Sage Keʻalohilani Quiamno, 34, often reflects on the significance of names. In Seattle, Washington, where she resides, her acquaintances defer to her English name. Back in Hawaiʻi, her ʻohana calls her Keʻalohi.
Generations of her ʻohana have grown up in Honolulu’s Kalihi neighborhood. Her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents all attended Farrington High School and married their high school sweethearts.
Those connections continue to ground her in Hawaiʻi even though she’s lived on the continent since 2013. Over the years, she has built a successful career as a strategic communications leader and angel investor, making the list of Pacific Business News’ 40 Under 40 last year. But Quiamno never forgets who she is.
From her mother, Shannan Lokelani, whose ʻohana hails from both Hawaiʻi Island and Oʻahu, Honolulu-born Quiamno claims Kānaka Maoli, Chinese and Portuguese ancestry. Her father, Roy, is Filipino.
When Quiamno was growing up, her mom was a manager at Hawaiian Telcom while her dad worked in maintenance at Outrigger Resorts & Hotels in Waikīkī and ran his own auto body shop. Their urban neighborhood was a blend of recent immigrants and Native Hawaiians, characterized by the sounds of conversations in English, Samoan, Tongan, Tagalog, Chamorro and ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi echoing through its streets.
“What I really learned in my time growing up in Kalihi is that we get a bad rep, but to me it probably provided the most eye-opening and character-building childhood,” Quiamno said. “It’s really working-class families and that hard work mentality bridging the gap across cultures.”
She attended St. John the Baptist Catholic School, which exposed her to the wealth disparities in Hawaiʻi. Kamehameha Schools’ Explorations program taught Quiamno about her Kānaka culture and traditions. Early in life, she developed a love for paddling that persisted for years.
Raised in the age of blockbuster movies like Erin Brockovich and Legally Blonde, Quiamno dreamed of becoming a defense attorney. “I wanted to defend and advocate on behalf of others,” she said.
She credits her aunt, Erin Kahunawaikaʻala Wright, as associate professor at UH Mānoa, with inspiring her from a young age. A mentee of Haunani-Kay Trask, Wright taught Quiamno about activism, social justice, equity and Hawaiian identity, taking her to protests at ʻIolani Palace. Together, the pair would speak in ʻōlelo and discuss their family’s genealogy.
Quiamno’s time at Saint Francis School were formative years for the then-teenager. She studied Japanese and served as class president. She joined speech and debate, which left her enthralled by the concepts of building a case and structuring an argument.
And she found herself pushing back against the school administration and its rules, which she deemed unfair. Quiamno especially remembers administrations’ reprimands of LGBTQ+ classmates. “I knew it wasn’t right,” she said.
After graduating in 2009, Quiamno accepted a full-ride scholarship to UH Mānoa. She attended classes in both the business and communication schools. While at the university, Quiamno served as a student senator and joined a co-ed business fraternity.
But within the university’s student body, she distinctly felt the absence of other Kānaka students. Native Hawaiian Student Services filled that gap. “It was a gift and a privilege to be able to learn and live and breathe my culture in college,” Quiamno said.
Although she completed internships at McNeil Wilson Communications and for former Gov. Neil Abercrombie, she realized that working for the hotel industry or the government didn’t appeal to her.
She was ready for new experiences and before she graduated in 2013, Amazon offered her a job in Seattle. When Big Tech rang, she answered the call.
After graduation, she relocated to the Pacific Northwest. Initially, she found it difficult to get used to its weather, culture and social scene. “Deep down, Seattle is such a beautiful, rich community,” Quiamno said. “If you invest in Seattle, it will invest back into you. But when I first moved here, it was a rough go.”
After one year at Amazon, she pivoted to real estate development and pay equity startups. They fed her appetite for entrepreneurship.
And in 2019, Quiamno took the entrepreneurial plunge and launched Future for Us, a community platform for women of color along with a co-founder. For her contributions, she was named one of Seattle Magazine’s Most Influential People, a Gates Foundation’s 100 Changemakers in 2019, and a Vital Voices Global Leadership Incubator Fellow, which helped her build up her company.
Then, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Feeling burnt out in her late twenties, she moved back to Hawaiʻi. Her company was acquired in 2021, and she took a 10-month career break. “Being able to slow down and take a breath, that really helped me gear up for my next thing,” Quiamno said.
During the pandemic, she was recruited to lead diversity, equity and inclusion at Amazon Prime Video, which brought her back to Seattle. Quiamno shaped the streaming service’s talent and inclusion strategy for its labor force around the world from 2021 until early 2025.
After layoffs hit the tech giant, Quiamno poured her energy into her own fractional public relations firm, catering to early-stage startups. She also used her position as an angel investor to fund Kānaka women entrepreneurs.
And earlier this year, Yoodli, an enterprise AI roleplay platform, hired Quiamno to spearhead its strategic public relations, communications and marketing. She’s eager to learn more about the new frontier of artificial intelligence.
However, “my end goal is to move back home,” Quiamno said, “once I’m ready.”
