By Risa Askerooth
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MHS Alumna Esme Infante Nii has come a long way in order to run her own company, working as editor, host and chief executive of Momsinhawaii.com. By empowering moms, Nii is able to give back to the community while also doing what she loves.
“My job has more moving parts than most people’s jobs, I think because it’s such an eclectic job,” expressed Nii, continuing, “No two days are alike. Every day is something completely different.”
Working as a journalist and social media professional, Nii draws from her experiences as Editor-in-Chief of Na Manao Poina Ole at MHS. “It’s a lot of different aspects that I have to organize and in a lot of ways I’ve been doing that since high school,” she said, continuing, “Helping people to see a vision, get organized and get the task done. A lot of that I owe to my background at (MHS).”
Moms in Hawaii is a free online website that provides information and support for moms in an effort to maintain the health and happiness of families. In addition, they connect moms through both on and offline events such as mom-to-mom discussion forums, health seminars and family picnics. Having to manage such a variety of activities requires a multitude of skills. “She’s very, very passionate about what she does and she puts all of herself into it and that gives her a lot of the energy that she has to really accomplish an amazing amount of work,” said Kimi Morton, marketing mom at Moms in Hawaii.
Nii had her first major encounter with social media regarding mothers when working on the Honolulu Advertiser, when she helped to launch the website Hawaiimoms.com. “I think it was one of the first mom’s sites out there and so we were kind of pioneers with creating that and building it from the ground up,” said former Honolulu Advertiser colleague Diane Seo, co-launcher of the site.
Moms in Hawaii has garnered enough attention that they now appear every other week on the morning show, Sunrise. “We’ve just had a lot of fun with it and we love the opportunity to bring empowering news to new people,” said Morton.
The growing popularity of social media also provides plenty of room for exploration. “A company like mine is not something that would have existed 10 years ago because social media is so new and so my job is being invented as I go,” expressed Nii, continuing, “I feel lucky that it exists now.”
In the future, Nii plans to achieve even greater heights in her career and will continue to run Moms in Hawaii with efficiency.