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44
FEATURE
THE PROBLEM SOLVER
Photo by Annie Ray.
BY JENNY HOFF
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32
20
GIVE BACK Soaring Spirits International
30
FROM THE DESK OF Writer Juli Berwald
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A CHAT WITH Mikaila Ulmer
34
PROFILE Austin Urban Technology Movement
52
SEE HER WORK OMG Squee’s Sarah Lim
54
WHAT’S COOKIN’ Concina-54
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I AM AUSTIN WOMAN Usha Boddapu
ATX WOMEN TO WATCH
34
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10 | AUSTIN WOMAN | AUGUST 2020
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JANET MCCULLAR
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DR. OMERINE ASEH
40
TENESHA WARDS
41
COOKIE BANDEL
42
LAKESHA SMALL
From the Desk of illustration by Madison Weakley. Mikaila Ulmer photo courtesy of Me and the Bees Lemonade. Profile photo courtesy of Austin Urban Technology Movement. See Her Work photo by Sarah Lim. What’s Cookin’ photo courtesy of Concina-54.
CONTENTS | AUGUST
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VOLUME 18, ISSUE 12
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Photographer, “The Problem Solver,” Page 44 • Is a romance novel fanatic
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On her reading list: Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa
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Delilah Alvarado, Ariana Arredondo, Katya Bandouil, Kylie Birchfield, Alecs Franco, Jocelyn Jasso, Trinady Joslin, Nica Lasater, Mackenzie O’Connell, Evelyn Williams, Jennifer Xia
MADISON WEAKLEY Illustrator, “From the Desk of Juli Berwald,” Page 30 • J ust got married
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Austin Woman is a free monthly publication of AW Media Inc., and is available at locations throughout Austin and in Lakeway, Cedar Park, Round Rock and Pflugerville. All rights reserved. To offer feedback, email feedback@awmediainc.com. For submission information, visit atxwoman.com/jobs. No part of the magazine may be reprinted or duplicated without permission. Visit us online at atxwoman.com. Email us at info@awmediainc.com. 512.328.2421 | 7401 West Slaughter Lane, Austin, TX 78739
JENNIFER XIA Writer, “From the Desk of Juli Berwald,” Page 30 • Pours the milk first before the cereal • Lactose intolerant but that never stops her from being cheesy • Majoring in journalism but minoring in taking four-hour afternoon naps On her reading list: All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
ATXWOMAN.COM | 13
FROM THE EDITOR
Each year, we dedicate an issue to
CURRENTLY READING
exploring STEM industries in Austin and the women transforming them. This issue’s cover woman, Lisa Su, exemplifies the high caliber of leadership in our city. Su joined Advanced Micro Devices when its stock was at an all-time low and famously turned the company around. Her industry knowledge and reputation are exceptional, but I was most struck by her deep commitment to relationship. While some STEM roles and leaders can seem shrouded in numbers and data, Su brings humanity to her role. From keeping family her No. 1 priority to making time for mentorship, she invests in the people around her. Like many of the women we feature in this magazine, Su shares a drive to give back with the other incredible women in this issue. From Michelle Dippel, a vice president at HNTB, who co-founded a nonprofit for widows after she lost her own husband to the women bridging the racial divide in STEM at Austin Urban Technology Movement, the women on the following pages didn’t stop when they reached the top but looked behind them to see who they could bring with them. I hope this issue provides a much-needed spark of inspiration and creativity when many of us are in a pandemic slump. It’s hard to look at the adorable macarons from OMG Squee or read about 15-year-old CEO and entrepreneur Mikaila Ulmer without wanting to create! This issue is also personally significant for me as it’s my last on staff with Austin Woman. For the past two and a half years, I’ve had the privilege of sharing women’s stories and celebrating their achievements. As a native Austinite, my time at this magazine has offered an even richer understanding of my hometown and the amazing leaders, artists, chefs, small-business owners, philanthropists and advocates I’ve met have been the highlight of my job. For the past five months, I’ve served as the interim managing editor and am now passing the baton. While I’ll miss so many things about Austin Woman, I’m looking forward to a new chapter and cheering on the magazine as a reader. Thank you to my tireless coworkers, our talented freelance writers, our amazing interns and you, our lovely readers! I’m grateful for your support and hope you’ll keep in touch. Happy reading!
COURTNEY RUNN
Editor
14 | AUSTIN WOMAN | AUGUST 2020
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Mama Sana Vibrant Woman: Trachell Trice turns down more birthday party invites than she accepts. As the Birth Support Program Director at Mama Sana Vibrant Woman, she often becomes part of her clients’ families and has the chance to watch the babies she helps bring into the world grow up. In 2012, the nonprofit launched to provide low-income women of color with the resources they need in a nonjudgmental environment. With the advent of COVID-19, the team has shifted its services online to provide the support and love its clients expect. Self-care for Therapists: As Black women, Rakima Parson, Deanna Harris-McKoy and Sharon Edmond have navigated the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic and the trauma of police brutality this summer. As therapists, they open their laptops day after day to help other women face the same endless news cycle. Austin Woman asked them how they take care of themselves while professionally offering support to others and what advice they have for practicing self-care in this season.
