AAPIHM Founder Spotlight: Kim Pham, Omsom
Welcome to AAPI Heritage Month! All month long, we're featuring some of our favorite AAPI-founded small businesses. This week, we speak to Kim Pham, the co-founder of Omsom, an Asian food brand bringing proud and loud Asian flavors to the home kitchen.
Q:
What does AAPI Heritage Month mean to you?
A:
This month is a moment for us to celebrate the sheer multitudes within Asian Americana. There is no one ‘right’ way to be an Asian American — and I’m glad we have a chance to reflect on that!
Q:
How do you bring your heritage into your business and work?
A:
My sister and co-founder Vanessa and I never felt seen by ‘ethnic’ aisles in grocery stores, so we wanted to reimagine the category. Omsom became our name — as it means rowdy or rambunctious in Vietnamese (it’s actually kind of a negative term!). We wanted to reclaim this phrase — a nod to our heritage, but also an ethos that we would carry into the brand. For so long, Asian Americans have been flattened and erased as quiet, submissive, model minority — and we’re here to show the world what a proud and loud Asian food brand can look like.
Q:
In what ways do you think brands and organizations can better support and amplify the voices of AAPI makers?
A:
Bring Asian American makers into the room in a real way. In addition to amplifying and sharing them during the month of May, bring these creators onto your teams, your cap table, your boardroom. When we move past surface-level diversity efforts and actually towards real integration, we can start to make real cultural change.
Q:
What are some of your favorite AAPI-led small businesses?
A:
So many! Nguyen Coffee Supply, Boon Sauce, Tower 28, Kulfi, and Lunar to name a few!
