Loida Nicolas, business leader, part 1

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This week on Pinoy Pod, Part 1 of a two-part interview with Filipino American business executive Loida Nicolas Lewis, chairwoman and chief executive officer of TLC Beatrice LLC and TLC Beatrice China and Philippines. A native of Sorsogon, Philippines, Lewis was the first Asian woman to pass the New York State Bar without having studied in the United States.
Lewis took over TLC Beatrice in 1994. That was a year after the untimely death of her husband, Reginald F. Lewis, who had built the company into the largest African American-owned corporation in America.
In this podcast with The Chronicle's Michelle Louie, Lewis talks about how she overcame her grief, balanced the needs of her children and kept faith in herself despite skeptics who doubted her ability to run the company.
She also gives pointers on how to do business in China, offers words of advice to those who want to follow in her footsteps and talks about her recent honor of being the first Filipino as well as the first woman to be inducted into the Asian Hall of Fame in Seattle.