an organization.”

A Personal Board of Directors and Ownership

Through experience, Henderson has observed the leadership traits she seeks to emulate, as well as those she doesn’t. She prefers the calm, confident, strategic thinker as a leadership approach, which she identifies with. One suggestion she received from a mentor was to have a personal board of directors, people who you trust and can consult for advice.

“I want the disruptor. Somebody who is always thinking of the antithesis and they’re not going to give you the answer you want to hear. They’re going to shoot it to you straight and play devil’s advocate. I also want the people who have lots of lived experience and are highly competent, who can provide the guidance that helps you stay grounded in the decisions that you make,” she says. “Also, for me, having a spiritual person is important because that helps you stay centered. Depending on what I’m contemplating, I may also need someone industry specific. Your personal board can help shape goals and strategies.”

Henderson advises her mentees to be their own best advocate and take control of their career, because no one else is going to do that for them. In her view, this has become more important versus 20 years ago in Corporate America, when people-focused middle managers would meet to talk about career paths. Now, she notes, managers tend to be product-specific experts over a product group, but that doesn’t always mean they are experts at managing people.

“I think, because of that, the onus is now on each individual employee to think through their career, their path and trajectory and bring that to their manager, whereas in the past it was more of a team effort,” she observes. “I have had some great managers who I would absolutely invite to my board of directors.”

Networking – Whether It Comes Naturally Or Not

“Networking comes naturally to some people and for others, it doesn’t. The first step is to understand which bucket you’re in,” she advises. “If you are a natural networker, find as many chances as you can to put that to use because it’s only going to be to your benefit. If you are not a good networker, you need to recognize that, number one, and focus on growing that skill.”

She points out various ways to do this for those it doesn’t come naturally to. Perhaps its networking with people in your industry, where you have more confidence. Then, perhaps expand to network with people in banking, covering different industries. But find your niche and focus on growing the skill from there.

Henderson considers herself somewhere in the middle. But she’s learned networking hacks: “If there’s an event that evening, I try to reserve some energy so that I am prepared and charged for the networking that will come into play.”

She also knows that she must be mentally prepared if the networking involves working her way around a room of 500+ people, but she’s noticed an exception to that rule: “What I’ve found is that if I speak on a panel or I’m introduced as a sponsor, I am very comfortable tearing through the room and meeting everyone afterwards,” she notes. “I can take it from there!”

A Personal Board of Supporters

One hard truth that Henderson has learned to accept is that not everyone has a vested interest in your success: “Some people are not going to be a cheerleader,” she says. But focus on the bright spots. Along with a board of directors, you also need a board of supporters and hopefully they are one in the same. Once you have shaped your strategy and goals, you need those people who are going to continue to support you and push you forward.”

As a wife and mother of a 14-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son, she’s very focused on her children’s school activities and sports. Her daughter is a “retired” competitive gymnast turned tennis player, while her son excels in any sport that ends in the word “ball” and lacrosse. He’s following in his dad’s footsteps. His dad is in the Davidson College Football Hall of Fame and, interestingly enough, also has had a long career in commercial real estate. Henderson loves going to the beach, playing golf, and sharing moments with friends and family.

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Kelley Conway: Head of Corporate & Digital Strategy, Northern Trust

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Kelley Conway“Part of a leadership vision includes incorporating a learning curve in how you get there. None of us are always right and we’re all going to make mistakes as we go along,” says Kelley Conway. “But the objective is still the right objective. You’ve got to move and learn along the way how to best make it where you want to go.”

The Reward of Impact

With a love for science and math, Conway studied chemical engineering before opting against a PhD and career path that she feels wouldn’t have fit her. Animated by interaction, problem-solving and dynamic impact, she found herself drawn to consultancy in tech strategy. Picking up an MBA, she then moved into digital transformation in financial services.

After twenty years of consulting a wide variety of top-tier clients, Conway was ready to steward her strategic work through to impact, recruited to lead the charge on accelerating digital strategy at Northern Trust in Chicago in January 2021. She appreciated the ability to sit down with Chairman and CEO Michael O’Grady and co-create the vision for her role: “That’s how it ended up a as a corporate and digital strategy role. Because we saw that you can’t really separate those anymore.”

