Coffee Talks: Own Your Growth

Chamber of Commerce Hawaii’s Coffee Talks series, presented by Navian Hawaii, is a weekday morning professional-development seminar—Thursday, August 13, 2026, 8:30–10:30 AM HST at Pacific Guardian Center’s ABC Conference Room, 733 Bishop Street. August’s theme is Own Your Growth: Building Confidence, Visibility & Self-Advocacy. Check-in and coffee run 8:30–9:00 with pastries from 1132 Cafe, program 9:00–10:00, networking 10:00–10:30. Chamber and YP members pay $15; non-members $30. Walk-ins are $25 / $40. Non-member cancellations: full refund five or more days out, 50% at two to four days, none inside one day.

Featured speakers are Jennifer Grems, Head of School at Hawaiʻi School for Girls at La Pietra, with more than three decades in Hawaii independent-school leadership (La Pietra, St. Andrew’s Priory, Mid-Pacific Institute) and UH Mānoa bachelor’s and M.Ed. credentials; Sherry Menor, President & CEO of Chamber of Commerce Hawaii; and Kevin Yim, Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Zippy’s Restaurants (FCH Enterprises), whose brief also covers hospitality, aviation, and financial-services work plus chamber governance. Menor’s event-page biography is the Circuit reason to show up when Quad Chambers are dark: youngest and first female CEO in the chamber’s 175-year history, first Asian to lead a U.S. state chamber, and a Filipino Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii Business Executive of the Year. Navian Hawaii—the presenting sponsor, formerly Hospice Hawaii—is the island’s hospice and palliative-care organization, not a random coffee brand.

Downtown / Bishop Street is Circuit Honolulu’s banking and professional-services spine. Chamber of Commerce Hawaii dates to 1850; Coffee Talks is its recurring premier morning seminar, not a pau hana with a speaker taped on. When HJCC, the Chinese Chamber, FCCH, and HKCC have no August mixer, this is the island-wide chamber room many Asian Pacific operators still use. Yim’s Zippy’s lane is local hospitality brand ops. Grems’s independent-school graph sits next to the household education stake a lot of Downtown professionals actually carry.

Register on business.cochawaii.org. Parking is not included; the page points to Alii Place at 1099 Alakea Street, $3 flat for two hours. H-1 / Downtown morning traffic is real—leave buffer. Bring ID matching your registration. Contact listed: Marisa Escalante, Director of Events and Special Projects.

This morning is right if you work island business, hospitality, education, or professional services and want a named Downtown seminar at chamber rates. The YP-only healthcare lunch on August 27 is a different, members-only graph. Use the 10:00 block as introduction time; the panel is not a pitch hour.