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Big Crowd for OCBJ’s Women in Business Awards

Five businesswomen were honored in front of a crowd of more than 900 at the Business Journal’s 19th annual Women in Business Awards luncheon on June 4 at the Hyatt Regency Irvine.

This year’s honorees were selected out of a field of 234 nominees from an array of industries, including finance, real estate, law, technology, fashion and beauty, and the nonprofit sector, among others.

Winners

This year’s Women in Business winners were:

• Wendy Cupps, global head of product management for Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach. Cupps is a 24-year veteran of the investment industry. She’s played a role in launching more than 200 funds for Pimco, which has more than $2 trillion in assets under management.

•Lynn Salo, vice president of sales and marketing for Irvine-based Allergan Inc. Salo has had stints in the domestic and international markets and took on her latest assignment in December.

• Karen Rager-Takeda, founder and president of Rager Resources Group LLC, an executive recruiting firm that started in 2008 in Irvine. Rager Resources now has nine recruitment specialists across the U.S. and more than 30 corporate clients.

• Karen Such, vice president of operations for PPS Parking & Transportation Inc. in Santa Ana. Such joined the company during its startup phase and helped guide it to more than $5 million in revenue within several years.

• Laura Archuleta, president of Jamboree Housing Corp. in Irvine. Archuleta has overseen the nonprofit’s growth from three employees with 750 units of housing into one the 30 largest developers of affordable housing in the U.S., with a portfolio of more than 7,000 homes and more than $1 billion in assets under management.

The crowd got some advice from keynote speaker Kay Napier, chief executive of Irvine-based cosmetics brand Arbonne International LLC and an honoree at last year’s event.

Napier urged all of the honorees and other nominees to take an interest in colleagues.

“I wouldn’t be standing here today if I hadn’t had so many great mentors,” she said.

Napier’s career stops include stints at Procter & Gamble Co. and McDonald’s Corp. before taking the chief executive’s job at Arbonne.

Some Humor

Napier also provided some humor by noting a flip side to the benefits of leading a company with a workforce that is about 98% female.

Napier said she has learned that “the key is the balance.”

“Many times I have said, ‘Take me back to the men,’ ” she said.

The Business Journal will profile this year’s Women in Business honorees in its June 17 edition.

Staff report


View the Gallery of photos from this event HERE

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