KALIKA YAP
CEO
Citrus Studios Inc.
For the past 24 years, Kalika Yap has been a concurrent serial entrepreneur whose businesses and community engagement have focused on helping women and their businesses grow. In 1999, she created her first company Citrus Studios, a digital marketing agency. In 2006, she invented and patented the Luxe Link portable purse holder that solved the age-old problem that allows purses to hang off the side of the table at bars and restaurants. Orange and Bergamot was created in 2008 – an interactive design agency that focuses on helping women-owned businesses with branding, design and website marketing.
Yap was elected as one of the rare female presidents in the Los Angeles chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization. In short, she has committed herself and her businesses to serving her community by helping women take their businesses to the next level.
When not running multiple companies, Yap is a judge and mentor for the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), which helps young Los Angeles girls in underserved communities take control of their lives through entrepreneurship. She is also on the Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Committee and AAPI United Task Force under the Office of Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti and Bass. Yap also volunteers as an entrepreneur in residence at the Harvard-Westlake School, mentoring students in their business ideas.
