Award winning Serial Entrepreneur, Culinary Innovator and Inspirational Speaker
Success and Mindset Coach
Lori’s story takes her from growing up in the public housing projects of New Orleans, to university in Paris, and finally to Hong Kong, where she has lived for 25 years, and is a leading figure in the entrepreneurs, start up and food scene.
Her story is inspirational and one of overcoming adversity after having lost everything (down to her last HK$97 – about US$12).
She shares her successes and failures and engages audiences with her humorous and down to earth delivery. Hear how she navigated her businesses through SARS, the financial crisis, and even how her business was affected during Hurricane Katrina with her entire family homeless and scattered.
Lori is the co-founder of Kitchen Sync, Hong Kong’s first culinary incubator for start up food entrepreneurs. She is also the owner of several other F&B companies, including the award winning Magnolia private kitchen.
Lori has received numerous accolades in many of Hong Kong’s major newspapers including: the SCMP (Best Private Dinner Party Caterer of the Year), HK Standard, Asian Wall Street Journal, Eastern Express, Time Out, HK Magazine, and HK Economic Times to name but a few. Her companies have also been featured internationally in publications such as the Sydney Sun Herald, Travel and Leisure, Time, Newsweek, Forbes, Essence and The Robb Report. Her television appearances include TVB Pearl’s Money Magazine, CNBC’s ‘The Winners’, CNN’s Global Office program, and a six week run on Bloomberg’s Asia Confidential.
Lori received the prestigious American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong’s ‘Women of Influence’ Entrepreneur of the Year Award for 2016. She was also named 2010 Entrepreneur of the Year by Skal Hong Kong, an organization comprised of hotel GM’s and top executives from the hospitality and travel industry in Hong Kong.
She is a sought after speaker, and in addition to being a Tedx speaker coach, has done talks for Google, several Rotary Clubs, InvestHK, Metta, Female Entrepreneurs Worldwide (FEW), and AXA. She is a 3 time Ted speaker and her TedX Wanchai Women talk on entrepreneurship garnered the only standing ovation of the event. Her other Ted talks include TedX Lingnan University and TedX HKUST. She has given several talks for the HKU MBA programme.
She is a former chairwoman of the Hong Kong Women Business Owner’s Association, Former Vice Chair of the Soho Business Association, and is currently on the board of the Women’s Entrepreneur Network in Hong Kong.
She speaks fluent French and a smattering of Spanish, Japanese and Cantonese. She is also learning Mandarin.
