Meet Our board
Like many Bostonians, I came to Boston to go to school and stayed. In my case, it was law school at Northeastern. The life of a lawyer did not seem enticing enough for the long haul. So, I left the practice after a couple of years, turning toward business consulting which was a far better fit. For the past decade, I've found satisfaction, if not riches, in a diversity of endeavors that enable me to use various skills from advocacy, to writing, and teaching.
I’m a firm believer in the motto: do what you can, where you are, with what you’ve got. I’ve served on boards (Josiah Quincy Young Professionals, ICA Young Professionals, Big Sister Association). I’ve raised funds for good causes. I decided I could not watch my neighbors suffer during this pandemic. I formed my 501 (c) (3) FAN Chinatown to use my skills in support of my community. FAN stands for Feeding and Nurturing, Friends and Neighbors, and being a FAN of Chinatown. Fan also means rice or food in Chinese.
My Boston Chinatown Tours have been recognized by Yankee Magazine/New England Travel, GoNomad, Edible Boston, and more. Twice I've been awarded the Traveler's Choice Award from TripAdvisor. My reviews show how powerful my connection to this community is.
I'm grateful to be a bridge between cultures and to have a meaningful opportunity on any given tour to share this neighborhood's rich history and delicious food with travelers and locals alike. Many tour guests ask what they can do. Now we have an answer. We can act together.
Jacqueline Church, (she/hers) Founder
Irene Li (she/hers) opened Mei Mei Restaurant in Boston in 2013 and has spent the years since driving the industry forward in ethical sourcing and fair and transparent employment practices, including open book management. Now, Irene and her team are evolving Mei Mei into a packaged dumpling company and Irene’s new venture, Prepshift, offers tech-enabled coaching and team-building to other food business entrepreneurs.
A Boston native and Cornell University graduate, Irene has worked on farms, taught in prisons, and watched perhaps hundreds of hours of YouTube videos on food and cooking. Mei Mei has been featured by Food & Wine, Eater Boston & National, The New York Times, People, Bon Appetit, The Boston Globe and more. She is an Eater Young Gun, Zagat 30 Under 30, and Forbes 30 Under 30 winner, and six-time James Beard Foundation Rising Star Chef nominee. In 2022 she won the James Beard Foundation Leadership Award, the youngest ever to achieve that honor. She serves on the boards of Project Bread, the Haley House, The Food Project and Lovin’ Spoonfuls.
Irene Shiang Li (she/hers) Advisory Board
Jon Eng (he/him), Board Treasurer
Jon is a Financial Advisor with Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in the Greater Boston area. He is active in the Boston Chinatown community through various organizations. He loves to cook - fancying himself an amateur at home chef and an avid runner. Jon currently resides in Quincy with his wife Emily and their cat.
Evelyn Reyes, (she/her/ella) Board Secretary
Evelyn is a career Executive Assistant. She’s passionate about mentoring and was President of the Big Sister Diversity Board for 2 years. She’s been a Big Sister since 2011. She's been a writer, Host/Producer, and Public Relations Rep at various Latino/a outlets. She also holds a Certificate of Fashion Design from Mass Art and is a teaching Asst. for Global Fashion History.
I am a communicator, marketer, entrepreneur, board member, and lifelong advocate for women. My experience has led to advising companies on effective messaging that yield positive returns. Based on my career experience, I realized that I could use my skills to help women advance women to leadership positions.
I am the Co-founder and Vice Chair of 5050 Women on Boards™, the global campaign that calls for women to hold half of the corporate board seats of Russell 3000 companies.
I led 5050 Women on Boards from its inception in 2010 until 2017. We reported and tracked the number of women on public company boards and provided that information to the public. We built an organization rooted in educating women on pursuing a corporate board seat, advocating for the business imperative for diverse boards, collaborating with like-minded organizations to move the needle, and reporting the statistics to stakeholders so that they could hold companies accountable for corporate governance practice. Today, I am still passionate about the organization's mission, and continue to provide strategic counsel while serving as director coach and an ambassador for the brand to achieve gender parity and diversity on boards.
Previously, I was the principal of Gero Communications, a boutique public relations firm specializing in consumer and B2B marketing communications for clients in the apparel, travel, hospitality, healthcare, and social impact sectors.
I am an active community volunteer and an experienced non-profit and government agency Board Member. I currently serve on the board of 50/50 Women on Boards board, and have served on the Boston Women's Commission, and The Brookline Education Foundation, More Than Words and Coolidge Corner Theatre Foundation boards.
