Giovanna Pang Garcia » Jenny Ming

Profile on Asian Fortune

Giovanna — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 04:07:17 +0000

The following article was printed on the March isuess of Asian Fortune

Giovanna Pang Garcia on Keys to Success

By: Jennie L. Ilustre

Giovanna Pang Garcia is an entrepreneur, inspirational speaker, wife (to Hispanic American Craig Garcia , a fundraiser for non-profit organizations), and mother of Dylan, 2. Despite a busy and fulfilled life, she went out to conquer a new world. She wrote “Why Chinese Women are Not Broke: Real Life Stories and Proven Keys for Success.”

The idea came to her last year, after watching what the country’s financial meltdown has done to people. “I wanted people to know they could pull through this crisis,” she said in an email from California. “I wanted to remind everyone that is what America is all about – by relating inspiring stories and giving them keys that they can apply in daily life.”

She explained what she meant by the words “not broke.” She said, “To me it is more than just financially. It means a person who is not broken: A complete, whole person, a well-balanced human being who is living a successful life. I was looking for women who are purposeful and contributing to society.” She interviewed 100 such women.

Her book, she added, “draws upon a mixture of Chinese core values and American ingenuity to provide a blueprint for success that anyone can follow. The stories are sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes funny, but always inspiring. The book provides guidance for everything, from finding your passion in life to managing money.”

Giovanna, or Jo to her friends, said Asian women, as the stereotype goes, are not expected to succeed because they are too modest and restrained to achieve greatness. But as she shows in her book, “the strong work ethic, pragmatic attitude, and perseverance Asian women have, is the perfect starting point for them to achieve success. Those cultural core values, combined with American individualism and freedom, have led to countless Asian American women achieving great success.”

She knows because she is one herself. Born in Hong Kong, she came to America by herself at age 16. Like many other immigrants, she had to overcome the language barrier and vast cultural differences. She experienced many hardships, including abuse, depression, and discrimination, but thanks to her “never-quit” attitude, she overcame it all to become a stronger, more confident person. She started her own computer networking corporation and retired at age 40 to become an inspirational speaker.

Inspiring women

Among those she interviewed were: Jennie Chin Hansen, president, AARP (formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, currently have 40 million-members); Doreen Woo Ho, president of community banking, United Commercial Bank; Amy Kiang, vice president of global wealth management, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch; Jenny Ming, president, Charlotte Russe; board member, Kaiser Permanente; former president of Old Navy; Wan Ling Martello, senior vice president and CFO, Wal-Mart International; Anne Chow, senior vice president, Premier Client Group, AT&T; Sonya Gong Jent, vice president of operations, State Farm Insurance; Ivy Chin, vice president, QVC; Dr. Diane Tang-Liu, vice president in R&D, Allergan Inc.; Carol Lam, senior vice president and deputy general counsel, Qualcomm Inc.; former Superior Court judge and US attorney; Congresswoman Judy Chu; Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch, president, US-China Education Trust; Ms. Debra Wong Yang, Los Angeles board of police commissioners; former US attorney and a California judge; Chief Heather Fong, retired police chief, city of San Francisco, California; and Helen Zia, author, Asian American Dream

Family

“I convinced my father to send me to America to go to school,” she recalled. “It was a sign of wealth for him to do so, and many of my father’s friends had already sent their children to America, so it wasn’t the hardest sell on my part.”

It was tough in the beginning, but she found a friend in Heather Kreps. One night, she told Heather she had to find a new place to live because her host family was moving away. “Heather simply said, ‘Just move to my house,’ and before I knew it, she talked to her parents, and they said they’d pick me up that Saturday! Just like that, the Kreps family adopted me (not legally), and my friend Heather became my sister.”

“They took me in and taught me everything about being American. Jerry and Marilyn Kreps became my American mom and dad, and they were there to support me during all the rough times. Mom watched me get in and out of bad relationships, and no matter what, she always stood by me. Dad was always there for me, too.”

The Kreps’ affection is obvious. Marilyn said in an email: “We often say that if we need someone to take care of us should we become unable to take care of ourselves, that we could depend on Jo and Craig to take care of us without a second thought. When Jo came to live with us, our older two children were grown and no longer living at home. They, too, think of her as a sister and our grandchildren think of her as Aunt Jo. We have been known to brag about her accomplishments and what she has been able to for herself.”

Giovanna said, “My Chinese parents live in Soho, New York. They moved here about 10 years ago. I always say that I am lucky that I have two sets of parents.”

Q & A

How much is the book, how many pages and where can readers buy it?

The book is $14.99. It is 208 pages. More information is on my website, www.WhyChineseWomenAreNotBroke.com or at Amazon.com

Are you going on a book tour? Starting when, and what places?

Yes, I plan on doing a four-city tour: San Diego, Los Angles, San Francisco and New York. My publicist and I are still working on the details.

How long did it take you to finish the book?

I worked on this full-time and in eight months.

What problems or difficulties did you encounter? How did you cope?