Conway considers the move her best career decision to date and a culmination of everything she’s done so far.

“Nobody can look at their life and say every single day they get up in the morning radiant, right? That’s just a lie,” she half-jokes. “But even if I’m in a funk, I feel better going to work. I can feel the excitement, movement and momentum in leading impact with the talent all around me.”

“Digital For a Purpose”

With her consulting background, Conway has put a framework around the amorphous concept of “digital” to create “digital for a purpose” and drive outcomes. She defines the five layers of digital as the user experience, insight & analytics, the data that serves as the linchpin to everything — the underlying platform including cloud, and the ways of working. The challenge is ensuring all these components work together to drive real outcomes.

Conway says that when Google Maps points out the “world’s biggest potato” when you’re on a road trip, that’s an outcome of AI insight built on massive data collection, making user specific connections to know you might want to see that potato. While we benefit from the end-user experience, most of us don’t understand all the invisible – and extensive – work that has created it.

She is specifically excited about leading the charge on a data modernization program that is “democratizing” data across Northern Trust. By applying a data mesh construct, she is helping make data accessible to end users where it can drive significant business outcomes. Now, more people are also thinking and talking the language of data in effective ways that will transform the business and help to partner with clients on the innovations that matter to them.

“One of the things I have learned during my career is that communicating progress to senior leadership is a key component of this journey, and candidly I’m still working on that,” says Conway. “You have to show people iterative outcomes so they know you’re building a vision that will take us to the future.”

Humility and Passion

Growing up outside of Pittsburgh, Conway’s parents were blue collar workers in the steel mill. She learned the value of hard work, being practical and moving with humility as you put energy behind your vision. One form of humility she learned was maximizing the resources at your disposal while you have them.

“Consider the macro-economic environment we’re living in right now – high inflation and recession. Resources are always limited or going up and down,” notes Conway. “So how can you be practical? How can you actually prioritize to get the most out of the resources?”

Another form of humility is staying surrounded by people that are more knowledgeable than you in their field of expertise.

“I want people around me who know more and can see different things. The amount that I know is a lot less than the amount that I don’t know,” says Conway. “That diversity of thought and knowledge gets us to better solutions.”

Conway is genuinely passionate about tech, and conveys a sincere belief in the power of technology to transform organizations.

“Sometimes leadership requires seeing a path, charting the path and having the confidence to take that path. Sure it might be risky but we’re convinced it will accelerate our progress,” says Conway. “As a leader, my job is to communicate that vision with enthusiasm and authenticity, supported by leadership and an amazing team.”

She’s a big fan of taking measured risks amidst uncertainty of outcome, because the alternative is not learning and not growing: “You may not know if this is going to work, but you can see it’s the best thing you can try. And if you don’t try, you don’t get anything,” notes Conway.

Leveraging Your Difference

When Conway made partner at the consulting firm years ago, a junior woman told her she was an inspiration, which both surprised and emboldened her.

“I’ve now taken that in two directions. One is I recognize the broader responsibility and think about how to help individuals succeed. And secondly, I take advantage of that uniqueness in the room, and that confidence is something that has come with experience and wisdom.”

Conway has three children, 17 and 15 year old sons and a 2 1/2 year old daughter. With a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia, her oldest son is 4’6”. She’s always told him that he will not go unnoticed in the world, so he can futilely try to blend into the woodwork or he can leverage the opportunity of his uniqueness to move forward. Early on, she was also the woman in tech in the corner trying to blend in, when that was always impossible. Now, she’s embraced owning her difference to get her message across stronger.

On the note of leaning into your voice, Conway says her little girl has “a will on her like nobody’s business” which she takes pride in: “She’s impossible and stubborn and I refuse to squash that,” says Conway, “because I know exactly what she’s going to face in her life and I want that to be there.”

