Meet Therese Miu | Social Impact Leader & Speaker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Therese Miu and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Therese, can you talk to us a bit about the social impact of your business?
Our mission is to equip the next generation leaders by providing educational, relational, and financial resources. Rising Filipinas is a leadership program that empowers teen girls to be self-assured, resilient, & inclusive leaders. We are building in 2024 a youth empowerment organization designed to give tween and teen girls social and emotional learning (SEL) tools to build a strong sense of self. In Rising Filipinas Leadership program, women get and give peer mentorship, learn new skills, and have a place to be unapologetically ambitious. Rising Filipinas Leadership curriculum combats the mental health crisis by being a preventative program, meaning girls as young as 8 can enroll in the program or do the journal. With a balance of strength-building activities and real talk on important topics like bias and allyship, participants learn to embrace their leadership superpowers and reject limiting stereotypes about what girls can’t do. It is a mentorship program that enables youth to meet a diverse array of mentors with whom they explore topics in breakout cabins, inspiring growth, building community, and encouraging them to become change makers in pursuit of a more equitable world. This will be a nonprofit based in Los Angeles, advocating for platforms for Filipino/a/x representation through education mindset & culture. When we help youth have the tools to manage their emotions, value their positive qualities and communicate with others is a healthy way, they will be the change we wish to see in the world. Rising Filipinas overall vision is to create lasting opportunities for women and diverse leaders to emerge across various ecosystems and to help build legacies with significant impact that lasts for generations.

What should our readers know about your business?
Therese Miu is an entrepreneur, executive and dynamic leader widely recognized for her ability to lead organizational transformations on the leading edge of people and culture and founder of the nonprofit organization Rising Filipinas.  An immigrant. Born in the Philippines and raised in the San Gabriel Valley, Therese has dedicated her career to equipping the next generation of leaders with educational, leadership and financial resources. She is a mama to three warriors. For more than 8 years, she’s had her own creative agency centering women/underrepresented communities. Due to the pandemic and post pandemic, she was forced to remote learn her children and lost all of her income. Her biggest takeaway is that when you make the decision to downshift work and eventually pause fully, you feel the societal pushback. She was ready to reexamine work and family and change her narrative around ambition, dignity, growth and potential. She like working on projects on the power of creativity, culture, and community to move hearts, minds and policy. Maybe the generation will inherit a new paradigm where merits in work and family are both valued and career is a fluid, long game. Driven by a mission to build workplace cultures rooted in shared values and purpose — cultures that work for everyone while enhancing performance — by having an equitable relationship with work, investing in our personal and creative growth and network, discovering work of meaning along the way, and trusting myself and my story always. . “If ever there was a time in which strengthening our communities, supporting fresh leadership, building trust, and taking care of each other were paramount, it’s now. I’m all about empowering and uplifting the AANHPI + and/or working with Asian American Native Hawaiian Desi Pacific Islander communities and intersecting identities (women, families, recent immigrants, etc.) through various initiatives and projects,” she says. “The more you have that shared connections, celebrating diversity, culture, and understanding people the more you can elevate each other’s voices. And show up bigger, bolder, and more intentional”

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I would start with hitting up taco truck and explore Award-Winning Cal-Mex Cuisine. Exploring Los Angeles’ less touristy side will make you work up an appetite I’d like to take them to Grand Central Market. Then Visit The Broad Museum — Featuring works and installations by Andy Warhol, Kara Walker, Roy Lichtenstein, and more! But one of my favorite is to end up near Bishop. One of the most easily accessible natural hot springs in California, Wild Willy’s is one of many undeveloped, scenic springs found throughout the Mammoth Lakes region. Here, warm water bubbles up into two human-made pools, including one shaped like a small heart.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Shoutout to Jennifer Estacio and Romeo Garcia- I have always appreciated their commitment to equity and community. Through KUBO they give us the space to grow, evolve, and creatively express ourselves. Kubo was founded in 2019 with a social enterprise mission to promote Filipinx creatives and create a philanthropic give-back platform via their nonprofit KUBO Filipinx Community Organizing Project. Also my husband Jeff Miu you are my biggest advocate for my ideas and your dedication to making them happen with such ease and grace inspires me to create and serve even more. And to my three children Jeroen, Dharma, and Jada Skye -YOU teach me everyday what it means to be a thoughtful kind human for that I thank you.

Website: https://risingfilipinas.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/risingfilipinas/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theresemiu/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/theresemiu

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therese.miu/

Other: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd4C3VM-pB3y9LcFAM3Glv95mTyDAmcmY45GEYz8fQbVW460g/viewform