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16 | AUSTIN WOMAN | AUGUST 2020
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Kate Sánchez: As a Mexican American woman in the gaming industry, Kate Sánchez is in the minority among her white male peers. Alongside her husband, Sánchez has built a community for people of color in the industry and forged the space she had been looking for. She shares how she wrestles with her own identity in the industry and how she’s using her voice and platform to fight for change.
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SOARING SPIRITS
After losing their own husbands, Michelle Dippel and Michele Neff Hernandez created a nonprofit to care for fellow widows. BY TRINADY JOSLIN
Sitting in the parking lot of a cemetery, Michelle Dippel and Michele Neff Hernandez began jotting ideas down on a napkin. They had just returned from visiting Dippel’s late husband’s grave site. “We started talking about how we couldn't imagine having walked this widowed path without each other, and what a gift it was that we had been introduced,” Dippel says. In 2005, they were both widowed after Neff Hernandez’s husband died in a cycling accident in late August and, several months later, Dippel’s husband passed away from cancer.
20 | AUSTIN WOMAN | AUGUST 2020
After being introduced by a family member who knew both women, Neff Hernandez says she wasn’t quite sure what to say. “I remember thinking, ‘I wonder what should I tell her,’” Neff Hernandez says. “‘This the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Is it also the worst thing ever happened to you?’” Three months after their initial meeting, Dippel reached out and the two women began emailing regularly about widowhood and their daily lives. Eventually, they started traveling back and forth between Neff Hernandez’s home in California, and Dippel’s in Austin. “[We wondered] how could we recreate this for other people because we felt like we were probably in so much of a better place just because we had someone who got it,” Dippel says. A year later, the words on the napkin became the foundation for Soaring Spirits International. Neff Hernandez runs the nonprofit full time, while Dippel works in the transportation industry as the vice president and Central and South Texas office leader for HNTB Corporation. In hopes of providing the same “healing agent” Dippel and Neff Hernandez found in each other, Soaring Spirits International provides widows with a support system. The nonprofit initially began as a way to match widows to each other and then expanded to include a chat room for all users to connect. In 2009, Soaring Spirits held its first Camp Widow: a week-long event with workshops covering topics like finances and dating. “You have a very different set of needs if you've only been widowed for six months than if you are a return camper who has been widowed for seven years,” Dippel says. “We try and create content for all of them.” Now, Dippel says they have three different Camp Widow sessions every year in San Diego, Tampa, Florida and Canada with people ages 19 to 84. Dippel says her favorite thing to do at camp is work registration. “You see people walk up…and you can see them thinking 'I am going to run; I do not want to be here,'” Dippel says. “They're sad anyway, and then this is just hard. Then you will see that same person two days later with five new best friends, laughing and completely comfortable.” Because they provide a peer community, rather than a mentor-mentee program, Neff Hernandez says people return to camp year after year to connect with each other and newly widowed people. As the nonprofit approaches its 15th year, Dippel and Neff Hernandez have remained close friends and are continuing to support widows across the world throughout a pandemic. Because of COVID-19, Camp Widow went virtual and the Soaring Spirits website now has a chat room specifically for people who were widowed due to the coronavirus. Their experience, and the experiences of people who have been widowed during the pandemic but not due to COVID-19, is something Neff Hernandez says they are trying to be mindful of, while continuing to support their existing network. "It has been really hard on some of our people who have been newly widowed or widowed during this time. They can't have a real funeral,” Dippel says. “They don't get to have closure. They don't have their usual network of people who might help them find comfort." Their main goal is to help people focus on the long-term plan but sometimes, they just remind people to do something as simple as drink water. “It's a step-by-step process of constantly reminding people the small things they can do that will have a large impact on the outcome," Neff Hernandez says. “The experience they're living is not short term.” Since its founding, Dippel says Soaring Spirits has served more than one million widows. Throughout it all, Neff Hernandez kept the napkin they wrote their original ideas on. “It's an incredible gift that we had a chance to walk through this together,” Neff Hernandez says. “A direct result of our relationship was Soaring Spirits, because what I wanted everybody to have was a Michelle. I wanted them to have what we had.”
Photo courtesy of Soaring Spirits.
