About Lesley & Hwa

This is a blog/scrapbook of a year long adventure my daughter Hwa and I are taking by living in Hanoi Viet Nam for a year.    I’m taking a sabbatical from  work (thank you Martin) and Hwa will be starting second grade at the Hanoi International School.  I am going to be volunteering at  The Blue Dragon Foundation who work with Street and Trafficked children.  I will be  learning Vietnamese, and trying to learn how to meditate.   As I have never been able to keep a diary this is my attempt to record our time away and include some cool pictures.

Hwa and I became a family on July 18th 2006 and I can without any hesitation say that she is the best thing that has ever happened to me.  Hwa is from an area one hour north of Hanoi called Bac Ninh the orphanage she grew up in had seven other little girls of roughly the same age in and they all grew up together during the US/Vietnamese close down they are called The Bac Ninh Eight.   We are lucky enough to know four of those other families and have a reunion every year in Florida, which also includes another fantastic family with a little girl called carrington who is a lot younger than the Bac Ninh Eight.     Hwa was two months from turning four when she arrived in Brooklyn.  Hwa will be seven in September 09 our birthdays are three days apart I will be so very much older.

Lesley x

The Work Biography

Lesley Bleakley is one of only a handful of female record company CEO’s in the US and since 1988 has been an integral part in the growth and fierce independence of The Beggars Group. Bleakley’s career at the label began in the UK when she was hired as an Office Junior.  By 1995 she had relocated to the US as CEO of North American Operations. The label has greatly expanded since her move and now comprises some of the best and revered UK-based labels;  4AD, XL Recordings and Rough Trade as well as US indie stalwart Matador Records.

Since her move to the US, Lesley has been a tireless advocate for the concerns of the independent label, as well as women’s roles within the music industry. She has participated on many panels concerning both subjects and lectured all over the world. In the past three years Billboard magazine has featured her in a list of top twenty women in music, and she was the only one from an independent label.  Along with Tom Silverman, Bleakley spearheaded the founding of A2IM.

Despite her obtained US citizenship, Bleakley continues to call M&M’s Smarties, insist that there is a “t” in “water” and “twenty”, and curtseys everytime she hears Queen on the radio.

May 2009