If you’ve enjoyed a night under the lights at Alhambra’s annual Tree Lighting Ceremony or discovered a local artisan at the new Main Street Market, you can thank Joanna Vargas for making it happen.
As Executive Director of the Downtown Alhambra Business Association (DABA), Vargas has become the driving force behind some of the city’s most beloved traditions. She produces all the events for Downtown Alhambra, from bringing in Santa Claus on a fire truck for the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony to organizing the Halloween costume contest. The Tree Lighting Ceremony and Halloween costume contest have both been cherished Alhambra traditions for four decades. Just recently, DABA welcomed over 300 people for the 14th annual St. Paddy’s Day Pub Crawl.
Vargas structures her work at DABA around four core goals: uniting local business owners, organizing committees to improve the downtown district, generating foot traffic for economic growth, and offering support to businesses in whatever they need. Since taking on the role in 2021, following the retirement of the previous director, she’s not only maintained long-standing traditions but has also created new ones like the thriving Main Street Market, a vibrant monthly event launched earlier this year that continues to grow every month.
Her production company, Jayvee Empire, also plays a significant role in the city’s cultural life. Each year, it produces the Alhambra Pumpkin Run, a large-scale event powered by 350 volunteers, all high school students, and Vargas leads them all. “People think teens won’t show up on time or won’t listen,” she says. “But it’s about leadership. It’s about how you speak to them, how you lift them up. We treat them like adults and let them rise to the occasion.”
But Vargas’s leadership journey didn’t begin in a boardroom, it started on the dance floor.
As a young adult, “I wanted to be the next Jennifer Lopez,” she said. “I wanted to be a singer, dancer, performer, and actress, so I got an agent and started auditioning.” But she realized that this wasn’t her calling and pivoted to teaching dance. She loved it immediately.
She started with a humble, Sunday afternoon hip-hop class at a local studio, a timeslot that’s notoriously hard to fill. Her boss at the time didn’t think it would work out, but Vargas proved him wrong. She built that class up to 60 people.
“I was such a hustler,” she said. “I was passing out flyers, I was doing anything I could to build that class. Little did I know, I was building my entrepreneurial skills. I was learning how to build.” A self-proclaimed “hustler” since childhood, Vargas was the entrepreneurial kid with a lemonade stand and selling candies for a quarter at school.
At just 24, she purchased that very studio, launching Jayvee Dance Studio with only two students. Her passion and persistence paid off. That venture became her first brick-and-mortar business on Alhambra’s Main Street, laying the foundation for her entrepreneurial future. After eventually selling the studio (which is now Arte Flamenco) she opened a fitness studio next to Gen Korean BBQ.
In 2017, Vargas was named President of the Alhambra Chamber of Commerce. She views her current position in DABA as coming full circle. Beyond her work with DABA, Vargas is a business coach, a personal fitness trainer, and the host of her own podcast, The Get Up Girl.
What makes a good leader? Listening and empathy.
Her advice for young women: One, learn how to speak and communicate; and two, save 10% of every dollar you make.
