Creative Producer Lien-Fang Chen Leads A Snail's Pace Running Shop in Run-Up to 2028 Olympic Games

Los Angeles, United States, August 14th, 2026, FinanceWire

The producer who relaunched Segway in America is turning a 1979 running shop into a launchpad for the 2028 Olympics

A Snail's Pace Running Shop, one of the oldest running specialty retailers in the country, is preparing a yearlong campaign built around the countdown to the Los Angeles Olympics. It begins in 2027 near the LA Marathon with social runs and pop up shops, then carries through the summer toward LA28, the biggest track and field stage the region has hosted in four decades.

Shaping it is Lien-Fang Chen, the creative producer who has spent three years remaking the Orange County institution for a generation that discovered running during the pandemic.

The timing is not accidental. With Los Angeles hosting in 2028, the running industry has flagged Southern California as its priority market for experiential campaigns. Chen intends for A Snail's Pace to be the partner brands call first.

A childhood spent between two countries

Chen grew up between Taipei and upstate New York, where her father earned a PhD in Technology Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She calls the result a split inheritance: the warmth of an island people, the drive of a New Yorker.

Moving back to Taiwan at 13, before the internet flattened the distance between teenagers, was a shock. On her first day of school she wore scrunchy socks pulled to the knee, the standard she had left behind in America, and was mocked for it. A year later the same look arrived in Taipei by way of Japanese trends, and a classmate told her, in disbelief, that she had worn them the year before.

That small vindication set a career direction. Chen wanted to work on the timing of culture, the gap between what is coming and what has landed.

Building a stage for Taiwanese storytellers

After several years in tech startups, a volunteer mentorship program pulled her toward cultural institutions and the slower work of building continuity for a community. She helped found the Taiwanese American Film Festival, trading product roadmaps for the analog business of getting people into a room to swap stories about family and lineage.

The festival drew a visit from sitting Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen during a stop in Los Angeles, and Chen moderated a private panel featuring the president and the festival's founders. Its alumni went further still, directing Chang Can Dunk, released by Disney+ in 2023, and American Girl, winner of Best New Director at the 2021 Golden Horse Awards.

Reintroducing an American icon

When Covid shut down the filmmaking industry, Chen took her mix of technology and community work to Segway. The brand had a specific problem. Americans remembered the punchline from Mall Cop, not the high performance scooters and go karts that had become the core of the business.

Chen built the Segway Across America campaign into a four city East Coast tour, putting test drives in front of the public at Niagara Falls, Boston, New York City and Miami. It generated more than 250 million impressions and over 25 press articles, and supported Segway's number one micromobility market share in the US.

The run club boom meets a 1979 institution

A Snail's Pace opened in 1979 as one of the first running clubs and running shops in the country, and became a pilgrimage stop for runners across America. By the early 2020s it faced a pleasant crisis. Running was surging again as a social sport. Strava data shows social running grew 40 percent from 2024 to 2025, and run clubs were pulling in newcomers by the thousands.

A new and younger owner wanted that demographic. Chen moved quickly. Within three months she had secured a partnership with Nike to produce a Hispanic Heritage Month brand story video, and brought in the unglamorous machinery that scaling requires: standardized procedures, weekly meetings, documentation, clearly defined roles.

The results are measurable. Over three years the business has grown 23 percent, opened a new location and added two team members. Its identity shifted from beloved mom and pop fixture to community anchor that programs its own events, from an award winning HOKA Youth Track Camp to shoe launches staffed with DJs and tattoo artists. It was named Best Running Store in America for both 2024 and 2025.

Counting down to LA28

The 2027 program extends that work. Rather than treating the Olympics as a single moment to advertise against, the plan spreads the anticipation across a season of gatherings, pop ups and runs, with the LA Marathon as the starting gun.

It is a familiar bet for someone who once measured how long a trend took to cross the Pacific. The runners are already moving. Chen is building the room they gather in.

About Lien-Fang Chen

Lien-Fang Chen is a bicultural creative producer based in Southern California, raised between Taipei, Taiwan and upstate New York. She helped found the Taiwanese American Film Festival, the leading US showcase for Taiwanese and Taiwanese American filmmakers, and moderated a private panel there with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen. As creative producer at Segway, she architected the Segway Across America tour, which earned more than 250 million impressions and 25 plus press placements.

She now leads brand, partnerships and community programming at A Snail's Pace Running Shop, established 1979 and named Best Running Store in America in 2024 and 2025. Under her leadership the business has grown 23 percent in three years and is developing a 2027 activation program leading into the LA28 Olympic Games.

Article by Jared Cooper

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