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JULI BERWALD
Writer Juli Berwald recommends five books that combine her love for storytelling and science. BY JENNIFER XIA ILLUSTRATION BY MADISON WEAKLEY
Juli Berwald never thought she could write a book. She majored in math in college and lived with a fear of writing because her roommate was a prolific writer. “I could never write like her,” she remembers thinking. During her junior year, Berwald studied abroad in Israel but found herself disconnected from the people and the program. When she stumbled upon an advertisement for a marine ecology course in Eilat, she seized the opportunity and strapped on a mask and snorkel. Berwald had grown up in land-locked Missouri and was struck with awe as she came face to face with bustling cities of coral. Berwald became an ocean scientist and worked on satellite imagery of oceans before falling in love and moving to Austin, far from the ocean. But storytelling always tugged at her from the shoreline. After writing for textbooks and magazines such as National Geographic, she found the courage to write a book that came from her heart, Spineless. Here are her five favorite science books written by women.
ONCE UPON A TIME I LIVED ON MARS BY KATE GREENE “Kate was in this experimental habitat on Maui. She’s also quarantined in a separate space and is dealing with some issues: She’s gay and married going in, but that marriage falls apart. So, she’s struggling with those things, but the book’s also about, ‘What does it mean to be in a small space with many people?’ It’s about what it means to live here on Earth and gives you perspective on what we’re like as humanity.”
SPINELESS BY JULI BERWALD “[Diving with the jellyfish] was beautiful and otherworldly. But there was also a feeling of sickness because they’re a sign of an ecosystem out of balance. They walk this line between angel and demon and that’s part of what makes them a great muse to write about. I titled it Spineless because it’s about jellyfish and because I had to grow my own spine in order to write this book. But it’s also about the collective spinelessness toward our planet, that we are in a situation where we haven’t recognized how important our environment is to our well-being. We’re still in a place where we have a chance, but collectively we have to grow a spine. That means getting more involved in decision making and recognizing that our actions really matter.”
GATHERING MOSS BY ROBIN WALL KIMMERER “The book is little essays of inspiration that string together science and native spirituality in a way that’s very powerful. This book actually inspired Elizabeth Gilbert to write The Signature of All Things, but Robin is quite poetic in her writing and a very special writer.”
THE DRAGON BEHIND THE GLASS BY EMILY VOIGT “Emily literally goes to the ends of the earth to find the wild arowana, the most expensive fish in the world. But she’s also in a situation where she’s engaged and her obsession with this fish is getting in the way of her life with her fiancé. I love these stories where peoples’ lives intersect with the science they’re after. Scientists are people who fall in love and make stupid mistakes about what boyfriends they have. It’s always part of every story. Trying to bash down this wall of ‘science’ and the ‘rest of the world’ is something I really feel passionate about.”
30 | AUSTIN WOMAN | AUGUST 2020
THE SOUND OF A WILD SNAIL EATING BY ELISABETH TOVA BAILEY “This book is really interesting for our COVID-19 times because Elisabeth got very ill and was confined to this room. Someone came to visit and on the way up her driveway, they picked up a little snail and stuck it in the plant they brought her. Elisabeth just observes this wild snail and writes this beautiful book about its biology and how much can be learned by being quiet and just observing. It's a powerful read for these moments.”
ATXWOMAN.COM |  31
A CHAT WITH
The 15-year-old CEO shares her entrepreneurial journey, details about her new book and social responsibility. BY ARIANA ARREDONDO
With sticky fingers, 4-year-old Mikaila Ulmer stirred a pitcher of lemon juice, water and honey. The task was simple but her goal significant: Save the bees with proceeds from her lemonade stand. The recipe wasn’t fine-tuned but Ulmer was just getting started. Since then, her lemonade has gone from a stand on the sidewalk to grocery store shelves across the country. Now 15, Ulmer is the founder and CEO of lemonade company Me and the Bees Lemonade and on Aug. 18, she’ll add author to her list of accomplishments. Her memoir, Bee Fearless: Dream Like a Kid, details her journey of entrepreneurship and teaches readers financial literacy and social responsibility. Austin Woman chatted with Ulmer about quarantine, her book, minority representation in business and the Black Lives Matter movement. Austin Woman: How has it been being both a teenager and a businesswoman during quarantine? Mikaila Ulmer: It’s two roles, so, for business, it’s figuring out how to adapt my company to still thrive: keeping my employees safe, allowing them to work from home, trying to find new stores to carry the product, focusing on e-commerce. And then, as a teen girl, a 15-year-old, it’s keeping in contact with my friends, maybe planning a 6-foot apart picnic or something or doing Zoom karaoke. So, it's hard; it's a big change. AW: What inspired the title of your memoir, Be Fearless: Dream Like a Kid? MU: Dream Like a Kid was inspired by my speech [when] I introduced President Obama at the United State of Women Summit. The speech was about why it's important to dream like a kid because when kids dream, they dream big; they don't think of the obstacles or things that come in the way of achieving that dream. And then I realized, “Hey, that's really closely associated with fearlessness, going out there to achieve your goals and that's such a huge part of my company.” I was pretty much like, “Who would have thought that a little girl would be able 32 | AUSTIN WOMAN | AUGUST 2020
