How Eve Yen has achieved wins at every turn building Diamond Wipes into a global brand

Eve Yen, owner and CEO, Diamond Wipes International Inc.
Eve Yen, owner and CEO, Diamond Wipes International Inc.

Family Business Category
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When Eve Yen came to the United States from Taiwan nearly two decades ago, she was thinking like both an entrepreneur and a mother. She hoped that starting a business would allow her to feed both her passions and, most importantly, provide a better education and opportunity for success for her daughters.
Yen started Diamond Wipes International Inc. in 1994 as a manufacturer of disposable wet wipes. She had worked on a similar venture in Taiwan but hoped to find greater success in the United States. She started modestly with just one machine in a facility no bigger than a two-car garage.
In those early days, she would travel to local restaurants and food service distributors with her wet wipe product. She found success, and today the company’s products are distributed to more than 2,000 clients worldwide. Diamond Wipes now operates a 130,000 square-foot facility in California and a 60,000-square-foot factory in Ohio.
In addition to restaurant wipes, the company also has found great success in contract packaging, which is now its fastest-growing business.
Yen, the company’s CEO, is determined to keep manufacturing in the United States. She believes that wet wipe products should be freshly made and distributed via the shortest distance to the customer, but she’s also conscious of the energy and fuel costs that come with product transportation.
That awareness of what she wants and how she wants to do it has been a key factor in Yen’s success building Diamond Wipes. And it has allowed her to take even greater steps, such as the construction of a 3,360-panel solar power system to generate electricity for the Southern California manufacturing facility.
And just as Yen looked for a chance to prove herself in the early days, she affords the same opportunity to today’s future leaders. She never shies away from hiring young college graduates full of energy and creativity.
 
How to reach: Diamond Wipes International Inc., www.diamondwipes.com