Leadership Team

Keith Nishida (He/Him) believes in advocacy through visibility. In his current role as NAAAP Pride’s national program director and former NAAAP ERG Leaders marketing lead, he’s worked to build programming around cultural awareness and understanding of intersectionality and queer Asian identity in the workplace.

He is a multi-passionate educator and team-builder, with a professional mission to help upskill/uplift people to have fulfilling careers through digital and leadership skills training. He brings 10 years of experience in research, program development and teaching (with subject matter expertise in everything from socio-economic influence of pop culture to diversity/inclusion issues in the digital landscape).

Since starting his bilingual marketing consultancy in 2007, he's brought his multicultural perspectives to inter/national projects with global brands like Toyota Motors, Disney Consumer Products/Tokyo Disney, and Teva shoes, but equally enjoy helping SME companies articulate their digital marketing strategies (including a client who serves the autistic and community and people with disabilities). Keith is committed to bringing a diversity and inclusion lens to his roles as a courses & workshop instructor at General Assembly (an Adecco company), an APIA Scholars mentor, and a traditional Japanese festival performance group member of Rafu Mutsumi Kai for the last 25 years. He is a proud Nikkei-nisei who calls California and Hawaii his homes.

John Ong is a multimedia story-teller. He is a video director at Hallmark’s photography and video studio where he produces and directs videos for Hallmark’s marketing and social media content development needs. He started his broadcasting and film career in the late 90s.
 
John is a committed diversity and inclusion advocate. He has served as chair for Hallmark’s Asian American employee resource group. He also devotes his time volunteering as the Director of Marketing & Public Relations for NAAAP Kansas City.
 
John was born and raised in Malaysia to a Chinese immigrant family. He holds a degree in Broadcasting and Film and has made Kansas City his home. John is also a podcast pioneer with multiple shows under his belt since 2004, including a successful language preservation podcast. 

Dr. S. Kimberly Liu is a multicultural and multi-lingual physician, who specializes in mental health, women's health, and chronic and terminal illnesses using a holistic approach.  She is an avid advocate of Oriental medicine who actively works toward including integrative medicine in our health care system, volunteers her time and expertise in Latin American countries, involved in multiple nonprofit organizations that promote arts & crafts in local communities; outreach and educational programs in LGBTQ communities; literacy programs for children of low income families; and bringing the East and the West together by promoting cultural awareness and competency.

Kristoffer Garringer was born in Olongapo, Philippines and immigrated to the United States in the early 1990’s. However, throughout most of his teenager years he grew up in Fredericksburg, VA and joined the United States Air Force shortly after graduating from high school. After separating from the military, Kristoffer graduated with bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Purdue University and an MBA from Walden University. Because of his academic ambitions, Kristoffer is in the process of completing his Doctorate in Business Administration from Walden University. Outside of academic pursuits, Kristoffer possesses experiences in fields such as, supply chain, government contracting, accounting and finance, and management consulting. His passion for equality, diversity, and inclusion (“ED&I”) is derived from personal experiences as a minority and serving in the military under the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. He has participated and served on ED&I committees and Employee Resource Groups and is an advocate for making meaningful organizational changes to create an inclusive environment for all. As a member of the NAAAP Pride team and NAAAP DC chapter, one of his primary goals is to make a positive impact for the Asian American community and other underrepresented groups.

Anthony Hsu (he/him) is a proud California native currently in Minnesota. In his day job, he is a Business Support Manager for Carlin Group, where he leads a team that supports the agency's businesses with Target. Prior to this role he spent 7 years at Target Corporation in many roles where he became exposed to D&I work through the company ERGs (called Business Councils). After being involved in both the Asian Business Council and LGBTQ Business Council, he brought his learnings to serve on the Executive Team of his local NAAAP chapter. He has the tremendous privilege of leading External Relations for NAAAP Minnesota. He is excited for the work he is able to do on the NAAAP Pride team at the national level and is eager to drive change in the community

Noelle D. Blanco (she/her/hers) is a first generation Filipina-Portuguese American, Queer individual originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. She is excited to serve on the NAAAP National Marketing Lead, Pride while also dual-serving as the Chief Communications Officer for NAAAP San Jose Chapter. She also works on the NAAAP Leadership Academy Planning team and NAAAP Leadership Convention Marketing team. Noelle came into the NAAAP world in a time of personal and professional change in her life, where she was looking to join a community of thoughtful leaders to serve. She brings over a decade of experience in non-profit and for-profit marketing and partnership development.

As a proud Anteater Alumni, Noelle holds a Bachelors of Arts in Theatre with an emphasis in Costume Design from the University of California-Irvine. She enjoys rendering, painting, poetry interest-based/PR writing, and being a loving mother to her Chihuahua-Corgi mix rescue, Nugget (who is known to make appearances on video calls). Noelle naturally enjoys keeping the energy flowing during networking opportunities and hopes to be at the forefront of many important conversations and represent her community in a meaningful way.