AW: What are some of your goals for the future? MU: I would like to continue coming up with flavors and make it the No. 1 lemonade in the country. That would be pretty cool. And then, another one is to hopefully become an investor or someone who supports other minorityrun companies. Because, for me, funding was the hard part of growing the company. So, I think being able to support and provide mentorship, based on what I've learned in my experience, will be really helpful whether [it’s for] kid entrepreneurs or woman-owned businesses or minority-run companies. I think that would be great and a huge help. AW: Why do you think it is so important to support other minority-run companies? MU: Statistically, we get less funding. [As a] female and African American, you get a smaller chunk of investments. I just think that the large businesses should be representative of the population. And there's not enough large woman-owned or African American-owned businesses which is why I think there's such a big push for people to support Black-owned businesses right now. AW: How have you been using your platforms to support other businesses? Did you go to any of the protests? MU: I think that for me as an African American female, it's really important to protest but going a little further, it's been hard for me to figure out what to say. Mainly because I'm so angry, and pissed off about what's going on, but I want to spark action and change. So, for me, that means signing petitions, supporting Black-owned businesses, writing letters to people who I think are trailblazers in the movement. I have not been a part of any protest because I have friends who protested and they were like, “It was a completely peaceful protest and then one thing happened and police started throwing tear gas and rubber bullets.” So, I personally don't feel safe protesting but that doesn't mean that you can sit and watch and do nothing because there are so many other great ways that you can help. So, one is saying what I think of the situation. But it’s also shining a light on Black-owned farms, Black artists, movie makers, authors. [It’s] supporting the community because, in some ways, our community is the only thing we have. So, trying to bless those others who also may be struggling just like [I was] to get funding.
Photo courtesy of Me and the Bees Lemonade.
MIKAILA ULMER
to change the world with a lemonade stand?” So that's where it came from, and I really want others to see how far dreaming like a kid can get you when it comes to business or pretty much just being a regular human being.
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Photo courtesy of Me and the Bees Lemonade.
BRIDGING THE RACIAL DIVIDE IN TECH
Austin Urban Technology Movement is giving Black and Latinx people a seat at the tech table. BY ALEXIS GREEN
Raised in a small Northeastern Texas town, Meghan Bates’ goal of working in tech seemed like a distant fantasy. Turning to those around her for guidance, Bates was left feeling disappointed. “I laugh [about being] in these spaces now,” Bates says. “There were many times when people I valued in life could not give me advice [because] they were never invited into those spaces, even though they were qualified.” As Austin Urban Technology Movement’s vice president of marketing, Bates now ensures nobody endures the hopelessness she experienced. Black and Hispanic workers are underrepresented in STEM-related industries. According to a 2018 Pew Research study, 9 percent of STEM workers are Black and 7 percent are Hispanic. AUTM is working to end racial disparities within tech by providing access to jobs, hosting events and creating K-12 programs.
Meghan Bates
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“[The] deficit in the Austin community and tech spaces can be solved if we start doing things on an aggressive scale to make sure [people] have the support that connects them to the industry,” Bates says. A lack of diversity in computer-related fields is not due to a lack of interest, but rather inaccessibility. According to a study by Google and Gallop, Black and Hispanic students are more likely to be interested in computer science, yet less likely to have access to courses, computers and role models. AUTM helps people overcome these hurdles and bring their goals to life. “This is a new day,” Bates says. “Even if [your elders] could not do those things, you [can] go into spaces and do what you set out to do.” Discussing shared experiences with her coworkers at AUTM empowered Bates to
Andi Narvaez
reconsider her place in the STEM community. “It helped me develop more confidence to say, ‘What I have to ask [and] my concerns and fears about navigating a space as a minority are valid,’” Bates says. AUTM’s support also helped Andi Narvaez navigate launching her career while pursuing U.S. citizenship. “It's tough [having courage] to apply for jobs knowing that there’s something's working against you,” Narvaez says. Feeling disconnected from her community, she’d given up on Austin— until discovering AUTUM. Now as the organization’s social-media coordinator, Narvaez uplifts the voices of people of color within the industry to “highlight the Black and Brown people in the city who deserve to be put in those places” that have shut them out. Encouraging diversity might sound easy, but the organization notes companies struggle with implementing change as the pressure of inclusivity often falls on employees of color. Before AUTM, Narvaez was often confused as to whether to be proud of her identity in a workspace. “It's tough being the only person in the room who is Black, Hispanic, female or an immigrant,” Narvaez says. “You're not sure whether to lead with that or take a step back because it may not be the most comfortable thing for people.” Beyond representation, the treatment of people of color in the workplace remains an issue. After a resurgence this summer in the conversation surrounding police brutality and subsequent support for the Black Lives Matter movement, corporations rushed to release solidarity statements. Bates, however, says this can be performative and “traumatizing” to employees working in these hostile environments. “Allyship is not just a press release,” Bates says. “Pay Black and Brown people well and provide education to your employees. That goes far beyond what a press release could ever do.” Implementing representation and proper treatment within the workforce seems daunting, but Bates remains hopeful. “I encourage more people to get involved with any piece of the puzzle and never feel like it's too small of a piece,” Bates says. “Everybody's building it together.”
