About

About Jessica Lee

Jessica Lee is a successful Entrepreneur, Business Consultant, and Community Advocate, currently based in Chicago, where she owns 2 UPS stores in the bustling Northside business district. Lee has owned several businesses throughout her career, including various restaurants and nightclubs. At each establishment, Jessica has gained a reputation for hiring disadvantaged or marginalized community members, including friends from the LGBTQ+ community or those looking for a second chance. Her success is even more remarkable when you discover that she is deaf and a single mother of 2 children.

Lee firmly believes in accepting all kinds of people from all communities, ensuring that each employee feels welcomed and valued. Her unique combination of hard work, creativity, and innovation is likely due to her South Korean upbringing. Yet, she still holds fast to time-honored traditions, prioritizing family and community. These early life lessons continue to motivate Lee to push the boundaries, dismiss what is expected, and obtain what is unlikely.

Jessica Lee attended the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC), DePaul University, and Quantic School of Business and Technology, an online private business school based in Washington, D.C. She is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA). Lee has used her education to pursue diverse business interests, pivoting from a career as a CFO for start-ups and non-profits to an Enterprise Solutions Architect as well as a Business Consultant and Entrepreneur dedicated to helping other small- to medium-sized business owners succeed in the Northern Illinois metropolis.

Successful UPS Franchise Owner

Jessica Lee studied Biochemistry, Business Law, and Accounting at UIC and DePaul University. She is a first-generation immigrant and the first in her family to explore small-business ownership. Her goal was to achieve a level of financial independence and share her wealth of operational experiences. But, her journey has not been a straight path. Instead, Lee has taken advantage of business opportunities as they became available, owning multiple nightclubs, bars, and restaurants in her late twenties. Each business she converted into a successful operation earned even more profit when she sold and used the proceeds to pursue bigger and better opportunities.

Lee owns two highly successful UPS Store franchises in the Greater Chicago Area. She took it upon herself to learn everything about packing, shipping, and printing. Still, more importantly, she had to master the stringent background requirements that accompany taking the executive helm over one of the world’s largest franchisors of retail shipping, postal, print, and business service companies.

As a UPS Store owner, Jessica had to meet the financial requirements for ownership and underwent a four-phase training program, multiple interviews, and a financial review. Lee takes pride in owning a well-recognized business and looks for any opportunity to help a small business optimize their direct mail communications, front office operations, marketing, and order fulfillment obligations.

Business Consultant

Over the past decade, Jessica Lee has also provided her services as a Business Consultant and an Enterprise Solutions Architect, building ERP systems for Fortune 1000 companies. These include some of the largest companies in the U.S. when ranked by revenue. Lee analyzes proposed or existing IT infrastructure and ensures the different system components interact appropriately. Her skills are utilized when a business needs a technical solution to building a robust IT infrastructure that meets or exceeds business goals.

Lee also serves as a business consultant, helping small—to medium-sized businesses optimize daily operations or make strategic plans to expand into new territories or product lines. Jessica is an expert in enterprise resource planning (ERP) and is skilled at integrating various business processes into streamlined and automated administrative processes. It was likely that Lee’s success as an ERP specialist gave her the confidence to launch and successfully drive two UPS stores, which take an enormous amount of IT and administrative organization.

Community Advocate 

Jessica Lee has used her achievements in highly profitable retail, accounting, and technology ventures to benefit the community. She is actively involved in various charitable organizations and non-profit agencies, including St Jude Hospital and Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA), whose mission is to ensure all members of the community have equitable access to criminal defense. She also supports the local WBDC (Women’s Business Development Center), where she actively promotes business ownership by women to achieve economic empowerment. In 2023, she was one of the largest donors to the American Heart Association, a charity that the UPS Stores highly promote.

Lee is very passionate about helping people with disabilities, knowing that her business success story proves that physical challenges should never be a barrier to a higher quality of life. She is active with the Edgewater Chamber of Commerce and Rogers Park Chamber of Commerce, where she advocates for small business owners and helps government entities provide the resources that help local businesses grow and prosper in their area. A single mother with a hearing impairment, Jessica Lee, who also speaks four languages: English, Spanish, Korean, and German, firmly believes that financial literacy and education are the keys to our children’s futures.