STAND OUT
Making Your Entrepreneurial Spirit Work in a Corporate Environment
Presented by the National Association of Women MBAs in association with the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College
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STAND OUT |
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Making Your Entrepreneurial Spirit Work in a Corporate Environment |
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Presented by the National Association of Women MBAs in association with the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College |
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Ms. Chu has acquired her professional credentials over a distinguished career as a senior corporate executive, ”intrapreneur” and entrepreneur. Ms. Chu is an acknowledged start-up specialist and savvy marketer with a track record of success. Her experiences have given her keen insight into the risks and rewards associated with taking business concepts and turning them into active and fast growth operations. She understands how best to leverage resources in order to achieve maximum return on investments and to produce shareholder value that is sustainable over all economic conditions. Her strategic plans have produced business and product launches that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. She is recognized as a highly motivational leader who inspires her teams to perform at their best.
Ms. Chu is currently President,CEO, and a Board of Director of New Basics, Inc. As a Co-founder of the company, she is best described as the company’s chief visionary, strategist, and marketer. Her ability to carve out niches of opportunity in competitive marketplaces, identify needs, assess the best ways to leverage corporate resources, develop products, and engage successful distribution channels, has been central to New Basics’ formation and evolution since its founding.
Ms. Chu founded New Basics on the merits of her invention, a liquid “pump and flow” system” now known as “smartflow” liquid™ technology. New Basics’ first commercial product was the original Hair Coloring Brush developed in 1999. It was the first-of-its-kind innovation - a hair coloring brush applicator where liquid is able to flow neatly to the scalp no matter how the consumer is holding it. It was designed especially to make hair coloring easier for the 50 million+ at-home hair colorers in the U.S. consumer market.
She raised in excess of $2.5 million in equity investments from private investors to establish the foundation of the company and to fund the company’s early research & development initiatives. Ms. Chu and her team adopted lean product development and manufacturing practices in order to maximize resources. Ms. Chu and her team continue to grow the company by leveraging a wide array of external resources and the most current technologies in its design concepts. New Basics has been assigned three US utility patents as part of the company’s proprietary technology and was assigned its first European patent in June 2004. New Basics launched its second product EZcolour™, a disposable version of the coloring brush in spring 2004. EZcolour’s improved performance makes it a hit among at home hair colorers. The Company continues to seek distribution through select retailers and through strategic partnerships.
Ms. Chu’s creativity and tireless energy inspire a talented, cross-collaborative team within the disciplines of project management, research & development, sales & marketing, customer service, manufacturing, and finance. While it launched its first products in the hair coloring category, New Basics maintains a deep portfolio of inventions that will further expand its position in the personal care industry.
Background
Prior to founding New Basics, Ms. Chu established Tygris Enterprises d/b/a Tygris Consulting in 1997 to provide management consulting to growing companies and to companies re-evaluating their competitive position in the marketplace.
From 1984-1997, Ms. Chu rose through the ranks at Fidelity and became a corporate officer. As a Senior Vice President at Fidelity Investments, she was recognized as a strategist and creative business builder. She was also acknowledged for her versatility; moving easily between the retail and institutional sides of the business.
Ms. Chu was credited with developing the Growth & Income series of funds and attracting billions of dollars in assets through the integrated marketing programs she devised. She also developed the positioning and strategic marketing plan that helped to attract billions of dollars in assets to the 401(k) business. She was instrumental in developing a cohesive strategic marketing and branding plan to integrate the services of over 85 brokerage branches and Fidelity’s four national customer telephone centers.
In the early 1980s, Ms. Chu and her husband co-founded Chatham Fields, Inc., an innovative mail order company that helped establish museum-quality American arts and crafts as a viable form of enterprise before it was fashionable. She developed a keen eye for spotting talent and unique products, many which are now household names but were undiscovered at that time, such as David Yurman (jeweler) and Simon Pierce (glass blower) that appealed to a high-end international clientele while building Chatham Fields into a direct marketing enterprise.
Ms. Chu began her professional career at Merrill Lynch, first in Operations Management and then Sales as an account executive in their headquarters office in New York City. She was promoted to the High Net Worth/Private Clients team and became the youngest account executive on that team.
Ms. Chu graduated with Honors with a BA in International Studies from the College of New Rochelle and served as a student delegate to the United Nations during that time. She pursued her MBA at the Stern School of Management, New York University and has studied Chinese at Columbia University.
Awards, Lecturer, Judge, Speaker:
Ø 2005 Leading Women Award, Girl Scouts Patriots Trail of Massachusetts
Ø 2005 Judge for Design of the Times, InStore Marketing Conference
Ø 2005 Small Business Administration Women’s Business Champion
Ø 2005 30 Extraordinary Bostonians,Boston Events Guide
Ø 2003 Corporate Citizen Award, Boston Business Journal and Citizens Bank
Ø 2005, 2003 Judge for Babson College’s Annual Mueller Business Plan Competition (Evaluated undergraduate business plans and selected a winner in this annual competition)
Ø 2002, 2001 Babson College’s Annual Douglas Competition (Evaluated MBA business plans and selected a winner in this widely recognized annual competition)
Ø 2002 Fleet Annual Small Business Entrepreneurship Award, served as one of ten judges. National Small Business plan competition
Ø Guest lecturer at Babson Graduate School of Business; Harvard Business School; Northeastern University; University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Ø Frequent speaker at industry/trade and association events.
Community Leader:
Ms. Chu is also known as a community leader with an abiding commitment to many of Boston’s not-for-profit institutions. Ms. Chu currently serves on the Board for the Center for Women & Enterprise (CWE). She currently sits on the Executive Committee and served as its Chair for the past five and half years. She recently joined the Board of the Asian Task for Against Domestic Violence (ATASK) and will serve as the Chair of the Programming Committee.
Her past service on various non-profit boards include: as a Director of Women Entrepreneurs in Science and Technology (WEST); as an economic development plan advisor to a 2002 Massachusetts Gubernatorial candidate. In addition, she has served as the Chair of the Board of Directors of First Night, Inc. for over eight years including overseeing its millennial event (the largest New Years Eve celebration of the arts & community); and was appointed by Boston’s Mayor Thomas Menino to the Board of Directors of Boston 2000, a non-profit organization guiding Boston’s millennial plans through January 1, 2001. Ms. Chu has also served as a Director on the Board and Executive Committee of The Children’s Museum of Boston; as a member of the Visiting Committee for the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and on the Arts Committee at the Boston Foundation.
Ms. Chu and her husband, John H. Chu, are the proud parents of a daughter, Danielle, who graduated from Brown University in May 2005.
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