Alan Akina

2.20.23

Aloha, My name is Alan Akina!

My wife and I have seven kids from age 25 down to 4. 3 currently in college at 3 different schools, playing 3 different sports, Keanu is in Business at BYU playing Golf. Kawika is at NYU Stern School of Business playing Basketball. Kiani is at Harvard playing Rugby. My son Kihei is the back to back state golf champion in high school.

My parents, my wife, and I graduated from BYUH. My Hawaii roots are in La’ie and Wahiawa where we grew up, but we are originally from Kihei Maui.

I am the founder and CEO of 101 Financial. One of the largest financial education programs in the country. Recently I founded a digital bank called TeamUp for student athletes. It helps student athletes learn how to build their credit, this will be as exciting as 101 Financial.

I have a Bachelors in Biology that I started in 1989 and received in 2010. In between I built some businesses but then went back to school.

My favorite Polynesian food is Koko Samoa.”

“When I started my company 101 Financial 20 years ago, I didn’t feel confident or worthy or even capable of being the CEO of my own company. I was doubting myself and I was trying to hire somebody outside, one of my friends that looked the part, this Haole Guy, Clark Kent. He was the CEO type guy to come run my company, I just didn’t feel like I was able to do it. This happens to a lot of us. I am from a small town on a small island and I was a college drop out. I was negatively hurting subconsciously, those thoughts really affected me over the years. It all shifted when I started to change my beliefs and I said “Why not me? Why not me?” I kept saying that. As I started to repeat that to myself more and more, I began to believe it more and more. Once I really felt it in my soul, we took off and made Inc 500. We did it without any advertising, and my confidence grew to a point that I finally felt I belonged there. All the grinding paid off. That led to KHON where I hosted a financial fitness report and it opened up many more doors. That all started because I began believing in myself.

We are just as capable or more capable to be CEOs and founders as anyone else. We have the aloha spirit, we can build company culture easier than anyone. Running a company takes a great culture, we know diversity, it is what we have been doing.

I had no business background, no business degree, I was a college drop out. We were poor, I was a free lunch kid growing up on food stamps, we never really owned a home.

We just gotta believe it.”

“I engrain a lot of my Polynesian heritage and upbringing into my company culture. Treating people like family as a company, that’s not normal in business. I learned you can be who you are and treat people like family and that’s a great way to do business. When you talk to business owners, it’s all about company culture. We are culture, Polynesians are culture, ingraining that into business is huge.

We need more entrepreneurs, businesses that can grow from 10s of millions to 100 millions of dollars. Try to build big businesses.

Younger generation, pursue education in two areas. First, if college is the right thing for you, it’s a great place to start, go for the best college education you can. The second important education is financial education. Getting financial education helps you to build your financial wealth, we as Polynesians are not very good with money. It takes money to build things. There are double A’s that lead to success. The first is ambition. You cannot settle, you want to continue building that ambition. The next A is akamai. When you are akamai and you have ambition, that is dangerous. Put those double A’s together, look out.”

"When you have akamai and you have ambition, that is dangerous. Put those double A's together, look out."

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse