Charles Chen is an Intellectual Property & Product Counsel at Hims & Hers, where he plays a pivotal role in guiding product launches, protecting IP, and enabling brand growth. Before joining Hims & Hers, he was in a number of in-house roles at global brands such as Uber, Pokémon, and Panda. He has over 12 years of in-house experience and is a dedicated member of the Asian Pacific American legal community. He currently serves on the Board of the Asian Bar Association of Washington as Pro Bono Co-Chair, leading the charge in organizing numerous pro bono legal clinics. Previously, he served on the Board of the Asian American Bar Association of New York in numerous capacities. He is active in mentoring rising legal talents, promoting diversity, and continues to influence the field through numerous speaking engagements and advocacy.

Charles was also selected for the prestigious NAPABA Leadership Advancement Program and has received awards from the American Bar Association, New York State Bar Association, and Washington State Bar Association. He is also recognized by the leading industry publication, World Trademark Review, as one of the Top 300 Corporate Counsels in the world for four consecutive years.

Charles received his J.D. and LLM in IP from UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law and his BA from the University of British Columbia.

Christina L. Chen serves clients in a wide variety of industries, with a focus on the financial services sector. Christina defends banks, asset-based lenders, and loan servicing companies from lender liability claims and other borrower litigation filed in state and federal court. She has experience advising and bringing litigation on behalf of plan administrators, liquidating trustees, and other fiduciaries charged with administering chapter 7 and chapter 11 bankruptcy estates.

Having filed adversary proceedings to recover fraudulent and preferential transfers, prosecuted objections to claims, facilitated 363 sales, and examined debtors at section 341 hearings, Christina is well-versed in all aspects of bankruptcy litigation and matters arising under the Bankruptcy Code.

Prior to joining Morgan Lewis, Christina clerked for Judge Stephen R. Bough of the US District Court for the Western District of Missouri, and the US Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern and Central Districts of California. Christina maintains an active pro bono practice assisting limited English proficient immigrants in the Bay Area with immigration, housing, and family law issues.

Reiko attended Brown University and concentrated in Public Policy & American Institutions. She completed internships in DC for three summers—at a youth non-profit, the Public Defender Service of DC, and the DC Public Schools Urban Education Leaders Internship Program. During her senior year, Reiko completed an honors thesis on education in pre-trial juvenile detention centers. She conducted one the largest surveys of educational programs within juvenile detention centers at the time, and her work was published in a peer reviewed journal, the Journal of Correctional Education in 2012.

After college, Reiko moved to Washington DC where she began as a Teach For America corps member. She taught special education and English Language Arts to sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students for two years. She obtained a Master’s degree in special education and served as a case manager for students with individualized education plans. Reiko remained interested in the school-to-prison pipeline and the intersection between policy, education, and law. This solidified her interest in pursuing a legal career so that she could continue advocating for individuals in need.

Reiko began at Georgetown Law in the fall of 2013. She completed a summer internship at the Federal Public Defender for the District of Maryland. She externed at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She competed on the mock trial team, served on the Georgetown Journal of Poverty Law and Policy, and was a member of the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association. She summered at Hunton in 2015 and received an offer to return full-time. During her third year of law school, Reiko was part of a year-long Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic. Through this clinic, Reiko represented indigent defendants at trial in the DC Superior Court, and taught a year-long course on legal research and writing to men serving life sentences at the Jessup Correctional Institution.

After graduating from Georgetown, Reiko clerked for a federal district judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. During her clerkship, Reiko helped write 70 opinions on a variety of civil issues and motions. In the fall of 2017, Reiko rejoined Hunton as an associate on the Litigation team.

Over her eight years at Hunton, Reiko has built her career as one of the key class action and cybersecurity litigators, working on some of the most consequential data breach cases at the Firm. Reiko served on a trial team for nine weeks in federal court, leading to a very favorable verdict for the client. And she regularly counsels clients facing class action and multidistrict litigation. Reiko was promoted to counsel in October 2023.

Reiko has dedicated more than 1,500 hours to pro bono, diversity, equity, and inclusion, community service and social justice, and mentoring. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, which works to prevent wrongful convictions in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. She has chaired the DC Women’s Initiative at Hunton for six years. She was a 2023 fellow with NAPABA’s Leadership Advancement Program and co-chairs NAPABA’s Mass Torts and Class Actions Committee.

In 2022, AASF moved to professionalize the organization by recruiting their first executive director, Gisela Perez Kusakawa, a results-driven civil rights leader, policy expert, and attorney with a proven record in advocacy under multiple presidential administrations. She is a bridge builder that has experience in building new infrastructure and programming to address urgent needs, as well as nurturing partnerships and fostering solidarity between different groups and political ideologies.

