May is AAPI History Month – and in this post, you’ll find speakers that your company can host throughout the month of May. As you celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander History Month, it’s important to bring a sense of thoughtfulness and intentionality to your team building efforts. But first, lets start by understanding what and how was AAPI originated.

WHAT IS AAPI HERITAGE MONTH?
Celebrated during May, AAPI History Month is a time to honor Asian American and Pacific Islanders – their histories, their cultures, and their many contributions to America and the world.
AAPI History Month is a time to have fun learning together, to have meaningful dialogues, and to examine internal practices and mindsets to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion. AAPI History Month is also referred to as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month – and sometimes AAPI Heritage Month.

WHEN IS AAPI HISTORY MONTH?
AAPI History Month is celebrated during May.

WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF AAPI HISTORY MONTH?
According to AsianPacificHeritage.gov, “Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month originated with Congress. In 1977 Reps. Frank Horton of New York introduced House Joint Resolution 540 to proclaim the first ten days in May as Pacific/Asian American Heritage Week. In the same year, Senator Daniel Inouye introduced a similar resolution…”
When neither of these resolutions passed, in 1978, Rep. Horton introduced House Joint Resolution 1007, proposing that the President “proclaim a week…during the first ten days in May of 1979 as ‘Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week.’”
The resolution was passed and signed by President Jimmy Carter on October 5, 1978. Over the next decade, presidents passed proclamations each year for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week. Then, in 1990, Congress passed a law expanding it to a month for that year. Later, in 1992, Congress passed a law annually designating May as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.

WHY IS AAPI HERITAGE MONTH IN MAY?
May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the U.S. on May 7, 1843. Additionally, May marks the date of the transcontinental railroad being completed on May 10, 1869. Most of the workers who laid the tracks for this enormous undertaking were immigrants from China.

Ready to celebrate and educate your audience throughout AAPI? here’s our list of NOTA speakers.

Deanna Singh

DEANNA SINGH is a business consultant, speaker, and podcaster who is internationally recognized for her work in leadership, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Deanna helps her clients create more equitable and inclusive work environments and engage more authentically within their internal and external communities. A gifted communicator, she is a champion for marginalized communities through her work. Her podcast, Uplifting Impact with a focus on looking at the intersection of Leadership and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, focuses on solutions and is directed at people who want to break the status quo. Singh earned her Bachelor of
Arts in UrbanStudies from Fordham University, a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University, a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and certification in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from Cornell University.

Deepa Purushothaman

Deepa is a former senior executive and a corporate inclusion visionary. She challenges and redefines the status quo of leadership, success, and power by centering the experiences of Women of Color.
As a senior partner at Deloitte, Deepa spent more than 20 years helping clients grow. She was also the US Managing Partner of WIN, Deloitte’s renowned Women’s Initiative, and was the first Indian-American woman and one of the youngest people to make partner in the firm’s history.
Deepa left Deloitte in 2020 to co-found nFormation, a membership-based community for professional Women of Color. She is an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School, and a board member of Avasara, India’s first leadership academy for girls.
The First, The Few, The Only: How Women of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America, Deepa’s debut book, was published by HarperCollins in 2022 to international acclaim.
Deepa is a TED and SXSW speaker and has been featured in TIME, PBS, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Financial Times, and Harvard Business Review. Her TED talks have almost 3M views.
She has degrees from Wellesley College, Harvard Kennedy School, and the London School of Economics, and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their four fur kids.

Dr. Abby Hamilton

She is a 2-time TEDx speaker and Filipino-American industrial/organizational psychologist who speaks on assertiveness and culture. She is also the Director of Student Services at Everglades University in Tampa and Principal Scientist at EQMatch focusing on emotional intelligence assessment. Dr. Abby is the Senior Vice Chairman of the Philippine Cultural Foundation, Inc. and Vice President of National Association of Asian American Professionals – Tampa chapter.

Eboo Patel

Eboo Patel is a widely acclaimed civic leader who believes that religious diversity is an essential and inspiring dimension of American democracy.
Named “one of America’s best leaders” by US News and World Report, Eboo is Founder and President of IA, the leading interfaith organization in the United States. Under his leadership, IA has worked with governments, universities, private companies, and civic organizations to make faith a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division. He
served on President Obama’s Inaugural Faith Council, has given hundreds of keynote addresses, and has written five books, including “We Need to Build: Fieldnotes for Diverse Democracy” published in May 2022. He is an Ashoka Fellow and holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. Eboo lives in Chicago with his wife, Shehnaz, and two sons.