The biggest challenge was getting the interviews. Successful people are very busy, so it was very hard for them to find time. The higher up they are, the more difficult it is to get pass the gate keepers. I had a fair amount of roadblocks, but in the end, I got almost all of the interviews that I wanted. When times got tough, I felt like I was being tested with the same keys to success that are in my book. In a way, I felt that I myself was being asked to walk the talk.

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Front cover of ASIA The Journal of Culture & Commerce

Giovanna — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:54:53 +0000

The following article was a cover story done by the Editor of ASIA, Mr. Leonard Novarro on the December 11-18, 2009 issue

By LEONARD NOVARRO, Special to ASIA

$uccess $tories

Author reveals the secrets of 100 Chinese Women

“Despite adversity, limited opportunities, modest backgrounds and gender stereotyping, every single one of these women succeeded by combining their Chinese values with the freedom and abundance of opportunities here in America.
— Giovanna Pang Garcia

Photo by Areeluck Parnsoonthorn

Wan Ling Martello might have remained a behind-the-scenes accountant instead of becoming the CFO of Wal-Mart International if she hadn’t volunteered for a job no one wanted.

Lily Lee Chen may not have become the first Chinese female mayor in the United States if she had not walked door to door in the rain to register Asian voters in Monterey Park while sacrificing a pair of shoes in the process.

Dr. Alice bang may not have done pioneering work in the area of pediatric AIDS if she had listened to people tell her that women can’t become scientists especially Asian women.

These women became successful not because they beat the odds, but because they persevered, were driven by an indefatigable work ethic, possessed an unstoppable desire for success and never quit pursuing theft dreams — core principles that come from being Chinese women.

Their stories and 97 others are featured in a soon-to-be- released book “Why Chinese Women Are Not Broke: Real Life Stories and Proven Keys for Success” available at www.WhyChineaeWomenAreNotBroke.com.

Among the profiled: Diane Tang-Liu, vice president of research and development for Allergen Inc.; Sonya Gong Jent, vice president of operations for State Farm Insurance; Jennie Chin Hansen, president of AARP; Jenny Ming, president of Charlotte Russe; Ivy Chin, vice president of QVC; U.S. Congresswoman Judy Chu, former San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong, U.S. Ambassador Julia Chang

Bloch and, from San Diego, HIV researcher Flossie Wang-Staal and former U.S. Attorney Carol Lam.

The author, Giovanna Pang Garcia, herself could easily quality as a subject for her own book, after taking over her mother’s Hong Kong toy business at the age of 11, operating a computer solutions business in Orange County and retiring after selling it 10 years later before taming 40. But staying retired was not in the cards for Garcia, who tamed to giving motivational talks and seminars before deciding to put those same bits of advice to paper. Before she did, however, she thought to herself that there must be other women like her —successful and maybe not quite as known as the Bill Gateses and Warren Buffets of the world.

As she points out in her introduction, the average annual income for Chinese women in the U.S. in 2005 and 2006 was more than $30,000, compared to the national average of a little over $26,000 for other women. Unemployment for Chinese women is 3 percent compared to 4.6 percent for all women and 45 percent of Chinese American females are college graduates, compared to 26.7 percent of Caucasian females and 28.9 percent of all males.

Hence the idea for the book.

“When I started out to write the book, I had one vision in mind. I thought I would write down my personal feelings and keys to success I took to help others,” said Garcia. “Then I thought ‘Who else can I interview with similar backgrounds and wisdom?’ I started with 25 and it grew and led to people and names I never thought of and the whole project became bigger and bigger.”

As she collected her stories, Garcia discovered a common thread and in her book writes that “despite adversity, limited opportunities, modest backgrounds and gender stereotyping, every single one of these women succeeded by combining theft Chinese values with the freedom and abundance of opportunities here in America. That key to any success,” she added, “in to embrace “the same core values.”

In Martello’s case, she saw opportunity when a management job at another company opened up. No one would take it because the two previous managers were fired. Without any management experience, she volunteered and credits that with her rise in the company and later landing her the position at Wal-Mart, where, in four years, she took the company from $60 billion to $100 billion in earnings.

Adversity never got in the way of Lily Lee Chen. Deciding to run for mayor of Monterey Park, she stood no chance of election without the Asian vote. The problem: Asians had the lowest voter registration of any group. “The big challenge was getting them registered,” said Garcia. “She walked in the rain door to door, getting her shoes drenched. One woman handed her a pair of shoes. She did everything. She would have booths in front of supermarkets. In the evening she would leave the house in the middle of dinner to be at those booths. There were a lot of hurdles, but she won.”Garcia also found that most of these women experienced prejudice. Huang was told by so many men that as a woman “she didn’t belong” in science, according to Garcia. In 1979, she went on to become director of the Laboratories of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital in Boston, where she established a unit dealing with childhood viral diseases and founded the second National institute of Health clinical trial group for pediatric AIDS.

Underlying every story, said Garcia is, “the possibility of hope. I love any story that gives the message that there is always hope and there are always going to be better days.”

