Lydia Chang
LYDIA CHANG, CEO/Partner of Peter Chang
Lydia was born to a restaurant family that was founded by her parents Peter and Lisa. However, even before, in Hubei, Lydia grew up with her grandmother Ronger who lives to cook, and both women became the inspiration for the wildly successful Mama Chang in Fairfax, Virginia. While Lydia is not formally trained to work in a restaurant - whether in the kitchen or front of the house, she has a head for business and operating to meet the demands of an evolving industry. Post college and work experience in the U.K. she reunites with her family in the U.S., and spearheads the growth of her family’s restaurants, beginning with Arlington’s Peter Chang, followed by Q in Bethesda, and Mama Chang in Fairfax. As the company doubled in size in a period of 5 years, she maintained her focus on financial growth, from fundraising, management, while keeping operation issues such as talent sourcing, construction, design build, legal resolutions, and also culinary consistency in check.