Her approach to working motherhood has evolved. When her sons were little, she put her career above everything and their dad was highly supportive. At that time, she believed she had to choose family or career. With her little daughter now, her approach has changed.

“I prioritize making time with her more, yet I still have the same passion for my career. I’m still making the change I want. I realized you can actually find balance,” says Conway, who comes into the office early and leaves early. “There are trade-offs, but it’s not that you can either have this or that. I have an incredibly supportive team and I’ve learned to take a much more balanced view of my life.”

Leadership that Inspires and Empowers

“I am very much a believer in leaders who empower their teams versus control their teams. I don’t appreciate command-and-control leaders. That stifles innovation and digital and everything I love,” says Conway. “I’ve had managers who are caring and give you all the room in the world and that helped me.”

Aspiring to lead that way, she also looks for the traits of humility and empowering others in the people she will work with. Conway recalls she had the opportunity to inspire and empower her team.

While there was hesitation around whether they had the talent in place as they set off into data modernization, she could see the potential in the talent already there. So she focused on bringing the team into the vision, animating them in learning and developing team passion around it. She saw her job as removing the roadblocks and then watching as her team moved faster than she had imagined. In general, Conway has many times heard from others that the problem is too complex, but she’s not one to “pack her bags and go home” just because things are difficult and it’s going to take innovative team approaches to navigate the terrain.

Climbing Higher

Conway underlines the importance of agency amidst requests for support: “I’m a big believer that you control your own destiny. People will support you, but you have to also take those opportunities and drive your career. You have an onus to take responsibility for your career as much as the onus on those around you to support you.”

Conway is an avid mountaineer, although she is pausing on that activity until her daughter is a bit older. She’s climbed Mont Blanc, Mount Ararat and Mount Kilimanjaro. She’s ice-climbed in Patagonia and broken 20,000 feet in Nepal, having gone to Everest base camp and Mount Mera. She is eyeing the challenge of Aconcagua in Argentina.

When climbing, she says, “everything shuts off. You’re working towards a goal. Sometimes it’s a slog, but you pick your head up and it’s this amazing spiritual sensation,” she muses. “That’s what rejuvenates me. A career can provide that same experience. Digital modernization can be a long, incremental process, so you have to stop sometimes and appreciate the amazing progress you’ve made.”

By Aimee Hansen

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Geneviève Piché: Head of Sustainable Finance and Advisory, Corporate & Investment Banking, Wells Fargo

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Geneviève Piché - feature“Many people have idea ‘sparks,’ small or large, and too many people squash their sparks. But it’s with those sparks that you can improve organizations and improve yourself,” says Geneviève Piché. “It could be as small as a change in process or as massive as complete transformation. Being able to embrace the spark is the essence of organizational and personal development.”

After studying economics and international studies at Macalester College, Piché joined Wells Fargo. That was 23 years ago. As a French Canadian who briefly lived in Australia growing up and chose a college with an international bend, Piché cultivated a wide world lens. At Wells Fargo, her international passion was flamed as she moved into emerging markets and finance. It’s become critical in her sustainability work, where ethics, global and regional dynamics are inextricably linked.

The diversity of opportunities and organizational culture at WF have supported her to stay inspired and grow. She recently returned from a two-week trip focused on understanding sustainability and energy transition in the Asia-Pacific region.

From “Idea Spark” To New Strategy And Role

“Embrace the sparks because they can catalyze organizational progress and develop careers,” iterates Piché. Back in May of 2020, she experienced an idea spark “that turned into a raging fire.”

Piché was leading the asset management coverage team and many of her clients were changing the way they allocated capital – moving towards ESG integration in the investment process and raising funds for specific thematic objectives – such as green infrastructure or circular economy.

“I could see there was a business need for a financial institution like ours to support those growing flows of capital, but simultaneously there were some interesting socio-economic developments happening,” recalls Piché.

Covid had revealed weaknesses in the supply chains and laid bare the unequal access to healthcare. Social justice themes had been brought to the forefront. Massive fires had been burning in Australia, consuming millions of acres of eucalyptus forest and wild lands, reminding Piché of a childhood experience at a farm where she was tending to the burnt paws of baby koalas who were fleeing or rescued from the fires.

“That was the first time I witnessed the interactions of climate change and biodiversity in my community, and it stuck with me. Now, the effects of climate change are spread way beyond Australia,” she says. “So it was a galvanizing moment for me that occurred at the same time as a call-to-action on the part of Wells Fargo leadership, when many leaders were saying we needed to do something differently and that they were all ears for ideas.”

So with the momentum of her spark and a receptive context, Piché developed a business strategy for Wells Fargo’s Corporate & Investment Banking division (CIB) around sustainable finance within ten days. Next was nurturing that spark.

“Having been at Wells Fargo for so long, I understood how things work intuitively. But for those who may be newer to an organization, knowing who understands the unwritten rules is an important part of networking,” she says. “Observe those people sitting at the right tables who communicate in a way that you like and get looped into email discussions. It’s important for career development to identify those strong and competent organizational players, even if you don’t exactly know the ropes.”

Along with knowing how things work, utilizing sponsors and mentors was also essential to fueling the spark. Piché ran the strategy across a sponsor who had organizational savvy but was not in her direct reporting line.

“First, it gave me the confidence that my idea was directionally correct because that person did their own research, too. It also allowed me to navigate our organizational structure to get the idea in the right place in the right way to build buy-in among leadership teams,” she notes.

After a couple of months and some refining, she received the call to leave her role as head of asset management and begin the new role she’d proposed.

Sustainability is a Win-Win

When it comes to a legacy of impact, and especially on Earth Day, Piché wants to convey the message that sustainability is a win-win for organizations, not a win-lose or compromise.

“Sustainability and climate efforts are about value creation. They are not check-the-box exercises. It’s about developing strategies that can drive value for companies while making the world a better place,” she says. “With a financial institution like Wells Fargo, we have a very big megaphone because we talk to so many different constituents and millions of customers, so I want people to be able to acknowledge and understand that developing strategies around environmental practices and social practices are extremely beneficial to companies in the long-term and in the short-term.”

She continues, “Once we are able to understand that, we will be more able to effectively unlock impact, drive large-scale change, support the industrial transformation that’s underway, and elevate and provide opportunities to those who have historically had fewer.”

Aligning Your Personality to the Role

Piché prefers to be a generalist who does many things at once – even picking two majors instead of one, and realizing that has helped.

“There are certain jobs that require you to be focused and narrow. Today, I know those jobs do not suit my personality. Roles that are broader and more entrepreneurial do,” she says. “One of the reasons I love my role now is that it’s rich in content, themes and opportunities and has many facets to the work. It allows me to juggle many things all at once and play to my strengths.”

Before she realized what job roles matched her, Piché would often supplement more narrowly-focused roles with side initiatives and projects or looking to travel to provide diversification. Perhaps only with the benefit of hindsight has she realized this, because when in a less-suited role you may normalize the feeling.

“But when you have the right job, you look forward to waking up in the morning. You’re excited about the people you’re working with and the work,” she says. “I often encourage people to think about their personalities and learning styles in finding the right role. Are you drawn to multiple threads of thoughts and projects? Do you like to travel far and wide but more shallow, or to go deep and seek real expertise in one particular area?”

Piché has further compatibility advice for people evaluating their first job or next opportunity: “It’s really important that you choose those opportunities based on the people that you will work with more so than the job itself,” she says. “Because I find the people that you are surrounded with are the defining characteristics of your experience. Developing a particular job skill is cumulative, but you want people who will support you on that journey and who inspire you.”

Piché also warns against burning those bridges. “I have found that my career path has wound in many different directions and people keep coming back into my life professionally. We say ‘don’t burn your bridges’ but really what that means is always be respectful and kind to the people who you work with. Be transparent and authentic and do your best,” she says. “When you do that, you manage those relationships and it can be that they keep on giving and building upon themselves as you progress in life.”

The Power of Storytelling

As she has become more senior, Piché’s love of writing, ability to communicate powerfully and storytelling have become greater strengths. It’s what helped to create her role. Another expression is the quarterly newsletter she sends to all Wells Fargo CIB employees to inspire and engage them in the sustainability initiative.

“Storytelling in a business context can be extremely compelling in driving leadership buy-in. It’s a great leadership skill when you can tell stories that are relatable and demonstrate expertise and thoughtfulness and authenticity,” she says. “On the flip side, great storytelling is also important in our customer relationships. What is the client looking for and what is the most compelling thing they are interested in? It’s really important to tell a story that is both quantitatively and qualitatively justified and compelling.”

Choosing to Plant Where You Can Thrive

“In the first ten years of my life, I had a very strong impression that organizations were meritocratic. Now, we understand there’s a tremendous amount of unconscious and institutional bias in all organizations, and it’s perhaps not so meritocratic beneath the surface,” she says. “There’s a lot that is challenging women’s careers and the careers of people of different backgrounds.”

At various times in her life, Piché has seen entrenched social networks that permeate professional life and make it challenging to navigate. She never doubted her competence, but it was evident some situations were more conducive to her success than others.

Those experiences underlined the importance of DEI, because breaking down institutional social barriers does not happen overnight, even in an organization where it is happening. These days, she is absolutely thriving in the broader context of sustainability where she interacts with all walks of life, geographies, races and ethnicities, while enjoying the work and feeling empowered.

Positive Impact in Every Sphere of Life

Piché wishes to impact positively in five areas: work, motherhood, partnership, self and friendship.

From weekend art challenges to bike rides to trips to school and bedtime stories, she loves creating special moments with her eight year old son. She intentionally nurtures her relationship with her husband through regular date nights. As a family, they enjoy collecting junior ranger badges through visits to U.S. national parks while building experience and knowledge around the natural and historical patrimony.

To care for herself, she does things she loves to do – whether playing music (the piano), cooking, reading or taking hikes. Also while she may have less to extend at times, she values being a thoughtful friend to the people in her life that need support.

Similarly, Piché leads her work teams authentically and transparently while demonstrating passion, enthusiasm and competence. And laughter.

“I think when you demonstrate those traits, it empowers teams and individuals to do the same. Then you have much higher performing teams and make a greater impact on people’s individual careers and sense of feeling inspired,” she says. “As leaders in the corporate world, if we can have positive impact on people’s well-being and joy and have a positive impact in the world, then I think we’ve accomplished something pretty awesome.”

By Aimee Hansen

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Alice Chun: Female Inventor, Founder and CEO of Solight Design, Inc.

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Alice Chun“We’re all drops in the ocean, but together we can move the moon. Small things matter. Because if we all do one small act, together, collectively and as a community, we can move mountains, and that’s always been the case,” says Alice Chun. “I think we each create a ripple in the water from just a drop, and that if we all work together, this change can really occur. It’s not just one thing that’s going to be the answer to our issues, it’s going to be an ecosystem of many things working together to create resilience.”

We interviewed Alice Chun, female inventor and co-founder and CEO of Solight-Design. Born in Korea, she immigrated to the U.S. as a child and grew up in upstate New York. Since learning origami from her mother as a girl, Chun has been fascinated with the possibilities of using imagination and design to change our world for the better.

Exploring emerging trends in material technology – lighter, faster and sustainable – she began experimenting with sewing solar panels to fabric while teaching Architecture and Material Technology at Columbia University. When her son Quinn was diagnosed with asthma, which is 40% more likely for children in New York City, she became aware of the staggering pollution from energy consumption and the deadly impacts of kerosene in off-the-grid places of the world. Chun became focused on creating clean light solutions that harness solar energy.

Her TedX talk, 10 Million Rays of Light, focuses on the story behind her first invention, the SolarPuff™, the world’s only self-inflatable, portable solar light. With the backing of a KickStarter campaign, Chun launched Solight Design. Her origami-inspired lights run the gamut from art exhibition to humanitarian aid. They’ve been exhibited at MOMA, featured in The New York Times for summer gatherings and lit the night for Syrian refugees.

