Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.
At first blush, it might seem like Asian American leaders have obliterated the so-called “bamboo ceiling,” or barriers that prevent them from rising to top corporate roles. Several of the biggest companies in the world, including three of the four most valuable companies by market cap (Microsoft, Nvidia, and Alphabet) are run by CEOs of Asian descent. Indeed, they’re so famous that financial commentators refer to them by their first names—Satya, Jensen, and Sundar—and everyone knows who they’re talking about. And some of the most powerful women in business, including AMD CEO Lisa Su, Meta CFO Susan Li, and Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria, are Asian Americans.
Inequity remains
Yet challenges remain. Directors of Asian ancestry make up just 6.4% of Fortune 1,000 board seats, according to a 2023 study by KPMG and Ascend, a global network for Asian professionals. Asian Americans—a community composed of multiple countries of origin and dozens of dialects—account for 14% of U.S. professionals, according to the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission, but represent just 7% of U.S. executives.
As Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month gets underway, I find myself reflecting on the experiences of Asian American executives. Many of the Asian American leaders I speak with say they often have to overcome family values and traditions (“be humble, keep your head down”) to succeed in corporate environments. Indeed, a 2022 McKinsey & Co report draws a direct line between the perception of Asian Americans as “doers and not leaders” and spotty advancement. The same report highlights the notion of Asian Americans as “perpetual foreigners” in the workplace, which translates into: feeling less included.
The startup opportunity
One bright spot for Asian American achievement is entrepreneurship. During a recent panel at the Gold Power Summit, an event that showcased the role of Asian Americans in business and culture, Steven Lee, partner at SV Angel, pointed out that many AI startups—including Scale AI, Perplexity AI, and Cohere—have at least one Asian founder.
“Sometimes we need to change another’s house and sometimes we need to build our own,” says Bing Chen, cofounder and CEO of Gold House, an Asian American community and advocacy group. “When traditional systems don’t afford consistent opportunities to top talent, top talent will be forced to find another way—and often does. When someone else doesn’t want you, you build your own house and hopefully let everyone else in.”
Supporting Asian American employees
But business success for Asian Americans—or any other underrepresented group in business—shouldn’t be a binary choice between corporate life and entrepreneurship. The McKinsey report offers tangible ways for enterprises to support Asian American employees, such as addressing inclusion issues specific to colleagues of Asian ancestry, developing sponsorship programs, and collecting data about Asian American workers. And the entrepreneurial ecosystem has some work to do, too. Companies with Asian American founders received just 25% of venture dollars invested by the top 100 VC firms in 2018 and 2019, but founders of Asian descent over-index on successful VC-backed exits.
My own experience suggests that inclusion efforts and informal mentorship works. I got my first job, as a real estate reporter at The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk, Virginia, via a training program for journalists of color. Once I arrived, a group of female editors—none of them Asian American—immediately took me under their wing, critiqued my work, and made me feel welcome. Over the years I’ve benefitted from editors and bosses who’ve encouraged me to pursue promotions and new roles.
Support for Asian Americans in your company
How does your company factor Asian Americans into your diversity initiatives, if at all? If you are an Asian American in business, what advice do you have for your organization or other organizations seeking to support AAPI employees? Write to me at [email protected] and your answer may form the basis of a future newsletter.
Read and watch: Asian Americans in business
Satya Nadella on the importance of teamwork
Inside Jensen Huang’s plan to stay dominant in AI chips
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen on making big bets in innovation
How Worth AI founder Suneera Madhani mapped a path after a successful exit
Recognize your brand’s excellence by applying to this year’s Brands That Matter Awards before the early-rate deadline, May 3.
