EVERY IRENE IS AN INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO ELEVATE WOMEN AND THEIR ALLIES IN JAPAN.
EVERY IRENEは日本の女性とその仲間を応援するインターナショナル・コミュニティです。
OUR MISSION
We are building Japan’s largest international community of change agents who believe in women proactively creating their futures.
EVERY IRENEは女性たちが自分たちの未来を自由に創造することを信じる「チェンジ・エージェント」で集まる最大のインターナショナル・コミュニティを構築することを目標と掲げています。
OUR VALUES
Every Irene embodies these 7 core values which also spell out PACIFIC.
Progress – We believe in progress over perfection, initiating that first step
Ambition – We believe in having ambition professionally and personally
Choice – We believe the choice is ours over how we want to channel that ambition
Integrity – We believe in doing what we say we’re going to do when we say we’re going to do it
Fun – We believe in having fun along the way
Information – We believe being informed is important to creating the lives we want
Collaboration – We believe in collaboration over competition
our story
Think “success” and happiness come from fancy degrees and job titles? Do you wonder “what if’s” about your dreams and aspirations?
We live in a world of perfection and assumed paths – where is the room to make mistakes, choose your own path and celebrate progress?
Kay and Eiko founded Every Irene to tackle these questions asked by many of their female peers in their 20s and 30s (including themselves!).
Based on their own upbringing as Japanese-Americans, Kay and Eiko were subjected to cultural pressures and societal assumptions about living their lives as young Asian women – study hard, get good grades, be a “real” professional, get married, and so on.
They saw even more of these cookie-cutter “values” for Asian women, especially those based in Asia as Kay and Eiko spent more time back in Asia.
It was in their late 20s and early 30s that they decided enough is enough and sought out mentors and networks, traveled and worked abroad, to broaden their perspectives and pave their own paths – all the while learning the rewards of taking risks and making mistakes.
Based on their own personal experiences, they decided that empowering each individual with the tools to make those aspirations come true is the most empowering impact they can have in this world. And that’s how Every Irene was born.
WHO IS IRENE?
Irene is our fictitious muse — an ambitious, courageous Asian woman who inspires others by owning who she is and turns her dreams into reality by taking action. She inspires by dreaming and doing. There is an Irene in all of us. #IAmIrene
MEET THE FOUNDERS
Meet eiko
Eiko is a founder of EOKA NYC, an independent advisor and consultant to emerging businesses and entrepreneurs based in NYC and Japan. She was formerly a Goldman Sachs investment banker in Tokyo and NYC, and previously a COO of a multinational company in Asia, having lived with just a suitcase for a few years while she traveled across Southeast Asia. She is a graduate of Harvard University. Her life motto is “Attitude is a Decision” – a quote that was plastered on the walls of her high school English teacher’s classroom and it has never left her mind since then. It’s all about how you view the world, and not how others view you and your world!.
meet kay
Kay is a founder of Makishi Apparel a women’s sustainable travelwear brand. She started her career in digital advertising for Fortune 100s. Her curiosity led her from corporate to government, think tanks, nonprofits, across 50 countries including solo cycling the Silk Road 5000 miles through Central Asia, and entrepreneurship. She is a graduate of Oxford University. Her favorite saying is “it’s up to you”. Something Kay’s dad used to say to her growing up. It reminds her that we have to be the changes we want to see in the world.