Vanessa Pham might not be a household name on Wall Street yet, but she has plenty of time to make that happen. The 29-year-old co-founded Asian food startup Omsom with her sister, Kim. The company sells chef-crafted packaged noodles and sauces. So far, Omsom has managed to sell more than 4 million products and is available in more than 2,000 stores, including Whole Foods (AMZN), Target (TGT), and Sprouts (SFM). Pham and her sister, the daughters of Vietnamese refugees, were able to secure investors such as Away Co-founder and CEO Jen Rubio, Zola Co-founder and CEO Shan-Lyn Ma, and food-focused VC firm New Fare Partners Founder Elly Truesdell. At Omsom’s office in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Pham gives Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Brooke DiPalma a literal taste of how she leads her small team to shake up ethnic aisles and change the way consumers eat and think about Asian cuisine. “Omsom is all about being proud and loud, especially when the stereotype of Asian Americans in America's kind of like submissive, or docile,” Pham says. “Omsom is our true kind of energy and ethos and spirit.” Pham details not only how she and her sister have managed to build the brand at such a young age, but also how they were able to launch during the pandemic and endure the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which held the business’s capital. Lead This Way is an interview series that features frank conversations with today’s leaders. The series gives consumers and investors an inside look into the innovative thinking and diverse life experiences of some of the biggest players in business to find out how they lead through change, and how they define success for themselves and their organizations. For more on our Lead This Way series, click here, and tune in to Yahoo Finance Live for more expert insight and the latest market action, Monday through Friday. Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Brooks.