Photos courtesy of Austin Urban Technology Movement.
PROFILE
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40 |  AUSTIN | AUGUST 2020 40 SPECIAL WOMAN PROMOTION | ATXWOMAN.COM
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THE PROBLEM
SOLVER
As the first woman CEO of a semiconductor company, Lisa Su is taking the tech industry by storm. BY JENNY HOFF | PHOTOS BY ANNIE RAY |
44 | AUSTIN WOMAN | AUGUST 2020
SHOT ON LOCATION AT AMD
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W
hen chatting with Lisa Su, it’s easy to forget you’re talking to one of the most influential, highly paid Fortune 500 CEOs in the country. With a quiet confidence and humility, she credits her parents—who emigrated from Taiwan to America when she was 2 years old—for much of her success. Their sacrifice, example and commitment to excellence have driven her achievements even from a young age. “You could say I had a typical Asian upbringing. The way I grew up was you study hard, you work hard and you always have to strive to be the best. My big failure to them was I went to Chinese school as a kid and my Chinese handwriting was horrible,” she laughs. “I always got a C in handwriting and it drove them crazy.” While Chinese handwriting might not have been her forte, fixing things was. Growing up in Queens, New York, she spent her time as a child taking apart her brother’s broken remote-control cars and repairing them. That curiosity and determination to fix an issue helped pave her way as an engineer and leader. Where most people tried to avoid problems, Su sought them out. “I was given a piece of advice when I was a young engineer at IBM that has really stuck with me. Someone told me, ‘You should run toward problems,’” she recalls. “If you’re going to work on something, work on something that’s really important.” In 2012, that mentality led her to say yes to a job with a very uncertain future at Austin-based Advanced Micro Devices. Recruited by Nick Donofrio, her former mentor, the former executive vice president of technology and innovation at IBM and an AMD board member, Su left a leadership position at Freescale to take on the roles of senior vice president and general manager of Global Business Units at AMD. It was a risky career move with the company’s stock at an all-time low and its long-term viability on the line. “I told her it was going to be miserable,” Donofrio recalls. “…We were wallowing in our own self-pity.” But Lisa can tolerate uncertainty. She understands that nothing exists; everything has to be made to exist. She understands that down to the silica. Circuits don’t just fall out of your pockets; you need to bring them into existence.” Su took the job and then took over as president and CEO 2 1/2 years later. Today, the company’s stock is worth more than $69 a share—a comeback story almost unheard of in this highly competitive industry.
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“She’s the Joan of Arc,” Donofrio says. “She did it. She plowed new territory and set the new standard.” Donofrio’s admiration for Su isn’t just due to her ability to lead, listen and make strategic decisions but for her desire to help more women follow her path. While tech is still a male-dominated sector, when Su started out more than 20 years ago, there were virtually no female leaders at all and certainly no clear path to the top. After spending 15 years building a stellar reputation at IBM, she eventually left for Freescale where she gained more opportunities to lead big teams, which in turn prepared her for her current role at AMD. Su is hesitant to speak of herself as an icon in the industry, preferring to let her work speak for itself. That could be due to her upbringing, where success was more of a duty than a reward and she was taught great achievement comes only with great effort. At the urging of her parents, she started playing piano competitively at 7 years old, practicing hours a day in addition to later taking public transportation a total of four hours a day to go to and from one of the most competitive public magnet high schools in the country, The Bronx High School of Science. When she decided to go to MIT, arguably the best engineering school in the world, her parents were almost as disappointed as when she brought home a C in Chinese handwriting. “I think my mother would have preferred I become a pianist instead of an engineer,” she says, laughing. “But I didn’t get into Juilliard. I got into MIT.” In today’s parenting culture, this might seem like extreme pressure for a child but it’s obvious Su respects and loves her parents precisely for pushing her to realize her full potential. And they never expected anything from her that they didn’t expect from themselves. “My mom’s been a large inspiration in my life,” Su says. “Along the way, even without speaking perfect English, she runs an import and export business where she connects manufacturers in Taiwan with trucking businesses. She built up a multi-million-dollar enterprise. And she is always there for me.” Relationships are the cornerstone to Su’s leadership philosophy. Part of her strategy in helping turn AMD around was building strong relationships with clients through honesty, trust and transparency. She did the same with her more than 10,000 employees. “She is showing that technology wins and good partnerships win,” says Laura Smith, graphics chief engineer for AMD. “She is all about competing with people at their best: open standards and an open development environment. She has the confidence that we on our team can compete with the best and beat them on their best day. When someone believes in you like that,
