When marketing executive Helene "Sam" Shenkus moved to Hawai‘i in 1984, she was supposed to be here for three years. More than 40 years later, she's still helping shape the retail landscape in the Islands.
Now the vice president and director of marketing at Waikīkī's Royal Hawaiian Center, a role she's been in since 2007, Shenkus has held executive-level marketing positions at Ala Moana Center, Aloha Tower Marketplace, Roberts Hawai‘i and even her own firm, Sam Shenkus Marketing Consulting. That's in addition to her substantial community service.
Shenkus was recently named one of four recipients of the 2025 ICSC Trustees' Distinguished Service Award. It's the highest volunteer honor from the International Council of Shopping Centers, and Shenkus is the first person from Hawai‘i to receive it. You can find a list of all the past winners here.
"Quite frankly, I was shocked and amazed that I had won it," she told Aloha State Daily of her award.
ASD recently spoke with Shenkus about her award, career and community service, and the work she's done since moving here in 1984.
Department store background
Shenkus graduated with a degree in retailing and business from Michigan State University, then went to work with the largest retailer in the Detroit area — J.L. Hudson Co. — which merged with another to form the Dayton Hudson Corp. (itself was renamed Target Corp. in 2000).
"I had a department store background, and I really enjoyed it," she says. "I was in the buying end of it for a couple of years, but I really liked being in the stores and being in the operations. I was in the retail division ... and about every 10 months, they gave me another job."
In her last job at Dayton Hudson, Shenkus says she led a division of about 400 sales people spanning a number of departments, including children's, cosmetics and men's sportswear and suits.
At the time, she was around 29.
"A lot of people think I have energy and I'm perky now, so imagine me at 29," she jokes.
Indeed, Shenkus is animated and detailed as she recounts her work history and the lessons she learned.
She then had the opportunity to go into the Dayton Hudson shopping center division. Eventually, she managed three different shopping centers before being approached about a job in the Islands.
Three years
Shenkus says that the owner of the last shopping center she managed in Michigan had partnered with Japanese supermarket chain Daiei to acquire Ala Moana Center in the early 1980s.
She was approached about a position in Hawai‘i and given the option to be the marketing director or director of operations at Ala Moana.
"Marketing is way more fun than operations, so I said, 'I'll be the marketing director,'" Shekus told ASD. "I came to Hawai‘i in June 1984 as the marketing director of Ala Moana Center."
Shenkus says she had never thought about coming to Hawai‘i.
"I never gave Hawai‘i a second thought. My mom loved Jack Lord in Hawaii Five-O, but I was like, 'Oh, OK.'"
She had a three-year contract, and now, "here I am."
"Well, I came out here and the people are wonderful. I love, love, love the people here," she says. "And I found, because I was the marketing director of Ala Moana, a lot of people wanted to talk to me."
She stayed at Ala Moana Center until 1992, when she went to Aloha Tower Marketplace. Shenkus was there for a few years when she had the opportunity to become the vice president of marketing for Roberts Hawai‘i, where she "really got a fast learning curve on tourism."
After that, she had her own marketing firm for about a decade, and she "loved, loved loved it."
Shenkus says she had a "nice array of clients."
Out of all the clients she worked with, Shenkus spoke about the time she was approached by someone on the board of the Japan-America Society she says was worried that the organization didn't have a crisis communication plan in place.
Shenkus was asked to help pull such a plan together, which she did. And just weeks after it was finished, though, the plan was put to use when a nuclear submarine hit a Japanese student fishing boat off the coast of O‘ahu in 2001.
Shenkus joined The Festival Companies, management company of Royal Hawaiian Center, in 2007. Here, she leads the "strategic planning and implementation of marketing, advertising and social media, merchant communications, public, community and business communications relations" for the shopping center. She also heads the Marketing Strategy for the company's lifestyle and tourism retail portfolio, the site notes.
Having worked in Waikīkī for nearly two decades now, we asked Shenkus about the biggest changes she's seen in that time.
The hotels here have "always been world class," she says, but "the Waikīkī that surrounds the hotels has really become more elevated. It's become more international, quite frankly, and it's also become more Hawaiian."
At Royal Hawaiian Center, for example, Shenkus says there's now water features, greenery, a stage for performing and the shopping center has a "very, very robust cultural program."
"If you look at Waikīkī now, you as a guest at the Royal [Hawaiian], at the Sheraton Waikīkī, at the Halekulani, when you walk out of your hotel and you explore Waikīkī, there is a lot to see, there is a lot do, there's a lot to eat, there's a wonderful atmosphere and you know you're in Hawai‘i. There's a sense of place."
Community service
Outside of work, community service is key for Shenkus, who says she's a "serial, habitual joiner."
"If there's a problem, I'm like, 'Oh, OK. How can I help? What can I do?'" she told ASD.
By the late 1980s, Shenkus says she was on the board of Aloha Festivals. She's served as co-chair since 2012.
For more than 20 years, Shenkus has been a member of the Salvation Army Honolulu Advisory Board, and she's involved in a number of professional organizations, including the Retail Merchants of Hawai‘i, Hawai‘i Hotel and Lodging Association, Waikīkī Improvement Association, Friends of Honolulu City Lights, and the ICSC, where she's the Hawai‘i marketplace director, a short bio provided to ASD noted. She also is a member and past-president of the Rotary Club of Ala Moana.
Shenkus also has served as the president of the Marco Polo AOAO, or Association of Apartment Owners, as past chair of the Hawai‘i Dental Service Board of Directors and a board member of the Girl Scouts Council of Hawai‘i.
"To me, I think it's really important that when you have opportunities to help people or to make a difference or to solve a problem, you do it," Shenkus says. It's her way of supporting the community and giving back.
And as for her award from ICSC, Shenkus didn't know she was even up for the recognition.
"I got an email from the president and CEO of this organization congratulating me," she told ASD. "... [I was] totally, totally out of the loop. I had no idea."
"I really didn't believe it until I was actually getting the award in Las Vegas."
Stephanie Salmons can be reached at stephanie@alohastatedaily.com.