Chun holds several patents and has won the US Patent Award for Humanity. Advocating that design provides dignity, Chun is passionate about getting her lights to people and children in crisis zones and off-the-grid areas. She’s brought many thousands of her lights to crisis areas, as well as worked with NGOS to deliver and distribute them.

Going on these “light drops,” she’s personally traveled to Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Dominica and Haiti (nearly 20 times). As we talked with her in December 2022, she was about to head to the Ukraine. More than anything, she seeks to spark the light in each of us that can together impact the world. We talked with Chun about creating impact as a female inventor.

On growing up in a creative household:

“I was born in Korea. I was blessed that my mother was an artist and my father was an architect. It was post-war and my parents had to immigrate to the United States because of my father’s position doing the World Trade Pavilion in Montreal for the World Expo. They came first, and then sent for me later. I was four years old when I came to join them.

My mom taught me origami, like many Asians. And back then it was more novel. I grew up in a very creative household that taught me, at an early age, that you can use your imagination to make things and you can help yourself through difficulties by using your creative senses.

Everything that I’ve done was never really planned. When I went to college, I went for Architectural design. After my masters at University of Pennsylvania, I started to teach architecture (Columbia University, Parsons the New School), but teaching first found me by accident. I didn’t find it.”

On how imagination is the ability to create something better:

“While I was teaching in architecture, we started to do community outreach projects with architecture students. Around Philadelphia, there were so many abandoned sites and parks that were just rotting away. We were putting in planters and benches and building a little playground. It was so rewarding to see how it transformed those communities.

Kids would come up curious and ask what we were doing. We’d tell them, ‘We’re architecture students and we’re building architecture for you.’ So they would ask what architecture was. And we would explain that whatever you can imagine, you can also make a model of and then you can build something new. It is all about design. Design is about imagining something different and more beautiful for your environment.

Being able to interact with the community and learn from them, as well as teaching them about architecture and empowerment, was a real moment of feeling that I could make a difference and what we were doing mattered. I wanted to continue to do that.”

Alice Chun in Haiti

Alice Chun in Haiti

On the moments that catalyze the impulse of innovation:

“Whenever I was teaching, I used to tell this story: the story of time. The Greeks believed that there are two characters of time. One is Chronos, who is old with a beard and a cane. His line of time is predictable and very straight. Then, there is Kairos, the young character of time. His line of time is very unpredictable and chaotic.

We all experience those two lines of time, every day of our lives. When those two lines intersect, those are the moments of opportunity and the moments of invention. And it’s a matter of leaning in or leaning back when those moments happen.

So if I look at the trajectory of my inventions, and why they occurred, it’s because of problems I saw. I would never have imagined that my child would be born with asthma. And there was climate change and natural disasters and the earthquake in Haiti. All of that was the impetus for me to step back and say, ‘Enough is enough. We have to do something to help.’

I was the materials lab director at Columbia University, and my focus was on natural materials. There’s far more intelligence and knowledge in natural materials than the petrol-based plastics that we’ve been using for four decades. So, I was sewing solar panels to fabric and then substrates, to basically invent something new as a material: a solar harvesting surface to make everything thinner, lighter, faster and smarter.

The only way I knew how to lean in to help in Haiti was to turn my studio at Columbia into an innovation studio. So, what I was doing before evolved. And that’s when we realized this detriment that’s happening globally. 1.6 billion people don’t have access to electricity, and they’re using kerosene to light their world at night. Two million children die from the toxins. In South Africa alone, there’s 200,000 house fires every year. That was the impetus for asking ‘What can we do?’ and ‘How can we help?’

So every time, it’s really about those two lines of time intersecting – and then saying ‘How can we solve this problem?’ and ‘How can we do better?’”

On the magic when necessity meets curiosity:

“Sometimes you’re confronted with a problem, and you don’t know what to do. You just know that something has to be done. It sticks in the back of your mind as something that gnaws at you. Every time, at that point for me, that’s where the spark of curiosity came.

