Worcester Business Journal

Girl Scouts' Digital Cookie 7 The local Girl Scouts are navigating e-commerce by selling Thin Mints and Samoas across the country with a new digital tool. WBJ >> To Subscribe Central Massachusetts' Source for Business News February 1, 2016 Volume 27 Number 3 www.wbjournal.com $2.00 Central Mass. banks are partnering with technology firms to provide cutting-edge products to businesses. Q&A with Susan West Engelkemeyer, president of Nichols College Shop Talk 8 Focus: Banking & Finance LAND OF OPPORTUNITY 12 BY LAURA FINALDI Worcester Business Journal Staff Writer "Home health care becomes a very personal experience. You don't just send anybody. You have to develop a certain level of trust. By sending a Spanish- speaking person to [a Spanish-speaking client] it makes them much more com- fortable," Njoroge said. "There's a level of trust when you share a cultural back- ground." Tapping into this market, combined with a commitment to going the extra mile for their patients and long-term investments in their employees, has led to exponential growth for Century, Njoroge said. Open for just about three years, today the home health provider operates statewide with 600 employees and four branches. Njoroge and Kihumba are just two of Worcester's successful foreign-born entrepreneurs. According to a recent study from Worcester nonprofit Seven Hills Foundation, 37 percent of the city's business owners are foreign born, and the city's immigrant communities – especially naturalized citizens – are both less likely to live in poverty and make use of public benefits than natives. W hen Kenya natives James Njoroge and Julius Kihumba launched Century Homecare in 2012, they initially set out to expand home health care across the state. But the co-founders, friends since high school and now brothers-in-law, found their niche in providing home health services to Worcester's underserved minority communities. Libis Bueno, a native of the Dominican Republic, founded Worcester IT service provider Domitek in 2005. Worcester's foreign-born population finding success, often at a better rate than natives Partner at 31; Worcester advocate since childhood A iVi Nguyen first arrived in Worcester when she was just one month old – the only child of Vietnamese refugees who spoke little English – and grew up in the city's public housing. Today, the 31 year old is the youngest partner in the 102-year history of Worcester law firm Bowditch & Dewey. "Coming to Worcester is actually a smart life decision, and I don't think people think of Worcester in that way," Nguyen said. Nguyen always had an emotional con- nection to Worcester – having grown up in the city and with her parents still liv- ing here – but it was the professional opportunity that brought her back after she graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania undergrad and obtained her law degree from Boston College Law School. She could have gone anywhere after college, Nguyen said, but Worcester repre- sented an ideal, medium-sized city where >> Continued on Page 10 BY SAM BONACCI Worcester Business Journal Digital Editor >> Continued on Page 10 AiVi Nguyen specializes in business and employment litigation at Bowditch & Dewey. P H O T O S / M A T T V O L P I N I

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