Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Pacific Island Knowledge 2 Action Resources (PIK2AR) and  Pacific Island Business Alliance (PIBA) Susi Feltch-Malohifo’ou joined us for an interview recently on StartUp SLC podcast. She talked about the roots of the organization, the power of community coming together, and how to get involved.  Highlights here:

PIK2AR is a five-year startup Community Based organization 501 c 3 with 3 focuses –  the Pacific Island Business Alliance is one of those areas of focus and was born out of the community need for help with their businesses.

Susi said, “What I first recognized was the cultural translation – the lack of system understanding of how each of these (business) systems work and how to make this work for Pacific Islanders, to understand where our cultural norms were.”

We held our very first gathering in 2005 and I believe we had like 7 people show up and only one was an actual business. Now, we have slowly grown to a quality-over-quantity organization with a much larger membership. This year’s directory has identified 200 Pacific Islander owned businesses in Utah. We are still in gathering mode and focused on driving membership and support.

Read more here: https://slcecondev.com/2021/02/01/helping-utahs-pacific-islander-business-flourish/