Message from Ascend LA Metro Chapter President (May 2023)

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To the Ascend Los Angeles Metro Community,

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I hope you enjoyed the month of May as our communities celebrated the achievements and contributions of all of us during Asian American and Pacific Heritage month.   Here at Ascend we held an event titled “Our Stories, Our Heritage: Celebrating AAPI Personal Journey” where our esteemed group of panelists discussed their journey towards success in their own personal way.  We had great audience participation, many who stepped out of their comfort zone, to engage in very vibrant discussions on many important topics.  We want to thank Accenture for allowing us to use their beautiful offices for this event.

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Earlier that day, our Board held an all-day retreat to discuss the operations, programming and succession of our LA Metro Chapter.  It was during the retreat that I announced that I would be handing over the reins of my presidency to Peter Yo and David Doan who will serve as co-presidents of our chapter.  Both Peter who works at Robert Half and David who works at Accenture are great leaders who have shown the dedication and courage to take our chapter to the next level that all of you will enjoy.  Please support the two of them as we continue to fight the fight to ensure that the mission of Ascend can continue to be top of mind in corporate America.

I want to take this time to thank all of you for allowing me to lead the LA Metro chapter of Ascend for the past four and a half years.  I took on this role of President in November 2019 and met some of you at the January 2020 IAG (Inspiring Across Generations) event held in Buena Park.  Then COVID hit.  Despite challenges, we continued to have programming that was virtual in nature which not only focused on personal development, but we also stayed relevant by tackling some of the newer workplace issues that included mental health, Asian Hate and Social Justice.  After having only virtual programming for over two years, we held our first physical event on April 1, 2022.  It was so great to see so many of you at our networking event held at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles that day.  I am sure that a reason for the large turnout was because all of us were just so anxious to go out and do some old-fashioned networking and meet new people.  During August 2022, the Los Angeles Metro and Orange County chapters co-hosted the physical National Convention that was held at Disneyland (after two years of virtual national conventions).  While it was a big undertaking to be a co-host, your Board played a big role in the success of that convention – one that I was certainly proud of.  

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So as I say my farewell as President, I have told our Board that I am not going anywhere.  The mission of Ascend is too important for me to say goodbye.  I will continue to support this Board in any way that I can.

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See you all at our future events.

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Glen