On September 23, I had the extraordinary honor of attending First Lady Melania Trump’s launch of IMPERIA and of being her guest at the Opening Bell ceremony at the New York Stock Exchange.
The setting itself was remarkable. The New York Stock Exchange is one of the great symbols of American enterprise — a place synonymous with ambition, capital, risk, innovation, and the creation of economic opportunity. But what I will remember most about that morning was not the building, the bell, or even the history surrounding us. I will remember the women.
I found myself in the company of women who have built businesses, led organizations, created jobs, taken risks, made difficult decisions, and turned ideas into realities. They came from different industries and different backgrounds, but there was something unmistakable shared among them: a belief in what is possible and a willingness to do the work required to make possibility real.
Being among these women was deeply moving. I was born and raised in Vietnam, where I was lucky to be part of a family that inspired me to appreciate and respect the contributions of others and to follow my own dreams. I was nurtured by inspiring elders around me — including women — and those relationships fueled my mission to build Signal Health Group (which delivers home health care services to clients around the country), along with two not-for-profit organizations that provide resources, opportunities, and mentorship to veterans. Yet I never imagined that pursuing my heartfelt mission to bring quality care to the elderly, veterans, and others in need would lead me to be recognized by the First Lady of the United States. I built what I built because I saw profound needs that were not being properly served in more than one community.
Now, I feel humbled and more motivated than ever to make a difference.
IMPERIA brings together female CEOs, founders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and C-suite leaders around the economic power of women. But being there made me realize that its significance goes beyond titles or balance sheets. It is also about what happens when accomplished women recognize one another, learn from one another, and decide that individual success can become collective opportunity.
For generations, much of the conversation about women and achievement understandably centered on access — being permitted into rooms where consequential decisions were being made. The conversation I heard at IMPERIA felt different. It was about what women can build once they are in those rooms, whom they can encourage, and how they can use their influence to create opportunities for others.
The First Lady captured that idea powerfully when she spoke about moving beyond simply having “a seat at the table” toward ownership, growth, and “making space for the women who come next.” And that last idea stayed with me.
Achievement is never entirely an individual undertaking. Every successful woman can probably name someone who believed in her, encouraged her, introduced her to the right person, took her seriously before others did, or simply told her to keep going when giving up might have seemed easier. Eventually, some of us are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to become that person for someone else.
That, to me, is one of the most compelling aspects of what Melania Trump is seeking to foster through IMPERIA. As first lady, she possesses a platform few people in the world will ever have. She is choosing to use part of that platform to bring accomplished women together and to focus attention on women’s economic influence, entrepreneurship, and leadership. The inaugural summit included conversations with leading global CEOs and was explicitly organized around women’s economic power.
I was also reminded that women’s ambitions are not confined to our professional pursuits. We are business leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals, but we are also mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, partners, friends, and members of communities. We build companies while building families. We pursue ideas while caring for people. We measure success not only by what we accumulate, but often by what we make possible for those around us.
That is why supporting another woman’s dream can take so many forms. It can mean investing in her company. It can mean becoming her customer. It can mean introducing her to someone who can change the trajectory of her business. It can mean mentoring her, hiring her, encouraging her, or simply taking her idea seriously.
None of those gestures diminishes our own success. They multiply it.
There are women today imagining companies and technologies that will change industries, creating products that will improve lives, and building organizations that will employ thousands of people. Some of them are already sitting in boardrooms. Others are sitting at kitchen tables with laptops, notebooks, and ideas that almost no one else knows about. Yet.
They all deserve the chance to discover how far those ideas can go.
I left IMPERIA feeling proud of the women I met, grateful to the First Lady for bringing us together, and more convinced than ever that one of the greatest things an accomplished woman can do is help another woman become one.
Related: El-Sayed Went After Melania. He May Regret Opening That Door.
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his family, and conservatives. They would never report positive news about our first lady’s transformative leadership.
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