Ellen Pao, who is perhaps best known for her gender discrimination lawsuit against her former employer, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, said racial bias was prevalent in Silicon Valley too. In her recent book, “Reset: My Fight For Inclusion and Lasting Change,” she writes that her boss in Silicon Valley often confused her with another Asian woman who had previously held her job. She also frequently heard jokes and ethnic stereotypes about Asians.
There are more than a few Asian Americans running big companies. They include Microsoft Corp.’s Satya Nadella; Sundar Pichai at Google Inc.; Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Ajit Jain, the head of reinsurance; and Citigroup’s chief risk officer, Brad Hu.
Success stories can make the imbalance seem less severe than it is, said Laura Huang, an assistant professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania. “If we look at ratios in the population versus top management, it’s very skewed -- it’s not proportionate.”
Stanford’s Answer
Ascend’s Gee and Wesley Hom, a retired IBM executive, worked with Stanford University to develop a course to help Asian managers break through to the upper levels. Classes in the week-long, $12,600 program are drawn from the general executive curriculum at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
They also address behaviors that, Gee’s research shows, can slow a career and tend to be more common among people of Asian heritage, including deference to authority and an aversion to risk taking.
“My brother and I were raised to not talk unless we were spoken to,” said Wes Chung, 40, who works as the chief of staff for IBM’s chief brand officer. “We were told to work hard and the results would come to you.” Chung took the Stanford class which, he said, helped him be more assertive about his ambition.
Encouraging people to assimilate can’t be the only solution, said Hyun, whose book “Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Career Strategies for Asians” was published in 2005. “That’s putting the onus on one party. If nobody is meeting you part way, it becomes very stressful.”
Pao now runs an organization, Project Include, that advises companies on steps they can take to promote equitable treatment of all employees. “Putting it on the employee to change their behavior is not going to solve the problem,” she said. “This kind of solve-one-problem-at-a-time approach creates divisions among groups that should be working together.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.