Phoebe Eng

Author & Vice Chair, Ms. Foundation For Women

Phoebe Eng

Author & Vice Chair, Ms. Foundation For Women

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Biography

Phoebe Eng helps leading organizations tap into diversity to spur innovation and measurable value. She describes the phenomenon of "cultural fluency" and how our ability to be culturally fluent is vitally important in times of unprecedented uncertainty and change. Eng shows how our policy, program goals, and measures of success change when we truly apply key practices of cultural fluency.

In her presentation, Eng provides examples of companies, organizations, and social movements that have applied cultural fluency practices to create new models of opportunity enhancement, collaborative teamwork and stakeholder participation.

Eng has worked with several leading companies - including JP Morgan Chase, Procter & Gamble, IBM, Citibank, AT&T, Wieden & Kennedy, foundations, universities, and civic associations such as the National League of Cities and YWCA. Through The Cultural Fluency Project, Eng has helped design inclusion initiatives that have led to tangible, measurable results.

Applying cultural fluency to the arts & entertainment field, Eng founded Creative Counsel, the New York and Los Angeles-based media group of film, music, and literary artists that created projects on themes of equity, diversity, and elevating marginalized histories.

Eng is a past Vice Chair of the Ms. Foundation for Women. Eng also helped launch several networks to advance Asian American women's concerns, including as a Founding Sister of both the grassroots-focused National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum and the corporate-focused Asian Women Leadership Network.

She served on the Advisory Board of Working Mother Media’s Best Companies for Women of Color Initiative and was a co-founder of the national think tank, The Opportunity Agenda.

Eng is the author of Warrior Lessons (Simon & Schuster/Pocket), a memoir about what empowerment can mean through an Asian American woman's perspective. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and NPR, and in books such as John Naisbitt’s Megatrends Asia, Mary Pipher’s The Middle of Everywhere, Marie Wilson’s Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and Must Help Run the World, and Robin Morgan’s Sisterhood Is Powerful.

Eng received the New York City Mayor’s Innovator Award and the Arthur T. Vanderbilt Medal from NYU School of Law. Eng started her career as a mergers and acquisitions attorney in New York and Hong Kong.

Speech Topics

Walking the Talk: What Diversity Can Be in a Post-COVID World

Vibrant, Diverse and Fair: Creating the World We Want, Together

Fluent Leaders: How to Identify and Cultivate Them (and Why It Matters)

Testimonials

"The Global Awareness Program Committee was excited with her presentation and pleased with the opportunity to have her share in our two day program. Phoebe motivated our students and created an amazing interaction—the question and answer session was the perfect lead-in to our Student Panel Discussion. Phoebe accomplished in two hours what takes some of our instructors weeks to accomplish and that is to get our students to think critically."

- Delta College

"Phoebe spoke to an audience of around 240 students, administrators, faculty and staff. Some of the comments from the evaluation forms include: She is a good speaker; A wonderful speaker for our generation; Very informative!; Good choice for a speaker on this topic; Her example of hate crimes really got my attention."

- Delta College

"On behalf of the Board of Directors and staff of the International Downtown Association, we would like to thank Phoebe Eng for a great keynote speech at the 49^th Annual Conference in Cleveland. Conference attendees responded with great enthusiasm to your message. With the help of speakers like her, IDA continues to achieve high standards of quality in our conference programming. We appreciate her time, energy and expertise."

- International Downtown Association

"She was just super. A wonderful warm and interesting person, and a great speaker. We hope that she liked being at Bryant as much as we loved having her there. She got the conference off to a great start!"

- Bryant College

"Our goal was to enhance the workforce’s awareness and understanding of the value of diversity. Her keynote address made that goal a reality. Ms. Eng’s presentation was both educational and inspirational. Attendees enjoyed the blend of candor and humor with which she shared her knowledge as well as her personal life experiences."

- Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and Military Equal Opportunity

"Many thanks for all of your help with the arrangements for Phoebe Eng as a keynote speaker for the Women’s Summit at Bryant University. Phoebe did a great job as an opening keynote speaker and is wonderful to work with."

- Bryant University