High Profile: Supha Xayprasith-Mays

The former corporate wheeler-dealer is founder of the Multicultural Expo Center, through which she will be doing what she loves most — helping people reach their potential.

“I want to help people understand that you do have a choice in this world; that you don’t have to be an employee. You can be an employer. We can be a renter or an owner. The option is up to us. But we have to get out there to get educated.”
“I want to help people understand that you do have a choice in this world; that you don’t have to be an employee. You can be an employer. We can be a renter or an owner. The option is up to us. But we have to get out there to get educated.”

Supha Xayprasith-Mays of Little Rock sounds for all the world like a motivational speaker, someone a Les Brown or a Tony Robbins might envy.

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“I thought that she was really one of the most positive persons I’ve ever met, that the bottle was always half-full — never was half-empty.”

SELF PORTRAIT

Supha Xayprasith-Mays

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: March 6, 1970, Viangchan, Laos

BEST ADVICE MY MOTHER GAVE ME: Always help others … by making someone’s day brighter, healthier, more joyful. Spread a positive, happy attitude through your smile and by expressing kind words.

MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW THAT I am of Asian descent and speak four languages.

MY GUILTY PLEASURES: coconut cake and sweet potato pie

GUESTS AT MY FANTASY DINNER PARTY: My parents; my amazing darling husband and his parents; my best friend Jackie Cummings-Koski; James Stewart; Orson Welles; Katharine Hepburn; Steve Jobs; Warren Buffet; Sam Walton and his daughter, Alice Walton; Mahatma Gandhi; Harriet Tubman; Booker T. Washington; Winston Churchill; Buddha; and Jesus.

MY DAILY RITUALS INCLUDE getting plenty of rest, waking up with a smile, telling my hubby “Good morning” and “I love you,” drinking two to three glasses of water and my hot Asian green tea, exercising and meditating.

MY ADVICE TO UP-AND-COMING ENTREPRENEURS: It takes money to make money! Read about your competitors and learn. Be proactive. Do your due diligence on the business you are starting.

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO TO SUCCEED IN LIFE IS believe in you — all of the time.

ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: With me, it’s got to be two words in one — optimist-innovator.

Affirmations flow easily from her lips: “Don’t be with people that tolerate you; be with people that celebrate you every day.” “A dream without action is an illusion.” “All things and everything is possible through positive thinking, hard work, determination, perseverance and being in great company.”

And there’s her personal motto: “Every day is a Supha-fabulous day.”

Xayprasith-Mays, 46, is a petite dynamo in signature high heels. Her fast-talking, bubbly personality is uplifting. And she has the capacity to coax the deepest introvert out of his shell.

It’s not hard to see that she believes in the power of positivity and in getting off one’s duff to make something happen.

She’ll go one better. She’ll even help you to do so.

Just come see her, she says. Better yet, come to her Multicultural Expo Center, under development in North Little Rock and poised to be a multifaceted resource center and small-business incubator.

Xayprasith-Mays is currently gearing up for her inaugural Inclusion & Multicultural Youth Empowerment Summit, scheduled for Friday at Chenal Country Club. The summit, which she financed, will serve 700 youths enrolled in the city of Little Rock’s Summer Youth Employment Program. Speakers for breakfast and luncheon sessions will expound on topics such as professional attire, self-esteem, education and job opportunities.

“I’m doing this for the kids because these are kids that need our help,” Xayprasith-Mays says.

Dana Dossett, director of community programs for the city, is grateful for her generosity.

“I’ve wanted to have this type of empowerment event for our summer youth interns for a while,” Dossett says. “We need more people and businesses like Supha to step forward and help us make a difference.”

For adults, there’s the Inclusion & Multicultural 100 Women’s and Men’s Technology, Entrepreneur, Career & Wellness Conference, which Xayprasith-Mays also founded and is now in its 11th year. The Northwest Arkansas version of this conference will be Aug. 12 at the Embassy Suites Northwest Arkansas in Rogers. The Little Rock version is set for Oct. 28 at the Little Rock Marriott. The conference will feature speakers on each category mentioned in its title.

