The LEAP Podcast

LEAP (Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics)

If in your culture, you are taught to keep your head down and stay quiet, how do you lead in a society that says speak up and be heard? Sometimes that means taking a leap of faith, doing what hasn't been done and taking risks. The LEAP Podcast explores these types of questions in the context of Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics. LEAP is a nonprofit organization and committed to developing people, informing society, and empowering communities. Two Tami/my’s explore with fellow API leaders and allies about their journeys, leaps they have taken in life, and how at the end of the day, they stay faithful to their values and bring others along with them. API women have often been taught to shrink and silence themselves - but our collective voices are powerful and deserve to be heard on our terms We telling our stories for ourselves and for our communities.

  1. Oct 23

    Leadership is All About Influence | Special Episode with Denise Lopez and Alex Cena

    ABOUT THE EPISODE Dr. Denise Lopez, organizational psychologist, leadership coach, and LEAP Board member, joins Alex Cena to talk about her father’s leadership, finding a grounded sense of self, and her new book on leading remote and hybrid teams. A conversation about trust, resilience, and leading in a way that is authentically your own. ABOUT DR. DENISE LOPEZ Denise is an organizational development consultant and leadership coach. Over the last 20 years, she has provided organizational consulting services and management training for various U.S., Asian, and multinational organizations. As an organizational consultant, she is known for her strategic perspective, analytical thinking, and ability to facilitate sessions that bring together diverse groups of employees. As a leadership coach and trainer, her unique strength is her ability to deliver engaging discussions and design creative learning opportunities that expand thinking, deepen awareness and growth, and identify concrete opportunities and solutions for personal and organizational success. Denise has facilitated strategic planning sessions for senior leaders in for-profit and nonprofit organizations. She has coached high-potential professionals, supervisors, middle manages, and senior executive education training sessions on diverse topics including critical thinking, problem solving, leadership, building effective teams, managing a diverse workforce, and managing change. Denise is Full Professor in Organizational Psychology at Alliant International University. She has 30 years of experience teaching at the MA, MBA and Ph.D. levels in the U.S. and the Philippines. She is the author of several research and practitioner publications on leadership, employee engagement, diversity and globalization. Her recent book, co-authored with Pearl S. Hilliard is titled, “Lead Motivate, Engage: How to INSPIRE Teams to Win at Work” was an Amazon new-release bestseller.

    Leadership is All About Influence | Special Episode with Denise Lopez and Alex Cena

  2. 07/21/2023

    Season 3 Finale: "Finding Our Way" interview with Min Jin Lee

    We end our Season 3 podcast with a special finale episode with our esteemed guest, Min Jin Lee. This episode was streamed from our 2023 Leadership Awards Celebration, “Finding Our Way” where the theme was designed to highlight the accomplishments of those who have defied odds to protect their culture and identity, as well as ensure our stories are being authentically told and preserved. Min Jin Lee Lee is a writer whose award-winning fiction explores the intersection of race, ethnicity, immigration, class, religion, gender, and identity of a diasporic people. Pachinko, her second novel, is an epic story which follows a Korean family who migrates to Japan; it is the first novel written for an adult, English-speaking audience about the Korean-Japanese people. Pachinko was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, winner of the Medici Book Club Prize, and a New York Times 10 Best Books of 2017. A New York Times Bestseller, Pachinko was also a Top 10 Books of the Year for the BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the New York Public Library. Pachinko was a selection for “Now Read This,” the joint book club of PBS NewsHour and The New York Times. It was on over 75 best books of the year lists, including NPR, PBS, and CNN. Pachinko has been translated into over 35 languages and is an international bestseller. President Barack Obama selected Pachinko for his recommended reading list, calling it, “a powerful story about resilience and compassion.”

  3. 07/14/2023

    Part 3 of 3: Exploring multi-racial identity with Akemi Mechtel

    In the finale of the 3 part episode, the exploration of bi-racial identity ends with LEAP’s Assistant Director of Leadership Development, Akemi Mechtel. Akemi has a decade’s worth of experience working across non-profit and profit sectors.After graduating from Augsburg University in Minneapolis, she started her career in education working as a tireless advocate for accessibility and equity in the classroom. After witnessing the barriers her students faced she went back to school to better understand the impact of policy in our communities, and obtained a Master’s in Public Policy. She has impacted both large government systems and small nonprofits to think critically about the way that race shows up in how we do our work, and build better systems that decentralize power, maintain momentum, and push back against the status quo.

