Amber Chook

Business leader, Change Agent, Connector, Designer, Startup, World traveler

At the age of 15, Amber moved from her hometown of Harbin, China, to Mie, Japan, knowing no Japanese language or culture. She was placed into a high school that had low expectations for its graduates: not one had attended a formal university. Instead of following the standard path for women in the area, getting married and becoming a housewife, Amber pushed aside her high school responsibilities and independently studied English from scratch for 14 hours a day for 3 years. After 8 attempts at the university-entrance English test, Amber became the first student from her high school who was accepted to a formal university. During Amber's junior year of college, she founded TEDxRoppongi with the mission of encouraging social innovation. Following her passion for social impact, Amber has since created empowering experiences for global women's initiatives: Girls20, a G20 program to cultivate a new generation of female leaders and increase female labor force participation worldwide; Womenwill, a Google initiative to create economic opportunity for women everywhere and help transform ways of working to make workplace practices more inclusive; and SheShaped, an undertaking aimed at creating a global community of collaboration that celebrates and empowers women from all industries. Inspired by the potential of Bitcoin to bring economic freedom to the world, Amber got into blockchain in 2018, as the Head of PR for SwissBorg, which is using the $50 million raised to create a holistic crypto wealth management platform. In 2019, she founded Zebra Global, a highly selective blockchain PR & market entry consulting firm specializing in Asian markets. Amber has dedicated herself to not only bridging International blockchain markets but also including more women in the global phenomenon of blockchain. Amber has adopted a few of Toni Morrison’s words as her motto, "When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else."

I'm very passionate about women empowerment and blockchain technology, my current goal is to educate more women to enter the blockchain field in Japan. Because traditional path for wealth such as working hard at a company and opening our own companies is not typically available to women in Japan, with this new technology and the opportunities it brings, women can forge their own wealth, create a new path to personal wealth, and build a globally thriving career. In the long run, I aspire to grow my community SheShaped, which is a global community that celebrates and empowers women from all industries. Unapologetically, women around the world are breaking out, pushing boundaries, and shaping the reality of every industry. At SheShaped events, we address real life problems and challenges experienced by women in the workplace, explore ways of empowering more women to be leaders and creators, and bond with like-minded people to grow fearlessly together. I believe that together, we shape the future we all want to see.

"If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will" — You can only make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter, once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do everything, to stop saying yes to everyone. It means to live by design, not by default. We should pay attention to the daily activities we choose in our free time, they should serve the purpose of preserving and enhancing the greatest asset we have — ourselves. We can totally burn ourselves out by overdoing everything. Or we can renew ourselves through taking time off to exercise, self-education: reading, researching and learning new subjects, spending time with people who recharge us, and so forth. To be effective, we have to take the time to renew ourselves physically, spiritually, mentally, and socially.

Business Development, Conference Production, Digital Marketing, Graphic Design, Market Entry Consulting, Public Relations, Public Speaking, Simultaneous Interpretation

TEDxRoppongi grew out of TEDxHoseiU. Due to Hosei University's forced cancellation, we had to produce the first TEDxRoppongi event within a 25-days window. On September 3rd of 2016, we produced TEDxRoppongi at the DMM VR Theatre to host the first TEDx event entirely presented on holographic screen technology. TEDxRoppongi granted me the opportunity to meet and work with many extraordinary people who have genuine interests in the betterment of the world. They inspire and urge me to do more, be more, and find my passion for community, technology, and women empowerment.