Juliet Fang
Northwest Asia Weekly
Leslie Holland
As the current branch manager of Chase Bank in Seattle’s Chinatown International District (CID), Leslie Holland oversees the bank’s growth, ensuring her team is serving the region’s diverse customers fairly, or buying boba hers from a nearby tea shop colleague.
“It’s a very exciting but busy job,” she said with a smile.
But long before she came to Seattle, Holland attended a primary and secondary school in the Philippines, the country where she grew up. She and her family moved to Los Angeles when she was 16, a difficult adjustment for the Netherlands.
“In the Philippines, I grew up in safe havens,” she said. “I went to a girls’ Catholic school and made a group of close friends. My worldview must have been small, so when I moved to America and faced so many things I wasn’t familiar with, it was a huge culture shock.
“My only real impression of America was the movie 16 Candles, so I was naive when I moved. All of a sudden, I was different. My world wasn’t the same anymore. I remember that was the first in my life The first time I encountered racism. I just had to start from scratch and navigate the high school scene on my own.”
After high school, Holland attended the University of Phoenix’s School of Business Administration. To help pay for her tuition, she worked part-time as a bank teller at Citibank, her first exposure to the financial industry, which she will be involved in for the next 25 years.
“I felt it was important for me to work for a company like Citibank that was recognized in the Philippines and in the U.S. It really started the rest of my career.”
Since then, Holland has worked at Merrill Lynch, Rayner Investment Management, and JPMorgan for the past 14 years. In addition to being the manager of the Chase CID branch, she is actively involved in a range of JPMorgan business resource groups such as the Asia Pacific Islander Pursuit of Excellence (ASPIRE), where she is a former co-chair, Adelante and Black Leadership Development Organization (BOLD). ) Wait. Her involvement with these advocacy organizations reflects her passion for fair employee and customer engagement.
“We live in a diverse city with a very diverse community. So, what we’re really focused on addressing is the “bamboo ceiling,” which basically describes the challenges Asian-Americans face in breaking through top management. When different backgrounds and different perspectives come together in one workplace, I think that’s when problems are best solved.
“As a member of the Asian community, ASPIRE is especially important to me.
Of course, we are all aware of the increase in Asian hatred since 2020. One of the projects I organized as co-chair of ASPIRE was a town hall to address questions about Chase leadership and how we can better support our communities.
Another ASPIRE project that Holland is a part of is a community cookbook featuring recipes and stories from ASPIRE members.
“We asked our members to really think about what food means to them, and we realized that, for all of us, food is how we connect with others. It’s the recipes that have been handed down that remind us of our grandmother’s cooking, or Family gatherings that cannot be held because of the pandemic. Food is more than nutrition.”
This cookbook features dishes from Asian cultures, including Filipino, Vietnamese, and Chinese. Each recipe includes not only detailed instructions and pictures of the dish, but also a description of what the food means to the author of the recipe. Other groups, such as Adelante, JPMorgan’s business group are committed to “[promoting] Professional development and leadership opportunities for Hispanic and Latino employees,” has done similar community cookbook projects.
All business groups in which the Netherlands is involved (Women on the Move, ASPIRE, Adelante, BOLD, etc.) share a common theme of diversity, inclusion and career advancement for underrepresented individuals in top management, such as women, Asian American, Black and Hispanic/Latino. According to JP Morgan, the goal of their 70-plus business resource groups is to help the company’s “employees reach their full potential.”
“While these programs target different groups, all of them share the same struggles. We all know what it’s like to be different, which makes us a great resource for learning and supporting each other.”
Holland recently stepped down as co-chair of ASPIRE to focus on her role as branch manager, but she continues to be involved as a member and loyal ally of JP Morgan’s many business resource groups.
“I think being an ally means seeking to understand people and experiences you are unfamiliar with, to really show support and learn from others, even if you may disagree with them. We all want the same things and we have to support each other to achieve our goals .”
Juliet can reach info@nwasianweekly.com.