Garcia, herself, lived such a story.

Working in her mother’s shop in Hong Kong, she ran everything by the time she was 11, opening at 8 a.m., stopping by after school to relieve her mother so she could run chores, doing homework for two hours, then returning to work until 9 p.m.

“Toys for me were never fun. It was about money. It was a business,” she recalled. Wanting more, she persuaded her father to send her to this country for an education.

Arriving in America to attend school, like most immigrants, she encountered prejudice. “I didn’t speak English. I thought ‘If I could be American, it would never happen again.’ I tried so hard to be American and never looked back.”

In exchange, she left her cultural identify, and it wasn’t until she had a son, Dylan, now 2, with husband, Craig Garcia , that she realized how much she was not in touch with her own roots. “Then I wrote the book and everything synchronized for me,” said Garcia, who is determined that her son not only remains in touch with his culture, but that he enjoys the balanced childhood she never had.

Success is not magic. Nor is it luck, Garcia maintains. It’s about approaching business with a somewhat different frame of mind than most Westerners.

For one, be flexible and adjust to the economic climate, she says. When the dot-corn bust hit in the early 2000s, Garcia converted her business from hardware to solutions. “If you’re narrow-minded, you will miss out on opportunities,” she said. “More millionaires are created in a depression, like the one we’re in now. Make adjustments quickly.”

Also, do what you are passionate about. “You have to live with your passion,” she said. “It’s a natural high for me to stay up to three and four in the morning to do what I do. There’s no taking shortcuts. Working hard is the right way.”

Garcia refers to her book as “Chicken Soup for the Soul Meets 7 Habits of Highly Efficient People.”

She says: “What inspires me the most is the human spirit, the drive, the faith in what we can do and continue to plow away despite impossible odds and when no one sees our vision.” And that goes for anyone — man or woman, Chinese or otherwise.

Her favorite movie?

“Rudy,” most naturally.

“And I’m not even a football girl,” she says.

On the cover:
Joining Giovanna Pang Garcia are eight examples of successful Chinese women, clockwise, from upper left. Debra Wong Yang, Former U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, U.S. Congresswoman Judy Chu, AARP President Jennie Chin Hansen, Jenny Ming, Sonya, Gong Jent, Doreen Woo Ho and Former Chief of Police Heather Fong.

To learn more about ASIA The Jornal of Culture & Commerce go to: http://www.asiamediainc.com

News Release – San Diego

Giovanna — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:26:13 +0000

San Diego Author Giovanna Pang Garcia Explores Why Chinese Women Are Not Broke in New Book That Marries Chinese Core Values and American Ingenuity

Eight Local Trailblazing Chinese Scientists, Educators, and Entrepreneurs Featured

For her new book Why Chinese Women Are Not Broke, Giovanna Pang Garcia tracked down 100 of the most successful and influential Chinese women in America, convincing them to share their secrets of success. Garcia’s book explains how their core values and commonsense practices can be utilized by anyone willing to invest in hard work and persistence. Among the eight local San Diego County trailblazers profiled are Carol Lam, former U.S. Attorney, Dr. Flossie Wong Staal, the Florence Riford chair of AIDS research at the University of California at San Diego; and Dr. Lilly Cheng, managing director of the Confucius Institute at San Diego State University.

These women became successful not because they beat the odds, but because they persevered, were driven by an indefatigable work ethic, possessed an unstoppable desire for success and never quit pursuing their dreams — core principles that come from being Chinese women.

Garcia herself is an apt candidate for the list. She is Chinese immigrant who came to Southern California by herself at age 16 with no English training, started a business in her living room with $300, and ultimately sold her multimillion dollar computer consulting business before age 40 — without ever graduating from college. Since she sold her business, Garcia has been concentrating on inspirational speaking and workshops that provide practical advice for those serious about improving their lives. Garcia’s book grew out of her love of helping people succeed.

“I wanted to leave my audience with a real blueprint for success,” she said, characterizing the book as Chicken Soup for the Soul meets The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Garcia emphasizes that the keys to success are applicable to all people. “While I interviewed Chinese women – because that is my heritage – these same values have been brought to America by immigrants from all over the world. For hundreds of years people have come to the United States with suitcases of hopes and dreams. They also brought a willingness to work hard, take risks, persevere in the face of setbacks and live with integrity,” she said.

As she collected her stories, Garcia discovered a common thread and in her book writes that “despite adversity, limited opportunities, modest backgrounds and gender stereotyping, every single one of these women succeeded by combining their Chinese values with the freedom and abundance of opportunities here in America. That key to any success, she added, is to embrace ‘the same core values.’”

Among the women featured in the book are Diane Tang-Liu, vice president of research and development for Allergen Inc.; Sonya Gong Jent, vice president of operations for State Farm Insurance; Jennie Chin Hansen, president of AARP; Jenny Ming, president of Charlotte Russe; Ivy Chin, vice president of QVC; U.S. Congresswoman Judy Chu, former San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong, and U.S. Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch.