【6/5/2021】CAPA-NoVA Distinguished Chinese American (华裔名人) Project
(Author: Xiaoyan Deng)
蒋佩琪(Peggy Tsiang Cherng) (1947 – ) is an American billionaire businesswoman. Cherng co-founded Panda Express in 1983 and serves as the co-chief executive officer of Panda Restaurant Group. She was born in Burma (now Myanmar). With an estimated net worth of US$1.7 billion as of 2019, Forbes reported that she is America’s second richest self-made woman born outside the United States.
Perhaps the best example of Chinese food’s ubiquity in American cuisine is Panda Express, the largest Chinese food chain in the US, with over 2,000 locations and more than 35,000 employees.22,23 Founded in 1973 by first-generation Chinese Americans Andrew and Peggy Cherng, Panda Express has grown from a small restaurant in Pasadena to a global empire that produced sales in excess of US$3bn in 2017. Even as their business grows exponentially, the Cherngs have chosen to keep Panda Express family-owned and operated to focus on top-quality service, employee well-being and philanthropy. The impact that Panda Express and the thousands of other Chinese restaurants across the country have made is clear: when Americans are asked to rank their favorite types of restaurants, Chinese food almost always comes out on top.
In February 2011, the Cherngs donated $2.5 million to support the Collins College of Hospitality Management at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
In March 2017, the California Institute of Technology announced that they were changing the name of its medical engineering department to the Andrew and Peggy Cherng Department of Medical Engineering after receiving a $30 million gift from Andrew and Peggy Cherng. In the following month, the University of Missouri announced receiving a $1.5 million gift from the Cherngs which would benefit its Honors College.
More information about Cherng:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Cherng
https://www.forbes.com/profile/peggy-cherng/?sh=34f3b6bc2c04
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