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The AWE Salon Series consists of intimate dinners that connect AAPI women in leadership roles (or future leaders) with the shared goal of learning from each other and forming lasting, authentic connections. Check out our last AWE Salon Dinner featuring AAPI Women on Boards here. 

This dinner is with an inspiring group of AAPI women leaders, with a shared goal of creating a financial future of wealth and legacy for loved ones and for our community. 

Building Generational Wealth & Investing with Impact
Sunday June 9, 2024
5:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Private Residence in Studio City
Address to be shared in confirmation email prior to date of event. 
 

5:00 PM | Arrivals + Refreshments
5:40 PM | Welcome Remarks
6:00 PM | Seated Dinner + Conversations with Leaders
8:00 PM | Dessert + Connections

Dinner provided by:

Conversations will be guided by the following experts:

Denise Yi is a Managing Director and Private Banker at Citi Private Bank. She leverages Citi’s global presence and platform to provide strategic and tailored strategies to both domestic and international ultra-high net worth families and family offices. Denise is also the North America Co-Head of Women in Wealth. In this capacity, Denise is co leading the business development of a dedicated client segment offering and curating a private banking experience tailored to women.

Prior to joining Citi, Denise was a Senior Relationship Manager at HSBC Private Bank. Denise worked closely with UHNW clients, providing a range of wealth management services covering investment management, capital markets, banking, insurance, wealth planning and tailored lending. Before moving into Wealth Management on the West Coast, Denise was a Senior Business Analyst at Deutsche Bank in New York, where she supported the firm’s Credit Default Swaps desk and portfolio management teams to hedge the institution’s loan exposures. She began her career in the business consulting group at PwC where she worked with Fortune 500 companies, guiding them on industry best practices.

Denise is a passionate advocate for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and served as the Co-Chair of Citi Private Bank North America’s Diversity Operating Committee. She is a Steering Committee member of Citi’s Asian Heritage Network and was a founding member of the Women’s Network steering committee in Southern California.  She was named Executive of the Year by the Los Angeles Business Journal for their 2022 DEI awards*. She was also an honoree at the 2022 Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business Award by the Asian American Business Development Center.

Denise holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the State University of New York at Binghamton and studied International Business at the University of Westminster in the UK. She is bilingual in English and Mandarin Chinese and holds FINRA Series 7 and 66 licenses. Denise resides in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. 

Kristine Louis Reynal is a Managing Director and Private Client Advisor with Bank of America Private Bank in Los Angeles, California. Kristine provides customized wealth strategies and advice to a select group of high-net worth individuals, couples, and families. Forward thinking, she offers a highly tailored approach that is grounded in the unique circumstances and priorities of each relationship, resulting in a more purposeful and cohesive framework to advance client objectives.

Kristine directs a team of in-house specialists, each with extensive knowledge in a particular wealth discipline. Together, they support clients in identifying and capitalizing on possible efficiencies in multiple contexts of wealth: investments; trust and estate planning services; charitable and philanthropic planning; customized real estate lending; fine art, aircraft and yacht lending; secured and unsecured lines of credit, as well as preferred banking services. Passionate in her commitment to the arts, Kristine advises a number of artists and art collectors, connecting them to the specialized capabilities within the Art Services Group at the Private Bank.

Kristine joined the firm in 2004 from Citigroup Private Bank, where she spent seven years as a Vice President and Relationship Manager. Her career has spanned more than two decades in service to high net- worth individuals and families in the greater New York area. She earned her undergraduate degree from San Diego State University.

Kristine serves on the board of directors for Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles. She is a former board member, current council member, and serves on the investment committee for MCC Theater, an off-Broadway theater company dedicated to nurturing emerging playwrights. She also volunteers her time and voice to Vocal Ease, a New York City-based nonprofit that provides live entertainment and enhanced quality of life to senior citizens at hospitals, nursing homes, and senior centers.

Nanxi Liu is the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Blaze.tech, a powerful no-code platform that enables teams to build web apps and internal tools 10x faster. Blaze’s platform is popularly used by healthcare organizations to create HIPAA-compliant applications.

Nanxi was named Forbes 30 Under 30 and Fortune’s Most Promising Women Entrepreneurs. She serves on the Board of Directors of CarParts.com (NASDAQ: PRTS), a leading ecommerce auto aftermarket parts company, and on the Board of Directors of Grupo Proeza, a conglomerate in Mexico. Previously, she served on the board of Kindred Biosciences (NASDAQ: KIN), which was acquired by Elanco (NYSE: ELAN). She also served on the board of CarLotz (NASDAQ: LOTZ), which merged with Shift Technologies (NASDAQ: SFT). Appointed by California’s Speaker of the Assembly, Nanxi served as 1 of 5 voting members of the California DMV’s New Motor Vehicle Board.

Outside of work, Nanxi won an Emmy as producer of the Amazon television show, The Bay. Passionate about giving back to the community, Nanxi serves on the Board of Directors for the National Foster Youth Institute, the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, and the Los Angeles Police Foundation. Nanxi is a Partner at XFactor Ventures, a venture capital firm that has invested in 100+ women-founded startups. Nanxi graduated with a BS and BA from UC Berkeley, where she was elected Vice President of the student body and received UC Berkeley’s Leadership Award.  

Special Thanks to: Toni Wang, Member of Asian Women Leadership in Philanthropy Fund (AWLPF) housed at the Asian Pacific Community Fund (APCF)

Made Possible with Support From: 

More about Vucacious Catering: 

Kim Vu is the founder, owner, and Executive Chef of Vucacious Catering LLC, a Minority and Woman Owned Small Business located in Santa Monica, CA. Vucacious is a high-volume catering operation that specializes in off-premise, full-service catered events to local coastal cities and throughout Los Angeles County. Cuisine types range from New Californian to ethnic fusions, with nearly all produce sourced from the Santa Monica Farmers Market. Vucacious Catering focuses on preparing and serving as much local, organic, and sustainable food as possible and has been in operation for over twelve years. While Chef Kim Vu is classically trained in an array of culinary techniques, she draws from her diverse heritage as a Texas-born Vietnamese-American living in Los Angeles to inform and present her food.  

Kim Vu’s most recent work has been focused on entrepreneurship in the hospitality space, where she built businesses from the ground up or took over failing businesses for strategic turnaround and investment. She has led series A and series B fundraising efforts, raising over one million dollars in funding, and participated in management-led leveraged buyouts. A 20+ year veteran of the restaurant and food industry, her strong operational leadership and analytical skills were employed in the rapid expansion and opening of several local brands, including Pitfire Artisan Pizza and The Edison, where she worked in the corporate office. Chef Vu’s newest location, Sorry Not Sorry, is located in West L.A. in the West Pico corridor. Sorry Not Sorry is a playful rosé-wine and cocktail-forward beer garden and restaurant that serves fresh takes on garden party menu classics and alcoholic beverages to-go

Prior to entrepreneurship, Kim was a clinical research scientist, with a B.S. in biochemistry from Caltech, in children’s leukemias at UCLA’S Mattel Children’s Hospital where she published a peer-reviewed journal article about human diseases that arise from aberrations in the cell cycle. Today, alongside her entrepreneurship, she is a proud mother of two children and the translator-caretaker of her aging parents. Her next focus will be leveraging new AI technologies in the digital transformation and automation of her traditional businesses and refocusing investment capital into her real estate portfolio. She currently serves as the Chef In Residence for the City of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Farmers Markets, where she gives bimonthly cooking demonstrations utilizing seasonal ingredients from Californian farms.