“”
you stand up stronger. She has shown the industry that that recipe can work.” Smith says the reassurance of working under such strong and caring leadership has given their team of engineers the confidence to create products that have helped AMD reach its success today. Under Su’s leadership, AMD expanded into the graphics and video games chip market, becoming the chip provider for both Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation gaming consoles. These strategic moves and the now soaring AMD stock has made Su one of the most celebrated CEOs in the country and earned her a slew of awards and accolades. Barron’s dubbed her one of the World’s Best CEOs of 2019 and she was included on Harvard Business Review’s 2019 list of best performing CEOs in the world, the National Diversity Council’s 2017 list of the 50 most powerful women in technology and Fortune’s 2017 World’s Greatest Leaders. In 2019, she was the first woman to ever top the Associated Press’ annual CEO compensation list. Smith says it’s almost incredible how, despite how high-profile Su has become, she still takes the time to mentor other women in the field. “I had her help me through what was a crisis situation for me,” Smith says. “She has always told me in our mentoring relationship to reach out to her anytime. I had a customer meeting that went sideways, and I couldn’t sleep all night. I sent her an email that said, ‘Whenever you have a minute, I would like to get on your calendar so we can talk about this.’ She called me a few minutes later. It was 5:30 in the morning. It wasn’t a crisis for her or the company, but she still took the time to help lead me through it.” Su believes relationships are for a lifetime, whether it be clients, colleagues, friends or family. And she’s a problem solver, which means she’s driven to fix problems the people in her life may be facing. Despite the fact she runs a company worth $66 billion (it was worth $2 billion when she took over as CEO), carries the mantle of being the only woman CEO of a semiconductor company and travels the world almost constantly, she didn’t hesitate to pack up and stay at a New York hospital virtually round the clock for three months when her mother fell gravely ill last year. “Luckily, we were able to manage through this,” says Su, pausing with emotion as she recalls those months. “It was an eye-opener for me. I had a great team and I would be sitting at the hospital doing conference calls. It was one of those times when you realize there are things that are more important. No one is going to advocate for your family better than you are. It doesn’t matter who you are; you have to be sitting there when the doctor walks in.” Su has decided if she gets a next life, she’ll spend it modernizing health care. But for now, it’s her own company—and industry—she’s heralding into the future.
If you’re going to work on something, work on something that’s really important.
48 | AUSTIN WOMAN | AUGUST 2020
Austin Woman: What are three pieces of advice you would give a woman forging her own career path? Lisa Su: “One, a good, strong education is very important. Nobody can take your education away from you; it’s your calling card. Two, be ambitious in what you do. I think a lot of women are afraid to think big but I would say be ambitious. And, three, take feedback to heart and learn from your failures. I really believe that’s what makes you better.” AW: How do you gain the confidence to lead or aim for leadership positions? LS: “I absolutely think leaders are trained, not born. I’m a product of that. I believe a huge part of success is when leaders are given training opportunities and do career planning. You can learn a lot if you’re in the right environment. What I noticed when I came here is we had a lot of good people but weren’t systematic in how we made them better. I want to invest in their success and give them training.” AW: How can women rise to the top in an industry that is mostly made up of men?
LS: “What I would like women to understand is in engineering either the product works or doesn’t work. You absolutely can be successful if you’re smart, ambitious and make some good choices. It’s not as intimidating as it may seem. As you see more women in engineering and tech, more will join us. Our team is about 25-percent women. We have a women’s network to help grow leadership. We have highly visible women engineers. I happen to mentor most of them.” AW: You mentioned this is a 24-hour-a-day job. What do you and your husband like to do in your rare free time here in Austin? LS: “We like the restaurant scene here. We especially like Lin’s Chinese Restaurant downtown. And we like to play golf at Barton Creek Country Club.” AW: I know your parents initially wanted you to be a pianist. Are they proud of you now? LS: “They’re proud. In the Taiwanese community, they follow AMD a lot. I don’t ever talk to my parents about AMD, but they seem to know everything about it.”
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AMD AT A GLANCE Founded: 1969 in Silicon Valley Number of employees: 12,015 Percentage of woman employees: 24 percent Main product: semiconductor devices used in computer processing
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SEE HER WORK
OMG!
