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HAGÅTÑA, Guam — The Guam Women’s Chamber of Commerce Fanachu Famalao’an (Women Rising) annual empowerment conference will offer virtual presentations from speakers who’ve paved successful careers with nationally known entities. Fanachu Famalao’an will take place virtually this year on April 8th, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon.
This year’s theme, “Inspiring Innovation” features keynote speaker Suhana Han, who grew up on Guam, graduated from Harvard Law School, and is now a partner in the Sullivan & Cromwell LLP Litigation Group in New York. Ms. Han will discuss adapting to the pandemic from a professional perspective. She has represented some of the world’s leading corporations and financial institutions in complex cases and matters involving the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Department of Justice and the Federal Reserve Bank.
Also featured will be Kim Diaz, Director of Recruitment & Talent Outreach for Pixar Animation Studios. Ms. Diaz grew up in Guam and the Bay Area. She joined Pixar Animation Studios in April 2013, and oversees the Talent Acquisition & Talent Outreach teams, which also includes University Relations and internship programs for the studio. Prior to Pixar, Ms. Diaz worked in recruiting at 2K Games, Lucasfilm (VFX, Games, Sound, Corporate), and did retail recruiting for H&M.
The closing keynote will feature Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, a Board-Certified internal medicine physician, speaker, and author. She is an international wellness expert featured in numerous media outlets including Prevention, MSNBC, Women’s Day, FOX, Fast Company, Psychology Today, INC, and as a guest on the Dr. Oz show.
One of this year’s Fanachu Famalao’an highlights is the Leadership Masterclass on Mastering Tough Conversations with Lucy Georgiades, co-founder of Elevate Leadership. Ms. Georgiades has spent over a decade coaching and running management and leadership classes, and worked one-on-one with leaders, CEOs and executive teams to address challenges, communicate effectively, achieve their goals and lead their people. She specialized in cognitive neuropharmacology and vision and brain development at Oxford University in London, where she worked before moving to San Francisco over eight years ago.
Other speakers who will also focus on the topics of pivoting during the pandemic, lessons in resiliency and inspiring careers on the rise include author and human rights attorney Julian Aguon; Dr. Mariana Cook-Huynh, Sagua Managu/MPG; Michelle He Yee Lee, The Washington Post; Cora Spearman, Coradorables; Michelle Crisostomo, Guahan Sustainable Culture; Jennifer McFerran, International Dining Concepts; Michelle Rohr, Secret OWL Society blogger; and Pika Fejeran, multi-concept creator and operator.
This year’s unique Fanachu Famalao’an platform will also offer attendees welcome kits and virtual gift bags containing discounts to various island merchants, online shopping opportunities from local businesses and start-ups, and opportunities to network with other women as we navigate the uncertain waters of this ongoing pandemic.
The Guam Women’s Chamber of Commerce Fanachu Famalao’an 2021 change agent sponsors include Pacific Daily News, Matson, Sorensen Media Group, Tri Vision Media Group, and Ada’s Trust & Investment.
This year’s virtual Fanachu Famalao’an vendors include UOG Press, Micronesia Climate Change Alliance, Jayde Ryanne, Pulan Magic, Flame Tree Candle Co., Accentuate, KERSHASCORNER, and Rockit Ride.
Tickets are $70 for members and $90 for non-members. To reserve tickets, log on to http://www.summit.guamwomenschamber.com/
For more information on GWCC’s Fanachu Famalao’an 2021, email Livia Marati at livia@inawellnesscollective.com.
The Guam Women’s Chamber of Commerce would not be able to offer this amazing Fanachu Famalao’an empowerment opportunity without the help of our sponsors, Ada’s Trust & Investment, Pacific Daily News, Matson, Sorensen Media Group, Tri Vision Media Group, Bank of Guam, GTA, Guam Small Business Development Center, Adztech, Guam Music, Inc. and the Guam Economic Development Authority.
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KEYNOTES
Suhana Han - Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Suhana Han is a partner in the Firm’s Litigation Group. Her practice covers a broad range of commercial litigation, including securities, antitrust, employment and contract disputes, as well as government and regulatory investigations. She has represented some of the world’s leading corporations and financial institutions in complex cases and matters involving the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the SEC, the CFTC, the DOJ and the Federal Reserve Bank.
Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith
Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith is a Board-Certified internal medicine physician, speaker, and author. She is an international wellness expert featured in numerous media outlets including Prevention, MSNBC, Women’s Day, FOX, Fast Company, Psychology Today, INC, and as a guest on Dr. Oz show. She is the author of numerous books including her new book Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity, including ground-breaking insight on the seven types of rest needed to optimize your productivity, increase your overall happiness, overcome burnout, and live your best life. Over 100,000 people have discovered their personal rest deficits using her free assessment at RestQuiz.com. Learn more about Dr. Saundra at IChooseMyBestLife.com and DrDaltonSmith.com.
