Gigi Huang has been a restaurateur for over 28 years. At the age of 12, she began working with her father, James Huang, to build their family business. She opened Hunan Downtown in 2000.
Houston has been home to the Huang family since 1969 when they moved here from Taipei, Taiwan, where Gigi was born. She is a graduate and recent board member of Houston’s Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart.
Gigi enhances Houston’s civic and economic development initiatives through her work on the boards of the Downtown District and Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau. Her “quality of life” pursuits are the Houston Zoo Development Corporation, Houston Parks Board, Society for the Performing Arts, Houston Ballet, and several museum boards, including Houston Museum of Natural Science, Holocaust Museum Houston, and Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Her humanitarian causes include St. Joseph Hospital Foundation, DePelchin Children’s Center, Texas Liver Coalition, and American Heart Association Gigi received the Assistance League’s Mary Jo Peckham Award in 2001 and has been honored as a Cancer League Pacesetter of the Year, a Jaycee’s Outstanding Young Houstonian, a YWCA Volunteer of the Year, and a Delta Gamma Foundation Woman of Vision.