Chef Charles was born and raised in Lihue, Kauai. He has worked in the culinary field for over a decade at world renowned restaurants and resorts including: Four Seasons Hualalai, Sam Choy’s, Roy’s, Four Seasons Beverly Hills at Wolfgang Puck’s Michelin restaurant, CUT, and Michelin-starred French restaurant at South Coast Plaza, Knife Pleat. He continues to be one of the only Native Hawaiian chefs located in the greater Los Angeles area providing an elevated experience of Hawaiian cuisine to some of the biggest names in Hollywood. The values he learned from his humble beginnings growing up in a malasada stand on the island of Kauai, with his mother known as “the malasada lady” has never left him. This is why he founded Kona Coffee & Cream and invited leaders like Shyla to champion the vision.

He leads the Kona Coffee & Cream Grains for Good Program, as he promotes Hawai’i-made products that goes to servicing the local agricultural programs and education back home.

Akau is an Army Veteran who served in the 871st Engineering Company in Hilo, Hawaii.

Shyla Victor is the current reigning Miss Kona Coffee 2023 and a contestant for Miss Hawai’i 2023.

She competed in the Miss Aloha division of the 2022 Merrie Monarch hula festival, and has had the opportunity to travel abroad and share her love for hula in Japan. As Executive Director, She has coupled her commitment as Miss Kona Coffee and director at Kona Coffee & Cream to becoming a leading voice in transforming the tourism industry into Regenerative Tourism. “Tourism should leave a place better than it was before,” Victor says. “I felt a calling to be more in touch with my culture. I still wanted to do more and be better. I began looking into community programs to be more involved. And so, not only did I join organizations, I decided to lead one.”

Victor is an official Pono Pledge Ambassador for the Big Island Visitors Bureau, and has aligned her mission with the Hawaii Tourism Authority’s Malama Hawai’i program to encourage visitors of the island to give back to the islands with hospitality partners.

At Kona Coffee & Cream, she leads all programming, partnerships, sponsorship and strategic direction of our initiatives.

Jamie Borromeo is a senior diversity consultant, researcher and educator. She is a former high school teacher at Konawaena High School and led the school’s business and entrepreneurship program. Borromeo was also the founding curriculum designer and instructor in partnership with University of Hawai’i Community College to establish the state’s only Financial Navigator Program on behalf of the County of Hawai’i and Cities for Financial Empowerment. She won the Teach for America Hawai’i Spark and Inspire Award in 2020, where she was recognized for her innovative financial literacy program that introduced cultural relevance and Hawaiian history into modules so middle school and high school students could understand the fundamentals of finance while remaining rooted in Hawaiian values and practices.

She is a doctoral student at St. Mary’s College of California pursuing a degree in Business Administration and has a Masters in Education from Johns Hopkins University. Her dissertation is focused on innovation in the diversity management field. She has worked as an advocate in Washington D.C. for AAPI small business and is the former Executive Director of the National Council of Asian American Business Associations.

She helps lead Kona Coffee & Cream strategic plan, sponsorship and partnerships for its inaugural launch.