They say ‘the mother of invention is necessity,’ but ‘the daughter of invention is curiosity.’ So with curiosity, you’re constantly questioning – What if? Or could it be like this? Or maybe there’s an answer here, or there? Once the problem sticks in your brain, everything else becomes a window for opportunity because then you’re already beginning to connect the dots.

Curiosity is directly related to imagination and creativity and problem solving. What’s most important are the questions that you ask, not so much the answers. It’s those questions that end up creating something new. So with asthma and pollution and health, for example, I had already been researching solar energy and the connection to cutting pollution. 75% of the pollution in NYC comes from buildings and energy consumption. But the sun is free and it’s limitless and it’s the most powerful source of energy that comes to the Earth every day.

So the dots begin to align and connect. You may not have the answer right away, but it’s a matter of continuing and keeping that thread open to connect to the next dot when it happens.”

On breaking through the ceiling of fixed perception:

“So-Light Design is a small company. I’m one person. I’m a mom, I’m a teacher. The paradox is that we’re a small company, but we’ve had a big impact – purely because we’re just doing what we feel is right. But we’ve been able to impact over a million lives worldwide because of our mission.

So what I’m always trying to break through is the boundaries that we all create when we perceive the world in a certain way.

For instance, early on when I was traveling to these red zones, everyone told me not to go. People said I would be shot or raped or kidnapped. But I went to Nigeria and Makoko there – which is the largest slum in sub-Saharan Africa. I met the most amazing and kindest people and witnessed the impact of the light that I brought. Then I went to Haiti. People were telling me not to go there, too. I’ve been there twenty times now, and I’ve befriended amazing people. Now people are telling me not to go to Ukraine because it’s a war zone, but I am going.

I want people to know that there’s always two sides of the story. There’s not just one narrative or only one way to see anything. Part of creating art is to break through the preconceived way we see the world. It’s a big issue right now – with racism, discrimination, with war – it’s so prevalent and we have to change it. There’s so much that we have to gain and to learn – historically and culturally – from breaking out of our narrow perceptions.”

On inventing a product that spans from MOMA to crisis zones:

“Because of my background as a designer, I have the three design cornerstones of durability, beauty and functionality or utility. Those are the same three cornerstones of architecture and they could also transfer into a way of thinking about business and being an entrepreneur.

It’s hard to get all three, but I think beauty is something that needs to be addressed in design. When giving out humanitarian aid in places like Haiti, I’ve witnessed some NGOs have a tendency to buy the cheap stuff to hit the mark on how many items they’ve donated. But they’re often the cheapest flashlights or the cheapest solar panels, and they end up in the landfill in a short time because they don’t work.

I’ve not seen many organizations who drop off supplies give any attention to beauty, wonder or awe. But I think all of that is just as important as utility. Why can’t we give beauty, wonder and awe? Because if you don’t have that, you don’t have hope. If you don’t have hope, you’re going to die.

I remember a fascinating moment after the earthquake in Haiti, when there was rubble everywhere and tent camps were popping up. I saw this woman coming out of a tent camp and she was dressed in red and perfectly made up with lipstick. I don’t know, but that lipstick seemed to make the day for her because it was the moment of beauty, wonder and awe.

In my perspective, design provides dignity and good design should be able to sustain a life in Nantucket or Nigeria. Good design doesn’t have boundaries – like culture or race. It doesn’t discriminate. So good design should incorporate awe and wonder as well as being useful. I don’t think many NGOs think about that, or how important it is for the stakeholders and the cultural societal aspects of wherever these issues exist.”

Syrian refugees with Chun’s SolarPuff™ lights

On igniting possibilities through ‘light drops’:

“I put a thousand lights in my luggage and I flew down to Dominica. I didn’t really know where I was going. I just wanted to go to the Kalinago territory. The Kalinago are the oldest Indian tribe in the Northern Hemisphere. I’d heard that they had been hit the hardest with Hurricane Maria.

