Where Are the Asian CEOs?

By Tim | Friday, May 1, 2009 | 10 Comments

Thanks for visiting 8Asians, a blog about Asian American issues. If you find this interesting, subscribe to the RSS feed, visit our Facebook Page or add us on Twitter!

300px magritte thesonofman Where Are the Asian CEOs? The question of Asians in executive row is the topic of an upcoming panel discussion, titled “Where are the Asian CEOs?” in Santa Clara, California. On May 20th, the Asia Society Northern California (ASNC), Ascend Bay Area and Corporate Executive Initiative, with event partners AAMA (Asian American MultiTechnology Association), CAAEN (Corporate Asian American Employee Network) and TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) are sponsoring the panel at the TiE Conference Center.

The panelists include Vish Mishra, Partner at Clearstone Ventures and President TiE Silicon Valley; Brian Schipper, Senior Vice President/HR, Cisco Systems; Chris Min, Vice President/Finance, Intel; and Susan Wang Wade, Board Member, Nektar, Altera and Avanex.

The meeting will cover topics including: why have only a handful of Asians have reached the highest corporate levels; the reasons behind their under representation on corporate boards and senior executive levels; what executive skills are required in large, complex organizations; and what companies are doing to develop and retain their best employees, including Asian employees.

In addition, a new study by Buck Gee, Project Director of the Corporate Executive Initiative and former Cisco Vice-President, will be released at the panel discussion. This study of large Bay Area companies found that Asian Americans continue to be substantially underrepresented at the highest levels of corporate management. While discussing this panel in a recent article, Asianweek also reported these statistics on Asian representation at the executive level:

2008 corporate reports have found that while Asians represented over 23% of the Bay Area population, they comprise only 5.5% of the Board members and 9.3% of the executive officers in the 25 largest companies with headquarters in the Bay Area. Furthermore, fourteen of these companies had no Asian board members and eight had no Asian corporate officers. Even in Silicon Valley, where Asians are over 30% of the population, Asians were only 9.7% of the corporate officer population. Top Bay Area companies Chevron, McKesson, the Gap and Symantec reported no Asians as board members or corporate officers in 2008.

This panel discussion is timely, given that 8Asians covered the topic of the perceived glass ceiling for Asians less than two months ago. Unfortunately, the number of Asian executives at my company hasn’t improved since I wrote that post in March.

The meeting is open to the public, with a 6pm Registration, followed by the panel discussion and reception. The ticket price for Asia Society/Ascend/event partner members is $10; Non-members $15; Students/Seniors $5. To register you can call: 415 421 8706.

Artwork credit: The Son of Man by René Magritte

Categories:

AnnouncementsBusinessDiscriminationSan Francisco Bay Area

NOTE: 8Asians.com is a community, and we thank you for being a part of it. While we welcome and appreciate differences in opinion, if you're rude or you're promoting spam, we have a right to edit or delete your comment. Read our comment policy for more information.

If you see a comment that violates the 8Asians.com comment policy, you may flag the comment by mousing over the comment and clicking "FLAG."

Facebook Comments (Beta)

10 Comments to “Where Are the Asian CEOs?”

John wrote:

Thanks for posting. May 20th is my brother’s birthday, but I am definitely interested in attending this event.

Posted on 02-May-09 at 9:58 pm | Permalink
Jeff wrote:

Thanks for the post. If you or John go, could you post a summary of what was said?

Posted on 03-May-09 at 12:44 pm | Permalink
8Asians.com » Can Asians Innovate in Business? wrote:

[...] written a few posts here on the lack of Asian executives in American businesses. It’s been argued by some that [...]

Posted on 05-May-09 at 11:26 am | Permalink
8Asians.com » Stanford: Advanced Leadership Program for Emerging Asian American Executives wrote:

[...] 8Asians, we’ve blogged about Where Are the Asian CEOs? , how Americans Expect Business Leaders to Be White, as well as the “bamboo ceiling.” I [...]

Posted on 18-May-10 at 12:20 pm | Permalink
Peter Rouse: The First Asian American White House Chief of Staff | Current Events | 8Asians.com wrote:

[...] work done and not getting the limelight and credit is exactly the opposite model to successfully break the bamboo ceiling not only in politics, but in the corporate world. And I’d be the first to admit myself of being guilty of shining away from the [...]

Posted on 07-Oct-10 at 9:43 am | Permalink
Silicon Valley Companies Face Minority Hiring Complaints | Business | 8Asians.com wrote:

[...] in recruiting women and under-represented minorities such as African Americans and Hispanics, as well as Asian Americans and women in leadership positions. The only Silicon Valley female CEO is Carol Bartz of Yahoo! and [...]

Posted on 15-Feb-11 at 4:26 pm | Permalink
CEO Clara Shih of Hearsay Labs Named to Starbucks Board of Director | Business | 8Asians.com wrote:

[...] how few Asian Americans there are at the CEO, upper management or board of directors level, I was pleasantly surprised to hear about [...]

Posted on 29-Dec-11 at 2:00 pm | Permalink
Vivek Wadhwa On Race, Gender, and Meritocracy in Silicon Valley | Business | 8Asians.com wrote:

[...] that one of their biggest problems was retaining Asian American engineers because they felt that they couldn’t be promoted and then left to start their own companies. Many of my former Asian American coworkers did [...]

Posted on 28-Feb-12 at 12:02 pm | Permalink
Asian Americans Dominate The Motel Business | Business | 8Asians.com wrote:

[...] really want to be in charge of their own destiny, and small businesses allow that.” Given the glass ceiling for Asian Americans in the corporate world, I can understand that point of view. Thanks for rating this! Now tell the world how you feel [...]

Posted on 01-Jun-12 at 6:02 am | Permalink
NPR: Stanford’s Asian-American Leadership Programs Tackle The ‘Bamboo Ceiling’ | Business | 8Asians.com | An Asian American collaborative blog wrote:

[…] 8Asians, we’ve blogged about Where Are the Asian CEOs?, Americans Expect Business Leaders to Be White, as well as Stanford University’s Graduate […]

Posted on 16-Jul-14 at 12:02 pm | Permalink

8 Asians