Developing an empowerment center and planning conferences are two drops in the ocean of activities for this fast-moving Renaissance woman. The number of hats Xayprasith-Mays wears, or has worn, is mind-boggling: corporate wheeler-dealer, magazine publisher, radio station owner, restaurateur, clothing retailer, community builder, philanthropist.

“I want to help people understand that you do have a choice in this world; that you don’t have to be an employee,” she says. “You can be an employer. We can be a renter or an owner. The option is up to us. But we have to get out there to get educated.

“If you’re always hanging around … where the chickens are, then you’re always going to be around chickens. But if you’re with the eagles, you’re always going to soar.”

“I thought that she was really one of the most positive persons I’ve ever met, that the bottle was always half-full — never was half-empty,” former Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Richard Mays Sr. recalls about meeting his wife. “I thought that perspective was refreshing and renewing for me.

“She reaches out and she’s very receptive to people. She’s not guarded; she’s full of energy,” he remarks.

The couple married in March 2012. Richard Mays was a widower when they met, having lost his first wife, the mother of his four children, to breast cancer in 2000.

How does he keep up with Supha? “I find I have energy I did not know I had,” he replies with a laugh.

Because of her exotic looks, Xayprasith-Mays is often asked about her cultural background. Many think she’s black or Hispanic, although she’s of Asian heritage. But multiculturalism — the view that the various cultures in a society merit equal respect and scholarly interest — has been a theme to which Xayprasith-Mays has closely adhered throughout her life and career.

“I want to help people understand that you do have a choice in this world; that you don’t have to be an employee. You can be an employer. We can be a renter or an owner. The option is up to us. But we have to get out there to get educated.”

It now lends itself to the name of her nonprofit center. “We unify cultures [with] education and opportunity for all,” she says.

Xayprasith-Mays’ excitement and enthusiasm were contagious as she gave a recent whirlwind tour of the center, a red brick building at 1401 Main St. in North Little Rock. In addition to providing rented office space for small businesses, the center will provide computer and career training, financial and entrepreneurial instruction and an after-school food program. The center also will accommodate a Thai restaurant, a juice bar, Xayprasith-Mays’ I Love New York Fashions, a massage therapist and fingernail technician.

“[We’ll] have a lot of interesting stuff going on here,” she says.

The center has already yielded an early success story: Ray Ford, 53.

Xayprasith-Mays and Ford met late one afternoon when she was at the building with her youngest son, 9-year-old William Russell Wallace, who was visiting from New York. Ford, who was on his way from the laundromat, wanted to know what the building was going to be.

She shared the details about the center, and Ford shared his story: He was homeless, in an unstable, temporary living arrangement, having trouble getting the unemployment compensation he believed he was due, and was doing odd jobs for $25 a day. Xayprasith-Mays took him shopping for some essentials, gave him a little financial counseling, helped him get benefits and put him to work. For a month he has been manager of the center, where he has peace — “a lot of peace, more peace than I’ve had in the last 10 years,” he says. He calls Xayprasith-Mays “the best boss I’ve ever had.”

INTERNATIONAL

BACKGROUND

Xayprasith-Mays credits God, her mother and Wal-Mart for her success.

She was born to Phat Xayprasith, who was of Thai, Laotian and Japanese heritage, and Roy Chandura Churchill, who was eastern Indian and British. The couple met in London where Churchill worked with the Thai embassy and Xayprasith worked with British intelligence. They married and had four daughters.

Churchill was kidnapped in 1975 while en route to Thailand, where Xayprasith was attending college at the time. The purpose of his trip was to close a business deal. He was never found.

Fearing for her family’s safety, Xayprasith decided to come to the United States, choosing Arkansas in which to settle after a friend advised her that the state would provide a wholesome environment for rearing girls. She arrived in Fort Smith with her daughters, a preteen brother, her teenage sister, a maid and the children’s nanny.

Xayprasith-Mays, then 7, spoke French, Thai and Laotian, but knew no English. Once here, Xayprasith-Mays says, her mother went on to sponsor 20 other immigrant families to the United States and eventually remarried. Xayprasith-Mays subsequently gained two half-brothers. After she reached adulthood, she and her older sister stayed in Arkansas while her mother moved the rest of the family to San Diego.

