From Immigrant Outsider to Design Leader: No One Hands Your Permission | Claire Kwon | Volume X

One of our Co-host, Shruti's mentor, and former boss, Claire Kwon landed in America at 24 with an art history degree and almost no English. A professor told her an Asian woman had no business studying American art. She had no friends, read 20-plus books a week in three languages, and finished her master's in two years. Regardless, Claire rebuilt herself again into one of the most respected product-design leaders in the country, and into the kind of mentor who pushes you until you cry, but will thank her later. This is a conversation about starting over, about becoming a leader when no one gives you permission, about fighting for representation and equal pay from the inside, and about one idea that carried her through all of it: you make a decision, and you make it work.