Malli Gero, (she/her)
Advisory Board
Tracy Chang is the chef/owner of PAGU restaurant in Cambridge, MA. She is a Boston College alum, with a B.S. in Finance. She holds certificates in pâtisserie from Le Cordon Bleu Paris. She trained with three star Michelin chef Martin Berasategui in San Sebastian, Spain, and worked on his television programming, RobinFood, communications and public relations. She is also a teaching fellow at the Harvard Science & Cooking Program, founded by Chef Ferran Adria. Prior to PAGU, she founded a pop-up restaurant, Guchi’s Midnight Ramen and hosted events with restaurants, startups, nonprofits, and universities. She is an alum of the James Beard Foundation (JBF) Bootcamp for Policy & Change and its Womens’ Entrepreneurship Leadership Program, and a 2020 JBF Best Chef Northeast nominee. She is also a 2020 Star Chefs Rising Stars Game Changer.During Covid-19, she co-founded two nonprofit initiatives, Off Their Plate (OTP) and Project Restore Us (PRU) to provide essential worker communities with food and groceries. OTP expanded to twelve cities nationwide, raised $12+million, and restored $5+million for essential hospitality workers. The standard operating procedures (SOPs) she created for her restaurant PAGU, as well as for Off Their Plate, have been compiled into a comprehensive guide by the James Beard Foundation, World Central Kitchen and the Aspen Institute.
Project Restore Us employs restaurant essential workers to pack groceries for essential worker families in high covid, low income neighborhoods of Boston. The groceries are safely delivered to each home with a network of volunteer drivers. To date, PRU has delivered over 800,000+ lbs of food to 8000+ households and restored 8000+ shift hours. Chang’s work with both organizations has garnered her international recognition (the Basque Culinary Center named her the top 10 nominees of the Basque Culinary World Prize) and invitation to the 2022 White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health.
Chang resides in the Boston area with her husband, two young children, and black pug, Pearl. Her favorite pastimes are cooking with her kids and for her 97 year old mentor, Marvin Gilmore.
Tracy Chang (she/her)
Advisory Board
Iyleen is Malaysian Chinese American. She immigrated to Los Angeles with her family from London when she was nine years old. Iyleen is a National Civic Impact Fellow at the Asian American Women’s Political Initiative. She is the Founding Director of Mabel’s Ride, named after Dr. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, the Chinese American women’s suffragist.
Iyleen has been active in elevating the Asian American community since 2013 primarily with the National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP). She served as the scholarship director for the Boston chapter and later as the Vice President of Operations from 2017-2019. Iyleen got more involved with NAAAP at the National level, in organizing annual conferences and workshops focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion as well as career development. In 2019, Iyleen became the Chief Programs Officer overseeing NAAAP’s national programs including Women in NAAAP! (WIN!), PRIDE, Selfcare/Wellness, and Limitless Leadership workshop series. She also advised the DC chapter on planning NAAAP’s first in person leadership convention since the pandemic in August 2022 in Washington.
In addition, Iyleen previously served on the Diversity Board at Big Sister of Greater Boston.
Iyleen earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology and Asian Studies at the University of Redlands and her Master’s in Public Policy at Brandeis University
During her free time, she enjoys going to concerts. She currently publishes the blog, Concert Cover Girl providing stories and insights from her favorite live music adventures.
Iyleen Summer (she/her)
In 2008 Sam switched gears from management consulting at Deloitte to launching her own start-up. She combined newfound knowledge about tailor-made clothing with her creative and entrepreneurial instincts to launch what is now a household name in custom suiting: 9Tailors. She saw a white space specifically in custom suiting, where tailoring was not always meeting the needs and wants of every unique body that wanted to wear a suit. 9Tailors was born to fulfill the long-time demand for inclusivity in an overly structured industry.
In 2022, Sam pivoted again and joined a fashion ecommerce startup. She has been recently named the Chief Brand Officer at Grae Cove, in which she integrates love of design, storytelling and sales with her experience at designing thoughtful customer experiences. Outside of 9Tailors, Sam is also involved in the Boston chapter Ace NextGen, an Asian American entrepreneurship organization backed by the Asian/Pacific Islander American Chamber of Commerce & Entrepreneurship, has served as co-chair of the Equity & Inclusion committee for Phillips Academy Andover’s Alumni Council, and has been featured in Boston Business Journal's 40 Under 40. You can also find Sam on WeTV's Growing Up Hip Hop, where she has designed for a few of the reality show's stars.
Samantha Shih (she/her)
Lydia Walshin (she/her) Advisory Board
A retired food writer, cookbook author, and blogger, Lydia lived in the South End for nearly 40 years before moving to Chinatown in 2018. Currently, she volunteers as a teaching aide in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes for immigrants and refugees, as well as in professional communication courses for international research fellows at local hospitals. She also manages a postcard writing group that supports voter registration, voting rights, and Democratic candidates nationwide. While in the South End, she was president of her neighborhood association and worked with many local organizations (United South End Settlements, McGrath House, Hearth). In her spare time, she loves to crochet welcome blankets for refugee families while binge-watching British detective shows on TV.