After high school, Xayprasith-Mays enrolled in what is now the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. An early, brief marriage, along with motherhood, interrupted her education plans, but as she puts it, “I have a Ph.D. in people.” Her raw talent, picked up on by a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executive, got her into the corporate world. At age 20, she moved to Bentonville to work at the retail giant’s corporate headquarters. By her early 20s, she was wheeling and dealing with the up-and-coming, wellheeled decision makers of the global company.

“I thought it was normal to be on a private plane at 20,” she says.

In all, Xayprasith-Mays spent more than 25 years working in various corporate departments, also holding regional and division directorships at Robert Half International, J.C. Penney Co. and Sears. (She is still a corporate consultant.) She eventually brought her mother back to Arkansas, buying her a home and getting her on at Wal-Mart. Phat Xayprasith died of breast cancer at the age of 56.

Best friend Jackie Cummings-Koski of Dayton, Ohio, met Xayprasith-Mays when the former moved to Springdale in the early 1990s to work at Wal-Mart. The lonely Koski had no support system until, a couple months into the job, “I ran into Supha,” she says.

“And she was … the friendliest person that I’ve ever met. She just came into my life at a pivotal point, when I really needed a friend,” Koski says. Xayprasith-Mays went on to serve Koski as a mentor, teaching her much about “going bigger and going hard for what you want,” Koski adds.

While navigating the corporate world, Xayprasith-Mays was raising her own family. In addition to William, she has sons Mark Anthony Apolinar, 28, a webmaster and designer for a major technology firm in Seattle; Eli Benjamin Vandiver, 21, who is building his own business, Benjamin Sparklean Professionals & Co.; and daughter Haley Brooke Vandiver, 19, a student and Wal-Mart employee.

BUSINESS MAGNATE-TUDE

Xayprasith-Mays also has raised some businesses of her own. She opened two Thai restaurants in Bentonville. I Love New York Fashions has had a couple of storefronts and continues to be sold in other boutiques and online. In addition, Xayprasith-Mays founded Inclusion, an eclectic Little Rock-based bimonthly magazine. She plans to soon introduce a skin-care line as well as a radio station, KINCFM, 97.9.

But shining through all that business savvy is her compassion.

Jonathan Nimrod of Bentonville, director of supplier diversity for Wal-Mart, first encountered Xayprasith-Mays about five years ago at a regional board meeting of the National Minority Supplier Development Council.

“After a day and a half of meetings, you get to see what people are all about and what drives them, what their passion is about,” he says. With her, he noticed, it was creating jobs and providing access to opportunities. Today, Nimrod says, “I continue to see the same drive and passion.”

He’s most impressed by “just the fact that she never stops thinking outside of the box … whenever there’s an obstacle, that doesn’t stop her. She will step back and look for new, innovative ways to go after what she wants.”

Jerry Pavlas, president and chief executive officer of One Bank & Trust, and Stacy Riley, his executive assistant, met Xayprasith-Mays a couple of years ago. She came seeking a magazine ad when Pavlas was new to his position.

“[Supha] really liked that we were involved in the community,” Riley says. “She is also involved in the community, so she thought we could form a great partnership.”

One Bank became a co-sponsor of Xayprasith-Mays’ last two Technology, Entrepreneur, Career & Wellness conferences, which she formerly geared toward women. Pavlas, who refers to Xayprasith-Mays as “one of a kind,” was one of the key speakers at the October 2015 conference and will speak on finance and money management career opportunities at the youth summit.

“We love Supha — her passion for helping the community, and her passion for people,” Riley says. “She’s making an impact … we want to help where we can and continue to be her partner and friend.”

One Bank will also be an inkind Multicultural Expo Center donor. Other donations of new or gently used computers, equipment and office furnishings are welcome. To contact the center and to register for the conference, email supha@inclusionmagazine.com or call Mays Byrd & Associates at (501) 801-1970.

And anyone who could stand a leg up in life need not be shy about approaching Xayprasith-Mays.

“Come see me. … Let me show you the way. Help me help you.”

High Profile on 07/24/2016

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