“What advice would you give to your younger self?” is one of my favorite questions.

My answer is: Amplify your voice and self-advocate.

For some, speaking up for yourself comes easily, but unfortunately for many it does not.

It was especially difficult for me, having been raised in a Vietnamese household where respect for elders, humility and modesty are fundamental virtues. These ingrained behaviors translated throughout my life and led to a lack of self-advocacy from grammar school through college and into my career.

Until I entered the wonderful world of advertising. I finally started to flex my confidence—only to have my very first supervisor call me a “pushy bitch” to my face. Thankfully, he was only my supervisor for about a month, but this comment left me conflicted for years to come. Self-doubt crept into my thoughts and had me constantly questioning if I was being too pushy or not pushy enough.

That one comment inspired me to make mentorship my mission. I wanted to help pave the path for the quiet, modest or humble ones who came after me so they didn’t have to endure what I did just two decades ago. One of those mentees was my former intern Gia Lee, who I’ve proudly watched skyrocket to success and co-found the NinetyEight agency. She now inspires me with her confidence and is the reason I get to write my story here today.

Most recently, I’ve been able to mentor through our Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander employee resource group at MullenLowe. The agency provides incredible support to our five ERGs with not only funding but empowerment and executive sponsorship. James Katalbas and I co-lead the group, which has 18 members across three U.S. offices. New to this kind of leadership role, we sought advice from Bernice Chao of Asians in Advertising and gained the confidence we needed through her book, “The Visibility Mindset,” which she co-authored with Jessalin Lam.

We proceeded to rebrand the ERG as AAmplify, where our mission is to amplify our AANHPI employee voices and make a positive impact on our community, our colleagues and our agency through meaningful and diverse experiences.

AANHPI Heritage Month in 2023 was a huge success with agency communications and activations, including two inspiring speakers: entrepreneur Andy Nguyen and culture change leader Bahvik R. Shah. At our inaugural ERG leads retreat later that year, we met author Farzana Nayani, who reignited our fire and inspired us to pivot from focusing on cultural and educational activations for the agency to providing coaching programs for our members.

As we celebrate AANHPI Heritage Month 2024, James and I are organizing a career coaching program where AAmplify ERG will work with Nicole Cruz to help build confidence and self-advocacy.

This shift to prioritize our members’ experience brings me back to my passion for mentorship, and I’m grateful to have found my voice and to be able to pay it forward.