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CEO of Award-Winning Mimio Design Shares Secrets of Success

With more than 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur, Mimio Design Creative Director and CEO Margaret Yasuda knows what it takes to thrive in the competitive marketing industry. During a recent Minority Entrepreneur Lecture Series on April 14, she shared with faculty, staff, and students the secret sauce to her success – mentorship.

After graduating from UCLA in graphic design, Yasuda landed an internship at Pentagram, one of the top global branding firms in the world. That is where one of the partners, Colin Forbes, took Yasuda under his wings.

“I was very lucky, in that, the partners there really believed in mentorship,” Yasuda said. “Besides being an A-list design firm, Pentagram had really great leaders. Every Tuesday Colin invited junior designers to sit with company partners to pick their brains. They would tell us about how they started their company, business strategies, and the model.”

Yasuda said the lessons she learned during her internship at Pentagram in addition to working in various industries, gave her the confidence she needed to run her own business later in life.

“Because of the training I had, I was able to launch Mimio Design,” Yasuda shared.

Since 1990, award-winning Mimio Design has produced fundraising events and creative work in a variety of industries, including technology, education, retail, and entertainment. Clients include multinational companies, such as American Airlines, Sony Pictures, Kawasaki Motors, LACMA ad UCLA College of Letters & Sciences.

Yasuda, who is Japanese American, is particularly proud to have designed a Japanese American gaming exhibit for the opening of the expanded Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, the first of its kind in the country.

“As a designer, my role is to bring the stories to life,” Yasuda continued. “This project really shaped my path because it was the first time I felt that I actively contributed to the content. I was able to have a little voice and impact on what was shown about the history of what Japanese Americans have experienced.”

Yasuda said reading about Japanese history while working on the exhibit helped her feel more connected to her community.

During her presentation, she also shared photos and stories demonstrating how she expanded her skills beyond developing marketing materials to helping promote major benefit events featuring top celebrities. Yasuda’s new skill set helped her discover her passions for creating video content for non-profit organizations committed to arts education in her community.

“The more you can tell someone’s story strongly, it gives them a better case to catch someone’s attention.”

 

Last Updated on May 5, 2021. 

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