☆CORPORATE WELLNESS

As a side quest in my 9-6, I had the honor of serving as Co-Chair of the Emerging Professionals Network.

Tasked with curating culture across diversity & inclusion, I collaborated with C-Suite Leadership and my fellow EPN leaders to curate a monthly agenda rooted in professional development opportunities, industry trends & EDM music.

Working closely with @alinajan16 & @sydneymayes, we saw monthly attendance grow from ~30 to the hundreds. Our vision was to cultivate a community, within the advertising industry, where employees consistently feel empowered to knowledge share with like minded people

• CORPORATE MEETS WELLNESS: Employee Appreciation Week

  • Marrying fitness and corporate culture, I leveraged my fitness background to plan Omnicom Media’s 1st nation-wide Employee Appreciation Week, rooted in wellness initiatives in both virtual and IRL environments. Initiatives were activated in: NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Dallas

  • Events: Mindfulness Monday, Teaching Tuesdays, Wellness Wednesday, Thankful Thursday, Free & Flow Friday

  • Lead Mindfulness Monday sessions to 85+ attendees; leading students through meditation, dharma and yoga practice

☆ ORIGINS IN FAMILY BUSINESS

My parents own a donut shop Mr. Donuts & Kolaches in a small Texan town, where community runs deep and population runs small. Since I was a young girl, I have owned our family businesses’ social media and search strategy - building our legacy from the ground up. It has also been fun dabbling with food photography!

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Since I was a small girl, my parents have owned/flipped small businesses. Always a family-run business, my sister & I grew up working behind the counter in small town communities. We learned how to build and maintain trust, deepen genuine connections, work the cashier…and balance growing up in a town where everyone either knew of us or knew of our parents. My parents legally immigrated from Cambodia to the States in the 90’s; respectively to Maine and Florida. They raised me in MA where my dad was a manager at a milk factory and my mom worked at a tech factory while doing part-time as a cosmetologist. At some point in life, Ma and Pa decided to start their own businesses and moved to TX where my sister was raised. Our family business resume includes: liquor stores, convenience stores, plazas and bakeries…

And every time my sister & I come home, we are working. If we are home and my parents are working, then I am being Chatty Kathy in the drive-thru while my sister holds down the fort with walk-in clientele. My mom doesn’t let us take breaks - and if we are idle for too long, she will assign us a task.

It’s really nice coming home and working with my family. Our regular customers essentially saw me grow up through the drive-thru window. For example: my cross country coach still goes to my parents’ donut shop on a weekly basis. On holidays, my mom has me delivering stuff all over East Texas. I love doing these deliveries because I get to visit all the local businesses and catch up with familiar faces. Being back home in a small town is a lovely thing.

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thank you for reading.

with love,

monica

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