Arkansas-Asian business group will hire full-time executive director

Seven years after its creation, the Arkansas Association of Asian Businesses (AAAB) is looking to raise $25,000 by March and hire a full-time executive director by May.

Founder and President Dr. Yang Luo-Branch announced the plans at the group’s 2025 Lunar New Year “East Meets West” luncheon in Little Rock Thursday (Feb. 6).

In addition to the fundraising goal and hiring an executive director, the group also launched a membership campaign. By May 2026, it hopes to host its first Arkansas-Asia Business Expo.

Luo-Branch said the group’s mission is to connect Arkansas and Asia in business and professional growth. She said in an interview the group wants to help Asian-Arkansans work with the prevailing culture while helping outbound Arkansas entrepreneurs do business in a foreign culture.

She told the luncheon attendees that some things change while others don’t. What changes are tariffs and geopolitical dynamics, technology, increasing busyness, and the nature of jobs and businesses.

What won’t change is the members’ desire for business and professional growth, their priority of supporting their family, their desire to build trust and connect with people, and their pride in their Asian heritage.

Luo-Branch now works as a data analyst for Tyson Foods. She came to the United States from Henan Province in China in 2009 to earn a Ph.D. at Texas Tech University and went to work at Hot Springs Village as a community planner. She then worked at the Arkansas Economic Development Commission (AEDC) for three years. Her duties there included preparing for an overseas trade mission by then Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

“AEDC really opened my eyes to just how Arkansas interacts with the rest of the world,” she said.

While there, she formed the AAAB because there was a gap of grassroots groups. She formed an Asian association rather than just a Chinese one in order to increase its diversity.

“That’s the beauty of the organization,” she said in the interview. “We get to have this same common identity of being Asian, but let’s come together and really pick each other’s brains on how to connect with people, find that commonality by doing things in different flavors.”

She said Asians share an emphasis on family values, a strong work ethic, dependability, and inward facing groups.

The group presented its 2025 Arkansas Asian-Owned Business Awards. Two tied for first place and won $500 awards: Little Rock-based Welspun Tubular and Fayetteville-based Big Box Karaoke. Winning $300 as the first runner-up was Hiwasse-based Verma and Associates.

Other finalists were Springdale-based ARt deCentrale, Bentonville-based FR8relay, Fort Smith-based The Goat House, and Rogers-based Tokyo House.

The event featured remarks by Andrew Wylegala, president of the National Association of Japan-America Societies, which is a network of 40 nonprofits in 27 states and provinces. Neal Jansen, director of the AEDC’s Asia Office, presented a recorded video address.