Sarah Lim brings kawaii to Austin with her Japanese sweets. BY KATYA BANDOUIL
52 | AUSTIN WOMAN | AUGUST 2020
Photos by Sarah Lim.
S
arah Lim’s signature macarons are vibrant and meticulous in design, each more Instagrammable than the last. From photojournalism to her recent pastry endeavors, Lim’s colorful and highly conceptualized artistry is distinguishable in all of her crafts. “If you ever look at my photo work, I think it makes sense,” Lim says. “I like color and a lot of fun things and it came out of my art background.” After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin and completing a photojournalism internship at the Detroit Free Press, Lim began her career as an editorial and commercial photographer. When freelancing alone wasn’t sufficient, Lim turned to Japanese sweets to express her creativity. Originally from Dallas, Lim is inspired by her Texan and Asian American background when creating her unique flavors and designs for her macarons, Japanese cheesecake and ice cream. She also draws inspiration from her childhood experiences and her fascination with food science. “I was kind of a nerdy kid,” Lim remembers. “I would basically watch anime and cooking shows on TV and that’s about all I would do.” Shifting from the cooking shows of her childhood to online tutorial videos, Lim relied on trial and error to learn how to bake the treats at home. Lim describes her work as kawaii, a Japanese term for cute, and her designs range from Japanese cartoon characters to corgis to Lizzo. Seeing her realistic depictions, it’s hard to believe she learned to hand-pipe macarons only three years ago. “I failed a lot at first, then I got lucky and sometimes would have a good batch and then the next batch could be terrible,” Lim recalls. “Eventually just by practicing and trying a lot of different things, I figured out how to make them.” After sharing her homemade creations with friends, Lim debuted her macarons at a few local farmers markets. She was then able to save enough to open a permanent storefront, OMG Squee, with her business partner Michael DeAnda, offering Austinites and tourists access to Japenese sweets. “I definitely feel more understanding and love from the Asian American community,” Lim says. “They see it hasn’t been fully represented in Austin before.” Lim values her relationship with her customers and the Austin community. She enjoys interacting with them on Instagram, and hosting giveaways. In April, she hosted a giveaway in honor of essential workers. “Several people follow us from our very first market, which is kind of awesome,” Lim says. “We kind of think of our products [as] having their own life after they leave here and go on to new adventures. It's fun for us to see where our stuff goes and people enjoying it.”
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WHAT’S COOKIN’
ARGENTINA TO AUSTIN
Through her Cocina 54 empanadas, Cecilia Panichelli brings the heritage and flavor of her home to Texas. BY DELILAH ALVARADO
cuisine. However, finding authentic Latin cuisine in grocery stores besides burritos and tacos proves more difficult. One Austin woman set out to change this. After moving to Austin in 2002, Cecilia Panichelli was missing a famous dish native to her homeland of Argentina: empanadas. An empanada is a pastry turnover made of dough, either fried or baked, that can be stuffed with anything. It can be made hearty with meat, or sweet with jam. Panichelli grew up eating and making the pastry in Argentina, where they are traditionally baked instead of fried and usually savory. “I grew up in a big family surrounded by delicious food,” Panichelli says. “I would make batches and bring them to the office or for big gatherings and birthday parties. [Empanadas] were always a part of our lives.” Unable to find empanadas in Austin, Panichelli decided to start her own company, Cocina 54 Empanadas, to offer an authentic, fresh option that families could eat on the go. “I wanted something to fit into people’s busy lifestyles,” she says. “I noticed people just were on the go and wanted to cook something in 30 minutes and I said, ‘I think there is something here.’” Panichelli identified consumer habits from her previous job in the consumer packaged goods industry. Her background in the industry helped her develop a business plan for producing and selling her empanadas and her vision became reality in 2017 after a lot of research and recipe tweaks. “When you have a family recipe and it’s something you’ve [used] for so long, now you have the challenge of making this for mass production,” Panichelli says. Her business model proved successful. Individually wrapped, frozen empanadas are now available in multiple store chains such as H-E-B, Walmart, Central Market and more. This year, she became a finalist in PepsiCo’s WomanMade program which grants business funds to advance startups. Cocina 54 currently offers four types of empanadas that are gluten-free with antibiotic-free meat and fresh ingredients with packaging featuring an art design commonly found in Argentina called Filete Porteño. “Customers started finding us online due to COVID and they reached out,” Panichelli says. “So, we started delivering.” While COVID-19 has proven challenging, it has not stopped Panichelli from pursuing her vision for the future. She hopes that everyone who eats the empanadas gets the “flavor, passion, family, fun and heritage” she infuses in each bite. 54 | AUSTIN WOMAN | AUGUST 2020
Photos courtesy of Cocina 54.
