Upwardly Mobile Asian American Women Honored for Breaking Barriers

Chicago IL: Chicago Foundation for Women (CFW) held its Tenth Annual Breaking Barriers Awards fundraising reception on Tuesday, May 7, 2013 at downtown Sunda New Asian Restaurant (110 W. Illinois Street). The CFW Asian American Leadership Council (AALC) honored pioneering Asian and Asian American women in the metropolitan Chicago area, who have made an outstanding and lasting impact in their respective fields. Honorees this year were women across a variety of disciplines and professions, who have been “the first” or among the earliest to have achieved a level of leadership and visibility that has paved the way for others.

They were Shradha Agarwal, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, ContextMedia, Inc.; Libby Chiu, retired Chief of Staff, Illinois Arts Council; Madhuvanti Ghose, Alsdorf Assoc. Curator of Indian, Southeast Asian, Himalayan and Islamic Art, Art Institute of Chicago; Ngoan Le, Vice President of Program, Chicago Community Trust; Tuyet Le, Executive Director, Asian American Advancing Justice-Chicago; Josina Morita, Director, United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations; Prem Sharma, Founder, Apna Ghar; Joanna Su, Manager of Community Systems and Capacity Building, Governor’s Office of Early Childhood Development; Liz Thomson, Asst. Director of the Gender and Sexuality Center, University of Illinois at Chicago; and Lisa Yun Lee, Director of the School of Art and Art History, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago.

CFW President and CEO K. Sujata welcomed guests by restating the CFW mission. She recounted her own example of applying long ago to head Apna Ghar with practically no experience in not-for-profit philanthropy and being grilled by an actually very supportive Prem Sharma. AALC Co-Chair Munira Patel offered some opening remarks, before Co-Chair Angela Vasandani recognized each honoree in turn by highlighting their achievements described more fully in the detailed program.

Shradha Agarwal, who launched her first media enterprise at age 9, currently designs and supervises expansion initiatives that have doubled her company’s growth. She is an angel investor, conference speaker, and startup advisor, mentoring at Founder Institute, serving on the board of Northwestern Student Holdings, and participating at YEC, 1871, CEO, IIEE, The Executives’ Club of Chicago, and Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Shradha was honored at the White House as Empact’s top 100 young entrepreneurs in the country. As broadcast journalism alum of Medill School of Journalism, Shradha has been in the NBC and CLTV newsrooms.

Madhuvanti Ghose has actively and visibly promoted the cause of South Asian culture since she joined the Art Institute in 2007. In 2010/11, she curated the site-specific Public Notice 3 (commemorating Swami Vivekananda’s historic address at the 1893 World Parliament of Religions) by Jitish Kallat, the first show by a contemporary Indian artist held at the Art Institute. After presenting The Last Harvest: The Art of Rabindranath Tagore exhibition, she is now leading the Vivekananda Memorial Program for Museum Excellence, a four-year project funded by the Govt. of India to foster bilateral exchanges.

Prem Sharma is co-founder of Apna Ghar, the first South Asian domestic violence shelter in the U.S, and is on the board of Indo-American Heritage Museum and the Governor’s Advisory Council on Asian Affairs. Accomplished artist and president of interior design company Alankar Arts Inc., Sharma is a member of the Illinois Arts Council. She is also co-founder and current president of Club of Indian Women and Indo-Crisis Line, the first 24-hour telephone hotline for Indo-Pak community in USA. She has held positions on the board of other women’s, religious, artistic, and professional associations, and was host on Indo-Pak TV show “Chitrahar.”

Tuyet Le is the Executive Director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Chicago that promotes equity through advocacy, utilizing research, education, and coalition building. She has focused on improving cooperation among the diverse constituent communities, on raising their visibility, and highlighting their concerns to policy makers and public at large. This includes community organizing, leadership development and legal advocacy, advocating for immigrant rights, affirmative action, voting rights, redistricting, and advocacy against hate crimes. She highlighted the ongoing struggle for immigration reform, a concern echoed by several other awardees.

Sharmila Rao Thakkar then introduced Aparna Sharma, who was being posthumously honored after passing away on February 9, 2013. A dedicated and passionate leader with a gift for inspiring people, creating community, and effecting change, she was remembered as a fierce advocate for immigrant and women’s rights. She was active in the Asian Giving Circle, South Asian Progressive Action Collective, and Women and Girls CAN. Most recently on staff at Crown Family Philanthropies, she also served as a program officer at Chicago Foundation for Women. Her mother Priti Sharma and younger brother Shyam Sharma, who had flown in from Toronto, elaborated on her exemplary character, their plans to support girls in India, and start a scholarship in Aparna’s name. While several of the awardees had affectionately credited their mothers for inspiration and being role-models, here the grandmother was especially recalled.

Kelsey Mesher explained that all event proceeds are going towards the CFW-AALC Silk Fund. The Breaking Barriers event began in 2004 as a partnership with the Chicago Chinatown Chamber of Commerce. It has since become a staple celebration of the accomplishments and advances of women across the Asian American community, as well as one of the key gatherings of Asian business and community leaders statewide. AALC is the most ethnically diverse among the five separate leadership councils hosted by CFW that similarly represent African American, Latina, LBTQ, and young women. The Breaking Barriers event had until now focused each successive year on women in specific fields: business, media, entrepreneurs, technology, arts, environment, education, and health. Donations to the AALC Silk Fund are re-apportioned as grants to qualifying organizations, e.g. Arab American Family.

The CFW host committee comprised of Anu Aggarwal, Sabina Ahmed, Monika Collins, Mae Hong, Grace Hou, Sandhya Krishnan, Nima Krodel, Kelsey Mesher, Kaberi Murthy, Munira Patel, Sharmila Rao Thakkar, Clarita Santos, Surbhi Shah, Vibha Singh, and Angela Vasandani. The event was sponsored by Sunda, Gail Ludewig, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, and an anonymous donor.