By Katelyn Amendolara-Russo
I arrived in Hong Kong alone, stepping into heat so thick it felt engineered – designed to test endurance. The city didn’t unfold horizontally the way Ohio does; it rose vertically, stacked in layers of steel, glass and intention. Neon signs climbed skyward. Streets overlapped. Space was not something you occupied casually – it was something you negotiated.
I was there as an educator, invited to an international art and math conference to help build state curriculum focused on STEAM education. My task was professional: to study how creative thinking and quantitative reasoning intersect across cultures, and translate those lessons back home.
In this city, art, math and business are not separate silos. They are inseparable systems.
The number eight appears everywhere – addresses, building floors, prices, stock listings. In Hong Kong’s financial district, this symbolism is not superstition, it is infrastructure. Properties with an “8” in the address or located on the eighth floor command higher prices. Exchange Square, one of the city’s most important financial centers, is intentionally located at 8 Connaught Place. Financial firms embed the number into phone numbers, office suites and branding to signal stability and success before a conversation ever begins.
The number’s perfectly symmetrical form represents balance and harmony; turned sideways, it resembles the infinity symbol – endless return, endless possibility. Conversely, the number four is avoided because its pronunciation echoes the word for death. Even timing follows this logic: major business openings and product launches are often scheduled on the 8th, 18th or 28th of the month to invite “big money.” This same cultural precision is why the 2008 Beijing Olympics began exactly at 8:08 p.m. on 8/8/08. Nothing was accidental. Culture and commerce moved together.
Standing in the financial district, I realized how different this was from Ohio and how familiar, too. We don’t embed numerology into our buildings in Youngstown, but we embed values into our businesses just as deeply: loyalty, reputation, endurance. Different symbols. Same function.
That awareness sharpened late one night when I got lost.
After long days navigating conference halls, transit systems I barely understood and the mental fatigue of constant translation – language, customs, pace – I climbed into a taxi. Traffic pressed in from every direction. Motorbikes cut past with inches to spare. Only once we merged into the flow did I notice the driver had a single glass eye, catching the streetlight differently than the other.
Fear surfaced quietly.
Not panic, but awareness. The kind that says: If something goes wrong, there is no safety net. No one here knows me. No one knows where I’m staying. In this moment, control is an illusion.
When we are far from our comforts, vulnerability becomes unavoidable.
I watched his hands on the wheel. Steady. Deliberate. He didn’t rush when others did. He waited. Signaled carefully. Navigated the chaos with restraint. In the moment I felt most exposed, I was met not with danger but with competence. With care.
Nothing went wrong.
That contrast – between fear and kindness, between perceived risk and quiet professionalism – stayed with me long after I returned home. Because leadership often feels exactly like that back seat of the taxi. Visibility is limited. Stakes are high. Decisions must be made without full information.
In business, we like to talk about risk as something to be minimized or eliminated. But the truth – whether in a global financial center or a Midwestern manufacturing corridor – is that risk is inevitable. What matters is how you move through it.
The strongest leaders I’ve observed aren’t the loudest or most aggressive. They are steady. They understand when to move and when to wait. They recognize that trust – once broken – is far more expensive than caution ever is.
Youngstown understands this instinctively.
Our region has rebuilt itself again and again. We know what it means to operate without guarantees, to adapt when industries shift, to place faith in people rather than systems alone. Our businesses survive not because risk disappears but because relationships hold.
Markets don’t function solely because of contracts and capital. They endure because of human behavior – judgment, restraint, integrity. Kindness in leadership isn’t softness; it’s foresight. It’s knowing that how you move through uncertainty determines whether others are willing to follow.
As an educator, I saw how deeply integrated these lessons were in Hong Kong’s approach to learning. Art wasn’t treated as an elective. Math wasn’t abstract. Both were tools for understanding the world and for shaping it. That integration is what I’ve carried back into my work, whether in curriculum development or museum leadership.
As executive director of the Medici Museum of Art, I’ve learned that leadership isn’t about imposing vision. It’s about stewardship. It means honoring the weight of what came before while still having the courage to evolve. It’s knowing when to protect legacy and when to adapt, understanding that institutions – like businesses – are living systems shaped as much by culture as by capital.
We don’t need to replicate Hong Kong’s density or scale in Youngstown. But we can learn from its coherence – from how belief, creativity and business reinforce one another rather than compete.
Art isn’t a luxury. It’s a framework for seeing.
Math isn’t cold. It’s a language of possibility.
Business isn’t transactional. It’s culture in motion.
That night in the taxi, afraid and far from home, I learned something I’ve carried into every leadership decision since: The goal isn’t to eliminate risk – it’s to move through it with judgment, humility and trust.
