It is hard to believe that Karen did not like speaking Mandarin Chinese or going to Chinese School while growing up on the East Coast. Her parents insisted that she speak Mandarin Chinese at home, spend summer vacations visiting relatives in Taiwan and attend Chinese Language and Arts school every weekend from the age of four through high school. While unhappy at the time to miss her Saturday morning cartoons (and summer day camps), Karen truly appreciated her parents’ dedication later in life when she traveled to China extensively for work. Her ability to fluently speak Mandarin, conduct business, and overcome cultural hurdles enabled the company she worked for to launch its first health care products into the country. aha!Chinese also provides Karen the opportunity to further make use of her creative side. While working at a top tier consulting firm, Karen grew a thriving business on the side designing jewelry. Karen has an MBA from The Wharton School of Business and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Duke University. She lives in New York City and has a young Mandarin Chinese speaking son whom she aspires to have the same skills, appreciation and opportunities for the language and culture that she holds.

Janet became fascinated with China at age nine when her father, a Chinese history professor, sponsored three exchange students from China to live in her home. Her father was passionately involved in normalizing relations between the US and China, and these students were a small, but important step. After college, Janet embarked on her own international journey, and moved to Beijing, China, where she worked and lived for 4 years. She was amazed to realize how much her time there would benefit her later career. After returning to the US and graduate school, Janet worked on Wall Street in investment banking, where she worked on numerous cross border transactions involving the US and China. During the course of her work, she became aware that she had a major advantage in bridging the gap between Chinese and US companies, both because of her fluent Mandarin and because of her knowledge of cultural subtleties on both sides. Never needing an interpreter, she was thrilled to command the attention of a room using only Chinese. Janet has an MBA from The Wharton School of Business and a MA in International Studies, Mandarin Chinese, from the Lauder Institute of the University of Pennsylvania. She has also completed studies at Beijing University, Qinghua University and Fudan University in China. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and three Mandarin Chinese speaking children.