BY JAIME DEJESUS
Ajdejesus@brooklynreporter.com n exceptional student,
entrepreneur, recipient of
several scholarships and
National Liberty Museum’s
TD Bank Young Heroes
Award, as well as an
activist for women in the workplace,
Bay Ridge native Sheryl Chen has
achieved a great deal in her 17 years.
Chen, who just graduated from
Staten Island Tech and will be
attending the Wharton School
of Business at the University of
Pennsylvania in the fall, is driven by
a passion for equal rights.
“I am an ambitious individual and
being a female, I wanted to pave the
way for myself,” said the Mark Twain
Intermediate School for the Gifted and
Talented alum. “From a young age, I
knew I wanted to be my own boss and
an entrepreneur and CEO of a company
I want to start. But as I did research, I
discovered only 15 percent of CEOs are
female which is a very small minority.”
Determined to make a di erence rather
than sit on the sidelines, Chen founded
Girls Advocating Leadership & Strength
(GALS) to help empower younger girls. “I
created GALS along with some other girls to
Award-winning
young Ridgeite
stands up for
women’s rights
Photo courtesy of Sheryl Chen
Sheryl Chen receiving her medal.
QNS.COM
10 FALL 2017