Founder/Executive Director
​Annie Lam

Dr. Annie V. Lam is a nationally recognized leadership strategist, speaker, and founder of APIs Mobilize, with over 15 years of experience building programs and partnerships that open doors for people who were never meant to have a seat at the table.

As the daughter of Chinese refugees and a proud product of South Sacramento, Annie’s story began in the farm fields, working alongside her family from age seven. Those early experiences of labor, resilience, and family shaped her commitment to creating leadership pathways for underserved communities.

She began her career in the California State Assembly, advising two Asian American legislators on community and policy issues. She later founded California’s first API Legislative Staff Academy, helping dozens of staffers advance into leadership. Her doctoral research examined barriers facing Asian American legislative staff and continues to inform her cross-sector work.

In 2015, she founded APIs Mobilize, a nonprofit that helps AANHPI youth access college, understand how decisions are made, and grow as changemakers. Its legislative internships provide real-world policymaking experience, with programs in Southern California, the East Bay, and Sacramento, including the Sac Unity initiative, which fosters cross-racial solidarity.

Dr. Lam also leads Alchemizer Lab, a transformational leadership partner supporting organizations in cultivating inclusive and values-driven leaders. As a university lecturer and mentor, she continues to support the next generation of changemakers.
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Dr. Lam has been recognized by the Sacramento Bee’s Inaugural Top 25 AAPI Change Makers, the Sacramento Business Journal’s 40 Under 40, and as a 2025 AAPI Heritage Month Honoree by the California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus.

She holds an Ed.D. in Organizational Change and Leadership, a Master’s in Public Administration from USC, and a B.A. with honors in Asian American Studies from UC Davis. She’s also a proud mom to Vienna, who reminds her every day why it matters to build a world that’s more fair, kind, and just.

Program and Marketing Coordinator
Angel Lin

Angel is a writer, researcher, and community advocate. As a first-generation Vietnamese American and the daughter of a single mother, her advocacy efforts have been dedicated to creating systems that improve immigrant families access to basic needs services. In 2022, served as the inaugural Santa Clara County Fellow at the Vietnamese American Service Center in San Jose. There, she worked with local leaders to develop strategic and culturally competent programming to expand access to health and human services in immigrant communities across Santa Clara County. 

Angel's research is fundamentally informed by a desire create innovative policies that serve immigrant communities. In her studies abroad, she conducted research comparing the Vietnamese diasporas of Paris, France and San Jose, California. Exploring the ways in which each nation's respective policies on race can inform civic engagement and grassroots organizing within communities of color, she developed a framework for cross-comparative racial policy analysis within Ethnic Studies. This work went on to be awarded the 2023 Matt Meier Award for Student Research and the 2023 Witold Krassowski Sociology Paper Award.

​​Angel's experience in creating supportive infrastructure for students informs her work at APIs Mobilize. As Student Body Vice President at Santa Clara University, Angel created a $56,000 Wellness Grant Program that distributed stimulus funds to student groups in the year following the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, she served as Chair of the Inclusive Excellence Student Advisory Council, in which she organized a student-led anti-racist reimagination of the campus police department. After being emboldened by the Ethnic Studies education she received in her undergraduate years, she worked with faculty members to create the university's first ever Disability Studies Minor. 

Angel Lin graduated as Valedictorian of Santa Clara University in 2023 with a Bachelors of Science in Sociology and Ethnic Studies. She is ecstatic about developing an empowering curriculum that prepares AAPI youth for a lifetime of service and leadership.