Austin is no stranger to the various and rich styles of Mexican and Latin
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CAR MAINTENANCE DURING QUARANTINE BY CHELSEA BANCROFT
With many people working from home during quarantine, vehicles aren’t being driven as much. Leaving cars parked and unused for a long period of time can be detrimental. There are several preventative measures you can take to maintain your vehicle when you’re not driving it as often.
Drive your car at least 20 minutes a week. Driving your vehicle at least once a week keeps your battery charged and all the moving parts lubricated. Just turning it on isn’t enough; you really should drive it as well. Driving regularly also combats flat spots in your tires that come from the weight of the vehicle sitting in one spot for too long.
Disconnect the battery. If you know you’re not going to be driving your vehicle for multiple weeks on end (whether during quarantine or even an extended vacation in the future), disconnect the battery to preserve it.
Stick to your maintenance schedule.
Photo courtesy of Chelsea Bancroft.
Even though you’re not driving as much, it’s still important to stick to the manufacturer’s recommended maintenance schedule. Since you won’t be putting as many miles on it, use the suggested time interval instead of the mileage interval. This will ensure that your vehicle stays in tip-top shape.
Consider where you park. When parking your vehicle long term, indoors in a garage is always going to be best. Unfortunately, that isn’t always an option. If you’re parking outside, it’s better to park on pavement than dirt or grass to avoid moisture in your car’s undercarriage. You also want to be aware of what you’re parking under. Try to avoid trees as much as possible; bird poop can be extremely damaging to a vehicle’s paint.
Invest in a car cover. If you have no choice but to park outside, consider getting a cover for your car. Most cost around $150 to $200 and you can get one from the parts department at your local dealership. We carry them for Mazda.
Protect from pests. Unfortunately, when cars sit for an extended period of time, pests often move in. Some resources claim that peppermint oil is a natural rodent repellent and suggest spraying it around your vehicle to ward them off. You should also periodically check under the hood for any evidence that rodents have chewed on wires.
Chelsea Bancroft is the strategic-partnerships and social-media manager at Roger Beasley Mazda and a blogger at onechelofanadventure.com.
I AM AUSTIN WOMAN
THE POWER OF WOMEN IN TECH
Esolvit CEO Usha Boddapu credits the strength of women leaders for navigating COVID-19.
business world. Conditions have come a long way, but there are still challenges to overcome as we move through 2020, especially with the effects of a global pandemic and struggling economy. The COVID-19 health crisis has impacted every organization in every industry, but as a leading female tech professional who has worked fluidly for many years, I was able to lead my company in quickly shifting our focus. My specific success proves why the inclusion of women and minorities in business is best for our community and the improvement of our local, national and global economies. As founder and CEO of Esolvit Inc., I knew we had to pivot and make arrangements for employees to telecommute without a disruption in service for clients. Our retention rate has been close to 100 percent, plus we won a huge federal contract that increased service offerings across the board. Our growth has outweighed our loss. Some would call it lucky, but I say it was strong female leadership. My personal experience during COVID-19 has been very challenging. But the lessons learned over years and the leadership courses I have been taught have kept me going. I have been following the book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie for years. I also live by three things which I learned from a Rapport Leadership course: One, I am strong; two, I am powerful; and three, I can overcome. These three things have been our family mission. During the pandemic, I have spent a significant amount of time helping other businesses through loans and mentoring other leaders at more than 30 businesses. I am spending my weekends mentoring other businesses, guiding them through Small Business Administration loans and keeping up through the many other economic development institutions. As a female and a minority, I have had to work twice as hard to achieve my success. I have focused my efforts on outreach, networking, specialty exhibits showcasing proprietary innovations and our solution-based approach, plus expanding a new division with service offerings for government contracts. While no organization is alone in facing the challenges of COVID-19, I do believe Esolvit’s unique culture of female-led innovation has helped us to transition problems into opportunities. I am a value-driven leader. I am a proud woman minority in tech who uses my platform to help other women entrepreneurs do whatever we can to funnel our success back to the community. The number of minority businesswomen has significantly grown and according to an American Express report, one in three small businesses in 2015 were owned by minority women. Business growth among women drives the economy, equalizing opportunities for both women and minorities to contribute. I believe we
56 | AUSTIN WOMAN | AUGUST 2020
empathize and see the world in a different way, providing a special kind of insight based on our cultural experience and/or background. In order to be successful for the future of business, the economy requires greater participation from women and minorities. But just because the need is there does not imply the means are present. My statistics and success point toward progress; but it’s not enough. We need to give back to those just starting out and provide mentoring to help others realize their business goals. I am proud that I can use my platform to provide other women and minorities a voice.
Photo courtesy of Usha Boddapu .
Women and minorities experience unique challenges in the
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