Prior to accepting her leadership role with AASF, Kusakawa served as the Founding Director & Supervising Attorney of the Anti-Profiling, Civil Rights, & National Security program (formerly the Anti-Racial Profiling Project) at Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC), one of the largest and leading national Asian American civil rights organization in the country. In this role, she led their advocacy efforts on anti-profiling, civil rights, and national security; established the foundation of the new department; fostered new partnerships; and laid the groundwork for a legal referral service. Gisela was the primary and lead drafter and legal strategist for amicus briefs for Professors Xiaoxing Xi and Feng Tao. She has been a trailblazer and expert on policy and advocacy on anti-profiling, national security, and civil rights, having spearheaded coalition work to end the U.S. Department of Justice’s “China Initiative,” and appeared on multiple media publications such as NBC News, Science, LA Times, NPR and MIT Technology Review.

In her previous work with asylum seekers and detained immigrants, Kusakawa successfully won a grant of asylum for a mother and daughter from Honduras. She served indigent immigrants under AmeriCorps in Ohio, and worked as a teacher in Ise City, Japan where she was also a disaster relief volunteer for the Tohoku tsunami. In her younger years, Gisela worked on business and job development in the rural villages of the Philippines, and was a former Rotary Scholar at Kofu City, Japan.

Her community involvement includes serving on the Board of Directors for the Asian Pacific American Bar Association Education Fund, the Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership, the National Filipino American Lawyers Association, and as a Founder & President-Elect of the Filipino American Lawyers Association of D.C. For her work in civil rights and public service, Kusakawa had the honor of receiving the Justice Thurgood Marshall Civil Liberties Award and was awarded the competitive National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) Law Foundation Community Law Fellowship, which seeks to develop public interest law leaders to advance Asian American civil rights.

Kusakawa is a first-generation immigrant who hails from the Philippines and spent her childhood in Tondo, Manila before moving to the United States. Overcoming tremendous odds for a better life in America, Kusakawa became an attorney to dedicate her life to public service and help the many immigrants and families seeking safety and compassion in the United States. Kusakawa is admitted to practice law at the District of Columbia and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and received her J.D. from The George Washington University Law School.

Steven Ngo is a nationally recognized in-house counsel, educator, nonprofit leader, and advocate whose work bridges innovation, inclusion, and systemic change. He leads across sectors—law, policy, education, and community—with a visionary, purpose-driven approach that uplifts others while advancing the profession.

As Senior Counsel at Rivian, Steven led the company’s first international launch into Canada and now drives global legal strategy for AI, autonomy, software products, and digital commerce. His legal leadership has shaped major product launches, including Rivian’s Connect+ subscription service, pre-owned vehicle program, autonomous vehicle platform, and loyalty rewards program.

Steven also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia (Peter A. Allard School of Law), where he teaches upper-year courses on corporate law and corporate social responsibility. He is a regular guest lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, teaching on law, innovation and social entrepreneurship.

Steven has spent over a decade building and scaling organizations that support AANHPI legal professionals. He served as the founding President of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers Western and the President of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers BC (FACL BC). Under his leadership, FACL BC’s membership tripled to over 750 members, programming expanded to over 50 events across three cities, and the organization became the first Canadian affiliate to receive NAPABA’s Affiliate of the Year Award. He also co-founded Canada’s first Leadership Academy for Asian Canadian legal professionals, now in its third year, which continues to empower a new generation of leaders.

Steven’s public advocacy has led to lasting policy reform. After surviving a hate-motivated attack during the pandemic, Steven successfully pushed for multilingual hate crime reporting protocols in 14 languages in Vancouver and helped launch British Columbia’s provincial hate crime reporting line. His work has been cited in national hearings and featured in coverage by CBC, The Globe and Mail, and The Guardian. In recognition, he received the BC Medal of Good Citizenship and was named one of Canadian Lawyer Magazine’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers.

At NAPABA, Steven serves on the Board of Governors, where he has expanded NAPABA’s cross-border presence and deepened engagement with Vietnamese legal communities in both Canada and the United States. A former Leadership Advancement Program fellow (2019), he continues to support the program as a mentor and co-facilitator and is helping to lead NAPABA’s first Early Lawyers Summit in 2026.

Gigio K. Ninan, a visionary attorney and passionate advocate, embodies the transformative power of dedication, relationships, and a profound commitment to justice. His journey, marked by perseverance and a deep understanding of the human experience, began when his family immigrated from India to the United States in 1989. Witnessing his late father work two jobs and his mother build a small nail salon business in the Bronx instilled in him an unwavering drive to serve and empower others navigating complex systems. This foundation fuels his career as a small business attorney, dedicated to helping immigrants, new entrepreneurs, and traditionally disadvantaged minorities.

Gigio pursued his education with distinction, graduating cum laude from Binghamton University with a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Law, where he was actively involved in student leadership and served as a teaching assistant. He then earned his J.D. from Rutgers Law School in 2011, contributing to the Journal of Law and Religion and serving on the Scholastic Standing Committee which adjudicated appeals of students on probation. Following a judicial clerkship for the Honorable Stephen M. Holden of the Superior Court of New Jersey, he gained invaluable litigation insight before refining his skills at a mid-size boutique and a national law firm.

In 2015, at the age of 29, Gigio co-founded Shankar Ninan Law Firm, a highly successful boutique practice that has since grown to represent over 250 businesses, ranging from small "mom-and-pop" shops to multinational entities. With nearly 15 years of legal experience across New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, Gigio serves as outside General Counsel, focusing on outsourced general counseling, employment law, and business litigation. Recognized for his ability to forge fair and workable solutions, Gigio was appointed a Certified Mediator by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in 2023, becoming one of the youngest Federal Mediators on its panel. Clients consistently commend him as an "exceptional attorney" who provides "elite legal counsel" with professionalism, compassion, and a solution-oriented approach.

A core tenet of Gigio’s philosophy is the "Reputation and Relationships" (R&R) formula, a lesson he learned from a judge he clerked for. He passionately advises treating everyone with consistent kindness and compassion, understanding that long-lasting relationships are the vehicle that will carry one through their career. This commitment extends to his extensive leadership and volunteer work, serving as a Treasurer and a Board of Director for the Asian American Bar Association of New York and in various leadership roles for the South Asian Bar Associations of New Jersey, New York, and North America. He actively champions diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), delivering numerous presentations and participating in discussions like "Race in America: Perspectives from South Asian Communities" on the "Dimensions of Diversity" podcast.

Gigio’s dedication to "paying it forward" is evident in his commitment to future generations. He is one of the youngest alumni to endow a scholarship at Rutgers Law School—a health care-related scholarship established with a peer, inspired by his own experience receiving financial aid. He has also served on the Rutgers Law School Dean's Selection Committee, shaping the institution's future leadership. Beyond his practice, Gigio shares his expertise as an Adjunct Professor at Rutgers Law School and a Faculty Member at Lawline, teaching courses such as Deposition Advocacy and continuing legal education. He frequently contributes to publications like Forbes and has been quoted by U.S. News and Medscape on critical legal topics. Gigio K. Ninan’s life and career stand as a testament to the profound impact one individual can have through legal excellence, compassionate advocacy, and an unwavering commitment to making a meaningful difference in the world.

Qiaojing Ella Zheng is Managing Partner of Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight’s Palo Alto and San Francisco Offices and Chair of the firm’s Asian American Litigation and Finance Practice Group.

In 2022 Ella was named a Rising Star by Law360 and selected as an Asian Leader Worth Watching by Profiles in Diversity Journal. Since joining Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight, she has been honored by Super Lawyers as a Rising Star in Northern California every year since 2016. She was named among the Top 40 Under 40 Civil Plaintiff Trial Lawyers in California by The National Trial Lawyers. Ella was also an honoree of the Tribute to Women Awards by YWCA Golden Gate Silicon Valley in 2018, and received the 2020 Minority Bar Coalition Unity Award.

At Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight, Ella’s practice encompasses a wide range of legal matters. She represents employees across the economic spectrum in individual and class actions involving wage and hour violations, discrimination and harassment on the basis of gender, race/national origin, age, sexual orientation, and disability, retaliation and wrongful termination claims. She also represents executive and managerial personnel in both public litigation and privately negotiated settlements.

Ella also represents whistleblowers in qui tam lawsuits under the U.S. False Claims Act and works on cases involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the SEC Whistleblower program, the IRS Whistleblower program, and other statutes involving fraud against the federal and state governments.

In addition, Ella has extensive experience in financial services practice. She regularly advises entrepreneurs, companies, and financial institutions in Silicon Valley and China on regulatory and compliance matters. In particular, Ella specializes in representing China-based clients in legal matters arising under U.S. laws, including licensing and compliance for securities broker-dealers and investment advisers under the U.S. SEC, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and state-level regulatory authorities. Having obtained legal education and work experience in both China and the U.S., she brings a unique perspective to facilitate her clients’ cross-border business activities, and devotes herself to bridging the cultural gap between domestic and foreign parties.

Ella received her law degrees from Zhejiang University in China (LL.B.) and Thomas Jefferson School of Law (LL.M.). While at Zhejiang University, Ella also minored in the Intensive Training Program of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Chu Kochen Honors College and received numerous honors including the Best Student Leader, Outstanding Social Work Award, and the Best Debater of the Year.

Ella was the President of the Chinese American Lawyers of the Bay Area and a Board Director of the General Association of Zhejiang Entrepreneurs USA. She currently serves as Board President of YWCA Golden Gate Silicon Valley. Before joining Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight, Ella was an associate at a boutique general practice firm in San Diego, California, where her practice encompassed a wide range of areas including international business, corporate, civil litigation, and immigration issues.