One of the most enjoyable aspects of blogging on Snack Chat is that I'm always learning something new. This proved especially true this week when I spoke with Vinay Bohara, who works in Frito-Lay/PepsiCo’s information systems division, about his experience leading the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month celebration at Frito-Lay’s headquarters and a PepsiCo office in Plano, Texas, this year. Vinay is leading this effort as part of the PepsiCo Asian Network (PAN), the employee group promoting diversity and inclusion at Frito-Lay/PepsiCo by creating awareness of and education about the Asian-Pacific culture.
To start, I learned the U.S. Congress designated May as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in 1992 to honor the achievements of Asian-Pacific Americans and recognize their contributions to the United States. I also was surprised (and impressed) to learn this year’s Asian Pacific American Heritage Month celebration at Frito-Lay/PepsiCo was bigger and better than ever. PAN hosted 12 events in Plano, including forums focused on career development, a dragon boat festival, (pictured below), a Chinese music concert, a calligraphy demonstration, a henna festival and an Asian culinary event. To top off the month, PAN welcomed reality-TV star Yau-Man Chan from “Survivor: Fiji” and “Survivor: Micronesia” as the keynote speaker at its event last night.
"An emotional highlight from this year’s celebration happened at the kick-off event,” Vinay told me. “Carol Gerard from the Frito-Lay Finance team told the audience of employees her childhood story of how she and her parents escaped from Vietnam on a small boat at the end of the Vietnam War to start new lives in the United States. Today, Carol has a wonderful family and successful career as a Director in Finance at Frito-Lay."
(I know Carol well from my early days with the Cheesy Riders bike team, and was very glad to hear from Vinay that she’s continuing to do well!)
Vinay also shared with me exciting news PAN recently received: The Asia Society selected PepsiCo as one of the top places for Asian Americans to work. This is quite an accomplishment for PepsiCo and the PAN organization, which has worked hard to educate employees and our communities about the contributions Asian-Pacific Americans made throughout history and at our company.
While May is the highlight of the year for PAN, the network works hard to support its mission throughout the year -- providing its members with information and tools to build their careers, giving back to the community and helping develop new business by engaging Asian-owned business owners with information and news about PepsiCo products.
In the past, I blogged about the work other Frito-Lay employee resource groups are doing here at Frito-Lay/PepsiCo -- Mosaic (African-American network), Adelante (Hispanic network), RISE (Native American Network), EnAble (people with different abilities) and WIN (Women's Initiative Network). Although I wasn’t able to participate in the festivities PAN hosted throughout May, I enjoyed talking with Vinay and learning more about what the network is doing to support our commitment to diversity and inclusion. I expect PAN will continue to make an impact at PepsiCo. The Asia Society certainly thinks so!
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