Through a fortunate chain of serendipitous conversations as I arrived, I was positioned to visit seven different schools in the Kalinago region. I saw five kids living in a one room house with a single mom. They had their one meal a day at school and no electricity to do their homework at night. I resisted the urge to just hand out the lights, because I wanted to tell them why I was there, why they’re so important and why we haven’t forgotten about them.

I shared that I came from a poor beginning and was beat up a lot when I was a kid, because I didn’t look like the other kids. I was the only Asian. And I didn’t fight with my fists. I ended up fighting with the light in my mind and the light in my heart. And I tell the kids, ‘You have to fight with that light in your heart and that light in your imagination. Keep fighting with that light and don’t use your fist. And I’m giving this light to you because now you can hold the Sun in your hands. And the Sun is the most powerful source of energy that comes to the Earth every day. But the light of your imagination and the light of your heart is even more powerful than the Sun.’

The kids cackle and giggle and I reassure them, ‘Yes, you are that powerful and if you keep fighting with the light of your heart, there’s nothing you can’t do.’ I tell them to use this light for their homework, so their dreams and ambitions can grow. A lot of the girls look at me in disbelief and say, ‘What! You made this?’ Even some of the elderly women or teachers can’t believe it. That’s really important to me, because in that ‘aha’ moment, they are saying to themselves, She’s a woman and she did this. Maybe I can. I have the power to do that, too.

Sharing that narrative with them is more important to me than delivering lights. That’s the other reason why I go on the light drops.”

On encouraging more female inventors:

“In my research, I went back into history and some of the women were excluded from patents they should have been on. But, overall the number of women on patents is so small, and that needs to change, too. My hope is that when I speak to kids and young women, that it will inspire them to use their imagination and change the world for the better by solving a problem and creating something new.

It goes back again to two characters of invention – the mother of invention being necessity and the daughter being curiosity. Those are two female characters, but only 13% of inventors are women in the United States patent and trademark office. And then in terms of entrepreneurship, far less than 1% of IPO businesses are led by female founders and only 2.3% of venture founding partners are women.

We need more girls and women in STEM programs and more funding for women and female minorities in terms of scholarship and grants. But the only way we’re going to change the amount of investment that goes into female-run entrepreneurs is getting more female businesses to get an IPO. So there’s this kind of chicken and egg thing happening.”

On her trip to the Ukraine:

“We’re going to get about 5,000 lights to Ukraine. But in my luggage, I’m bringing 1,000 with me. Our colored light was used for PTSD for children after Hurricane Maria. It has different color options, and we hadn’t realized this would be helpful to the kids. But we found out that the different colors actually help them calm down at night and it helps them to sleep. After an earthquake and there’s no light, the kids are so frightened. So they were used as night lights for kids in shock or with PTSD after the hurricane.

When I heard about the blackouts happening in this children’s hospital in Ukraine, I knew I had to go deliver these colored lights. They told me the nurses were taking three hours to calm the kids down after the blackouts. There are over two hundred kids and most of them are refugees, and there’s two more hospitals in Lviv. I’ll also go to Kiev. Over 2.5 million children are currently displaced within the country.

These hospitals have generators, but they are using that for essentials like heat and the ICU. These lights and phone chargers are going to be critical for light at night and charging. This is a lifelong traumatic event. And after the war, it’s going to take years and decades to rebuild.

But my greatest hope for the future is our children. Whenever something happens, dealing with children especially, I try to do whatever I can and often travel to deliver lights. I’m inspired by my own son and by all the kids that I meet along the way and in different countries. I’m inspired by how smart and intelligent and enthusiastic and hopeful they are about the future, and passionate that they know they can create.”

 

 

For more on Alice Min Soo Chun, check out coverage in Marie Claire’s Powertrip 2022, The Skimm, The Story Exchange, Fast Company, The New York Times, Cheddar, Huffington Post, and Men’s Journal. Chun was nominated for USPTO Patents for Humanitarian Winner in 2018. She was named among Forbes 50 Over 50 recognizable women of 2022. She is co-author of the book Ground Rules for Humanitarian Design. During the pandemic, she also launched a business selling patented transparent face shields and respirator masks, SEEUS95.

By Aimee Hansen

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