Chan Luu is CEO of Chan Luu, Inc. Born and raised in Vietnam, Luu came to the USA for college in Boston before launching herself as a designer of jewelry and clothing in Los Angeles. Her designs are now carried by stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, and Banana Republic, as well as in high-end stores in London and Japan. We met with Chan Luu in L.A. to discuss entrepreneurship in the design business, how she combines creativity with bottom-line thinking, and the challenges of maintaining a successful enterprise in the fashion world.

Kaizen: Your designs have been worn by many Hollywood celebrities—Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga, Kate Hudson, Christina Aguilera, Reese Witherspoon, Sandra Bullock, Janet Jackson, and many others.

Luu: It has been happening for a long time and, of course, it’s always exciting.

Kaizen: But your story starts in Vietnam, where you were born. Where in Vietnam did you grow up?

Luu: I was born and raised in South Vietnam, in Nha Trang. I don’t know if you know that town. It’s more toward the center. It’s a seaside town, very beautiful. I was born and raised there. But mom and dad had business in Saigon, so I did go back and forth.

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Kaizen interviewee Mary Mazzio was profiled last month in Forbes. The piece covers her various careers: Olympian, lawyer, filmmaker, and entrepreneur.

Read the article here.

Read our in-depth interview with Ms. Mazzio here.

In our latest issue of Kaizen we feature an interview with Chan Luu, CEO of Chan Luu, Inc. Born and raised in Vietnam, Luu came to the USA for college in Boston before launching herself as a designer of jewelry and clothing in Los Angeles.

Also featured in Kaizen are: student essay contest winners Farzaneh Farhangi, Kelly Foster, and Rebecca Robinson; Extreme Entrepreneurship Day; filmmaker Jeffrey Van Davis‘s discussion panel for his film Only A God Can Save Us; and guest speakers Douglas Den Uyl, who visited us from Indianapolis, and Federico Fernández and Martin Sarano, who visited us from Argentina.

A PDF version of Kaizen is available here. We will soon post separately the full interview with Ms. Chan Luu.

If you would like to receive a complimentary issue of the print version of Kaizen, please email your name and postal address to CEE [at] Rockford.edu.

Dr. Stephen Hicks, CEE’s Executive Director, was invited last month to the Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala to give a series of lectures on business ethics and political economy. Here is a Spanish-language interview in Siglo 21, in which Dr. Hicks discusses business ethics and entrepreneurship. Below is a video interview with Dr. Hicks conducted by Luis Figueroa on corporate social responsibility:

Dr. Stephen Hicks, CEE’s Executive Director, talks with Phyllis Johnson about entrepreneurship, coffee, and empowering women in Africa.

Part I:

Part II:

For more information about the organizations Ms. Johnson works with, go to:

International Trade Center

Export Impact For Good YouTube Channel

International Women’s Coffee Alliance

Dr. Stephen Hicks, CEE’s executive director, talks with guest speaker Alexei Marcoux about moral partiality in business practice.

Part I:

Part II:

John Chisholm, CEO of John Chisholm Ventures and Kaizen interviewee, gives a video lecture for the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship.

In “Teaching Capitalism in the Last Days of the USSR,” Steve Mariotti discusses his experience teaching capitalism and business to students in the final days of the USSR as it was changing to Russia.

Mariotti is a Kaizen interviewee and the founder of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). Before NFTE, Mariotti was a successful entrepreneur and a teacher in some of New York’s most challenging schools. Because of his innovative methods for teaching business concepts, Mariotti was named Teacher of the Year for New York State in 1988.

In our latest issue of Kaizen we feature an interview with Jack Stack, Founder and CEO of SRC Holdings Corporation, author of The Great Game of Business and A Stake in the Outcome, and “Father of Open-book Management” (Inc. Magazine).

Also featured in Kaizen are student essay contest winners Sarah Boykin, Shelly Wenzel, and Bethany Borgmann, and guest speakers Michael Strong and Magatte Wade.

A PDF version of Kaizen is available here. We will soon post separately the full interview with Mr. Stack.

If you would like to receive a complimentary issue of the print version of Kaizen, please email your name and postal address to CEE [at] Rockford.edu.

Norm Augustine believes that America is falling behind other countries like China and India in technological innovation. This is because our culture portrays engineers and scientists as nerds rather than venerating them, because our educational system deemphasizes science and math, and because we don’t invest enough in long-term basic research. “Despite what many Americans believe,” he writes, “our nation does not possess an innate knack for greatness.  Greatness must be worked for and won by each new generation.”

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Read our Kaizen interview with Judy Estrin, in which she covers similar themes.