Nadya Okamoto

Okamoto was born in New York City and moved to Portland, Oregon, at the age of nine. Okamoto attended the private K-12 school Catlin Gabel In December 2019, Catlin Gabel School published a report on the school's history of abuse by faculty towards students, wherein Okamoto's experience of harassment and grooming from her student advisor of four years was included. Okamoto came forward publicly with more details on her experience related to the abuse in January 2020. It was later revealed that her former student advisor was fired immediately after the inappropriate behavior was reported to the school. Okamoto was also a 2016 Coca-Cola scholar. She received the first place 2016 Most Valuable Student Scholarship by the Elks National Foundation. In October 2019, Okamoto was given Catlin Gabel's Distinguished Alumni award. Okamoto was accepted into early admission at Harvard College and graduated in June 2021. == Career ==

In December 2014, Okamoto founded Period Inc. with her high school classmate Vincent Forand, originally under the name Camions of Care. Under her leadership as executive director, the organization registered 800 chapters in all 50 US states and 40 other countries. In 2017, Okamoto's organization hosted their first "Period Con," a global conference for young activists. In 2018, Period Inc. made $420,000 in annual revenue In October 2018, Okamoto published her debut book, Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement with publisher Simon & Schuster, which made the Kirkus Reviews list for Best Young Adult Nonfiction of 2018. In 2019, Okamoto served as the Chief Brand Officer of Juv Consulting, a marketing firm that targets Gen Z. In 2017, Okamoto was named as one of ''Teen Vogue's'' 21 Under 21. Okamoto was awarded the L'Oréal Women of Worth award at the annual Glamour Women of the Year ceremony in November 2019. In December 2019, Okamoto was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 in law and policy and '' Bloomberg's'' 50 Most Influential Ones to Watch. In January 2020, Okamoto stepped down from executive director of Period, Inc and moved into an advising role for the organization. In June 2020, activists accused Okamoto of monopolizing visibility and resources for her organization; Period Inc. confirmed that Okamoto was no longer working with the organization. In November 2020, Okamoto co-founded the lifestyle period brand August with Nick Jain, the founder of Juv Consulting. Okamoto serves as the CEO of the company. August raised nearly $2 million for their seed round, led by venture capital firm, Hannah Grey. The company sells direct-to-consumer period products and pays the tampon tax for customers in states where the tax is applied. == References ==