MASTERCLASS
Lucy Georgiades - Elevate Leadership
Lucy Georgiades is the co-founder of Elevate Leadership and has spent over a decade coaching and running management and leadership classes. She's spent thousands of hours working 1:1 with leaders, CEOs and with executive teams helping them work through challenges, communicate effectively, achieve their goals and lead their people. She loves nothing more than creating really relevant, actionable training so as many people as possible can feel well equipped and confident to lead. Lucy's background is in Experimental Psychology, which is all about understanding the relationships between the brain and human behavior. For her Bachelors and Masters, Lucy specialized in cognitive neuropharmacology and vision and brain development at Oxford University. She has diplomas with distinction in Corporate & Executive Coaching and Personal Performance Coaching from The Coaching Academy, U.K. Before moving to San Francisco over eight years ago, Lucy lived in London and ran her coaching business in the UK.
INNOVATION SPOTLIGHT
Kim Diaz - Pixar Animation Studios
Kim Diaz joined Pixar Animation Studios in April 2013. As Director, Recruitment & Talent Outreach, Diaz oversees the Talent Acquisition & Talent Outreach teams, which also includes University Relations and internship programs for the studio.
Prior to Pixar, Diaz worked in recruiting at 2K Games, Lucasfilm (VFX, Games, Sound, Corporate), and did retail recruiting for H&M. She also spent time in education as a Career Advisor for an art school in San Francisco. Growing up in Guam and the Bay Area, Diaz graduated from Fairfield High School before attending the Art Institute of California in San Francisco. She currently resides in the East Bay.
SEASIDE CHATS
Julian Aguon - Blue Ocean Law
Julian Aguon is a human rights lawyer and writer from Guam. He is the founder of Blue Ocean Law, a progressive firm that works at the intersection of indigenous rights and environmental justice. He serves on the Global Advisory Council of Progressive International—a collective that launched in May 2020 to mobilize progressive forces around the world behind a shared vision of social justice.
Book:
The Properties of Perpetual Light is a collection of soulful ruminations about love, loss, struggle, resilience and power. Part memoir, part manifesto, the book is both a coming-of-age story and a call for justice—for everyone but in particular for indigenous peoples, Aguon's own and others. With bracing prose and bouts of poetry, Aguon weaves together stories from his childhood in the villages of Guam with searing political commentary about everything from nuclear weapons to climate change. Deploying the feminist insight that the personal is political, Aguon culls from the light of his own life experiences, from losing his father to cancer to working for Mother Teresa to meeting Sherman Alexie in a Spokane bookstore, to illuminate a path out of the darkness.
Cora Spearman - Coradorables
Cora Spearman is the CEO and Founder of Coradorables, a retail brand for people who aspire to a fun, colorful, Hawaiian-kissed getaway lifestyle for their families and children. The brand was Hawaii’s first featured retailer on Zulilly.com, is a former Academy Awards Gifting Suite attendee, and a featured exhibitor at the Tokyo International Gift Show.
A graduate of Ohio’s Antioch College, Cora used her dual degree in Communications and Japanese to build a career on both sides of the Pacific Rim, leveraging the years she spent living and studying in Tokyo (earning her high school diploma at Meiko Gakuen, then studying
international business at Waseda University) to forge trade relationships between America and Asia. She managed and trained over 1,000 Japanese and Korean distributors during her time at multinational corporation Enagic USA, and parlayed that experience into serving as the CEO/General Manager of The Place, LLC, the Hawaiian-based boutique with a legendary cult following amongst Japanese tourists (having been featured in over 50 top-rated Japanese and American publications).
Cora started creating handmade tutus and hair accessories of her own in 2010, inspired by the birth of her daughter. Since then, her line of designs has grown from selling at local craft fairs to being carried by 5-star resorts and hotels and at online and specialty shops worldwide. Named Emerging Designer of the Year at the 2013 Governor's Fashion Awards in Hawaii, Cora has most recently been featured in the pages of Vogue UK Bambini Magazine, and her colorful and eye-catching Coradorables designs have been worn by the stars of Modern Family, The Hunger Games, Dance Moms, and various Disney Channel shows.
Cora currently lives in Honolulu with her husband and two children, Izzabelle Ka'iulani and Zoe Heimakaokalani, bringing a little made-in-the-islands aloha spirit with them wherever they go.