Jia Jiang

Jia Jiang is a top resilience keynote speaker with one of the most viewed TED Talks, bestselling author of Rejection Proof, and the 2019 winner of Toastmasters International Golden Gavel award. Jiang is famous for doing 100 Days of Rejection, which became the basis of his Amazon bestselling book Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection. In his book, website, and talks, Jiang provides inspiration and knowledge for people and organizations to become fearless through rejection training.

Jia Jiang is the owner of Rejection Therapy, a website that provides inspiration, knowledge and products for people to overcome their fear of rejection. He is also the CEO of Wuju Learning, a company that teaches people and trains organizations to become fearless through rejection training. Additionally, Jiang authored the Amazon bestselling book, Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection and is one of the most viewed TED Talks. In 2019, Toastmasters International awarded Jiang the Golden Gavel, which is given annually to honor the best keynote speaker in the industry.

Jiang grew up in Beijing, China and migrated to the United States at age 16. He holds a Bachelor of Computer Science from Brigham Young University and a Master of Business Administration from Duke University.

Terri Trespicio

Terri Trespicio is an award-winning writer, speaker, and brand advisor, Her TEDx talk, “Stop Searching for Your Passion,” has surpassed 6.5 million views, and she was named by Hubspot as one of the “Top 18 female speakers who are killing it” (she came in at #2—Oprah was #8), and one of the world’s leading creatives by Creative Boom magazine. A former magazine editor and radio host at Martha Stewart, she has appeared on the Today show, Dr. Oz, The Early Show, The Martha Stewart Show and The Anderson Cooper Show. Her work has been featured in Oprah magazine, Marie Claire, Prevention, Business Insider, Forbes.com, and Inc.com. She’s also host and co-creator of “Making It Big in 30 Minutes,” a podcast for, by, and about the Emerson College community. Certified in the Gateless method for capturing creative genius, she leads workshops and retreats all over the country to help professionals of all stripes take their stories and ideas from page to stage and beyond.

Tiffany Yu

Tiffany Yu is the CEO & Founder of Diversability, an award-winning social enterprise to amplify disabled voices; the Founder of the Awesome Foundation Disability Chapter, a monthly micro-grant that has awarded $49.5k to 50 disability projects in 8 countries; and the host of TIFFANY & YU, the podcast. She serves on the San Francisco Mayor’s Disability Council and was a 2020 Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Sustainable Development Impact Summit. At the age of 9, Tiffany became disabled as a result of a car accident that also took the life of her father. She started her career in investment banking at Goldman Sachs and has also worked at Bloomberg and Sean Diddy Combs’ REVOLT Media & TV. She is a 3x TEDx speaker and spoke on 5 sessions at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos. She has been featured in Marie Claire, the Guardian, and Forbes.

Nilima Bhat

Co-author, Shakti Leadership – Embracing Feminine & Masculine Power in Business; and My Cancer is Me – The journey from Illness to Wholeness. Nilima is a Conscious Leadership and Integral Health expert. She facilitates personal transformation, gender reconciliation and diversity and inclusion in the workplace. She has 24+ years of global corporate experience and consciousness-based health and growth training. She has lived in Germany, Singapore, UK and Hong Kong and has spent the last few years between India and the US, serving as guest faculty at the Whole Foods Academy for Conscious Leadership, Bentley University, Babson College and Esalen. She is also actively involved with supporting the Conscious Capitalism Movement and WIN (Women’s International Network). Her client base includes multinational organizations like Tata Consultancy Services, Societe Generale Bank, Microsoft, Vodafone and the YPO.

Michelle MiJung Kim

Queer Korean American immigrant woman writer, speaker, activist, and entrepreneur. She is the
award-winning author of The Wake Up: Closing the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real Change, winner of the 2022 Nautilus Gold Medal and 2021 Porchlight Personal Development & Human Behavior Book of the Year Award. She is CEO and co-founder of Awaken, where she has consulted hundreds of organizations and leaders from Fortune 500 companies, tech giants, nonprofits, universities and beyond on their equity education journey. Michelle has been a lifelong social justice activist and has served on a variety of organizations such as the San Francisco Human Rights Commission’s Advisory Committee, LYRIC nonprofit’s Board of Directors, and Build Tech We Trust Coalition. She currently serves on the board of Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality (AACRE). Her work has appeared on world-renowned platforms such as Harvard Business Review, Forbes, The New York Times, and NPR, and she has been named LinkedIn’s Top Voice in Racial Equity, Fast Company’s Queer 50, and Medium’s Top Writer in Diversity three years in a row. She lives in Oakland, California.

Contact us for pricing and availability. Email us at contact@notainclusion.com or visit our website notainclusion.com to see how we can help you design, produce and host a speaker throughout the month.