  4. 07/14/2023

    Part 2 of 3: Exploring multi-racial identity with Curtiss Takada Rooks Ph.D

    This episode is a continuation of exploring bi-racial identity. In this episode, our hosts interview Curtiss Takada Rooks, Ph.D., a critical race and ethnic studies scholar in Asian and Asian American Studies at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). Currently, Dr. Takada Rooks serves as the LMU Asian Pacific American Studies program coordinator teaching courses in multiracial identity, contemporary issues in APIA communities and systems thinking.  Dr. Takada Rooks holds a doctorate in Comparative Culture, with an emphasis in cultural anthropology from the University of California, Irvine. Born at Camp Zama, Japan to an African American father and native Japanese mother, Dr. Takada Rooks now lives in Culver City, CA with wife Miki Fujimoto. They along with their daughter Mariko are active in the Los Angeles area Japanese American community.

  5. 07/14/2023

    Part 1 of 3: Exploring multi-racial identity with Karla Thomas

    Listen to this special 3 part episode with hosts Linda Akutagawa, LEAP President CEO and Dr. Yon Na, Organizational Psychologist as they interview Karla Thomas Deputy Director of Empowering Pacific Islander Communities(EPIC). EPIC was established in 2009 by a group of young Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander (NHPI) leaders who recognized the urgency to address the growing needs of NHPI families. Karla Thomas is the oldest daughter to her Samoan mother and Aymara father, who came to the U.S. from Vatia, Tutuila Samoa and Quime, Bolivia. She was raised on Serrano and Tongva land, in the city of San Bernardino, California. Karla serves as the Deputy Director of Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC) and has a public health background, holding a Master of Public Health with a focus on health policy. Karla is an alumnus of the LEAP Impact Program.

  6. 06/23/2023

    Who Tells Our Stories: An Asian American lens

    The increase presence of API stories in film is evidence of how our stories of identity are shifting. Tune in the LEAP Podcast Episode 6 with Linda Akutagawa, LEAP President CEO and Yon Na, organizational psychologist discuss with Center for Asian American Media(CAAM) Director of Media Don Young who is a longtime documentary production executive and advocate for Asian American storytelling. Don in 2022 executive produced the Peabody Awards Nominee Rising Against Asian Hate, and served as a planning member on the historic Vincent Chin 40th Remembrance and Rededication activities in Detroit.

  7. 06/09/2023

    Shaping the Asian American Narrative - Uncovering Millennial and Gen Z personas

    Kana is a narrative strategist and nonprofit leader with 10 years of experience launching programs, organizations, mobile apps and digital campaigns. In addition to Asian American Futures, Kana has worked on the May 19th Project, the Butterfly lab for Immigrant Narrative Strategy at Race Forward, Emerging Radiance, Omidyar Network and YCore. Kana holds a BA in ethnic studies and an MBA, both from Stanford University. Tune in to the LEAP Podcast Episode 5 with Linda Akutagawa, LEAP President CEO and Yon Na, organizational psychologist as they have Kana Hammon, a narrative strategist and non profit leader, share her insights from the report on the personas and the change of narratives with time and age.

  8. 05/26/2023

    Living a life of cultural “in-between-ness” and a road to multi-rooted belongings

    Dr. Vishayka Desai, who spent her childhood in post-Independence India, her graduate and doctoral education in the U.S. and had a globe spanning career as an Asian art scholar, President of a major cultural institution and is now a special advisor to the President and scholar at Columbia University, shares her story of her childhood, pieces of her identity that she used today and the methodology of her navigating numerous roles in her professional career. In this episode, Dr. Vishayka shares wisdom from her personal experiences and her cultural “in-between-ness” on how she changed the perception about Asian art.

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5
out of 5
19 Ratings

About

If in your culture, you are taught to keep your head down and stay quiet, how do you lead in a society that says speak up and be heard? Sometimes that means taking a leap of faith, doing what hasn't been done and taking risks. The LEAP Podcast explores these types of questions in the context of Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics. LEAP is a nonprofit organization and committed to developing people, informing society, and empowering communities. Two Tami/my’s explore with fellow API leaders and allies about their journeys, leaps they have taken in life, and how at the end of the day, they stay faithful to their values and bring others along with them. API women have often been taught to shrink and silence themselves - but our collective voices are powerful and deserve to be heard on our terms We telling our stories for ourselves and for our communities.

Information

  • Creator
    LEAP (Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics)
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    25
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 LEAP (Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics)
  • Show Website
    The LEAP Podcast

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