Michelle Ye Hee Lee - The Washington Post
Michelle Ye Hee Lee is a reporter on the national desk at The Washington Post. In the summer, she will move to Tokyo as the incoming Tokyo/Seoul bureau chief on the foreign desk, covering Japan and the two Koreas. She covered money and influence in national politics, and was a reporter on The Washington Post Fact Checker, writing political fact checks focused on former President Trump and congressional leadership. Prior to joining The Post in 2014, Michelle was a political accountability reporter at The Arizona Republic. Outside of the newsroom, Michelle is the president of the Asian American Journalists Association, a professional membership-based nonprofit with more than 1,700 members across the country and in Asia. AAJA's mission is to increase diversity in the news industry and ensure fair and accurate media coverage of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Michelle was born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised on Guam. She graduated from Emory University.
Michelle Rohr - The Secret OWL Society
Michelle Rohr started her blog The Secret OWL Society after realizing that she had just lived the same year twice and that it was a mediocre year. She vowed to take 100% responsibility for her life and make every year 10x better than the last and since then her blog has grown into a full-fledged business with products, courses, and clients. Now she is helping people all over the world from her little corner on the web take 100% responsibility for their lives on an everyday basis as well.
Aubry & Kale Walch - The Herbivorous Butcher
Sister and brother duo Aubry and Kale Walch have spent several years perfecting The Herbivorous Butcher’s deliciously deceiving meat-free meats. Aubry has spent over a decade creating meat-free alternatives for many of the foods that she grew up with on Guam, a place where cooking was a deep-rooted part of everyday life and each meal consisted of at least two different kinds of meat, not to mention a wide variety of flavors, spices, and textures, blending Guamanian cuisine with culinary cultures from across the world.
After years of watching Aubry thrive, Kale Walch followed suit and became vegan. He has since developed a keen sense for the many ingredients and methods that go into making the most flavorful, nutritious and satisfying meat alternatives.
The Herbivorous butcher is located in Minneapolis, MN, and they also co-founded a farm sanctuary called Herbivorous Acres.
PANEL
Pika Fejeran
Daughter of Guam, Wife of Lenny, Mother of 3. Master Planner. Owner: Pika's Cafe, Little Pika's, Kitchen Lingo, Market Deli, Denanche'. May be found these days supporting the great team at Market Deli, playing tag/swimming/beaching it with the kids, and supporting Lenny's newest entrepreneurial vision.
Michelle Crisostomo - President & CEO of Guåhan Sustainable Culture
Michelle Crisostomo is the president and co-founder of Guåhan Sustainable Culture, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that has been carrying out its mission of cultivating ideas and strategies of environmental sustainability within our local community since its founding, two years ago.
As a second generation bona-fide farmer, she also owns and operates Tiny Greens Guam, one of the leading producers of Microgreens for many of the island's major restaurants and hotels.
She is serving her fourth year on the Board of Directors for the Guam Women’s Chamber of Commerce and has served in many capacities to include Treasurer and former chair of the Finance and Education committees.
Her passion for progressive growth of household food security for her family and our communities, and empowering women with the knowledge and skill set to be self-reliant and operate their own self-sustaining farms was what planted the seed for Guåhan Sustainable Culture.
Jennifer McFerran - Marketing Manager, International Dining Concepts, LLC.
Jennifer has over ten years of marketing and communications experience. Starting off in the non-profit fundraising industry, she focused on social media during the early stages of the industry's growth and has worked with a range of private companies, non-profits, and individual entrepreneurs. In the last six years, she has honed in on all aspects of marketing for the restaurant industry, from graphic design and social media to collaborative promotions and print media. She is passionate about yoga and being active, and recently got her first beehive.
Mariana Cook-Huynh - Marianas Physicians Group
Mariana Cook-Huynh is a daughter of Guam born at Guam Memorial Hospital and raised in the village of Tamuning. She is a graduate of St. John’s School where she attended since first grade. Wanting to stay close to the Pacific Ocean, she studied biopsychology and music at the University of California at Santa Barbara. After graduation, she was selected to teach high school science as a
member of Teach for America in New Orleans, Louisiana the same year hurricane Katrina hit. She then went on to pursue a Medical Degree and Masters of Public Health at Mayo Medical School and University of Minnesota, respectively. She completed her Family Medicine residency, including a mastery in high risk Obstetrics, at United Family Medicine in St. Paul, Minnesota. She returned to Guam in the summer of 2016 and joined Marianas Physicians Group, where she currently has the roles of Family Medicine Physician, provider coach, and COVID-19 leader. Dr. Cook-Huynh runs a busy practice but likes to spend her free time making memories with her husband, three sons and two dogs. She enjoys swimming, cooking, making photo books, and having dance parties at home.
