Contact:
Sofia Poyhonen, PR Manager, (212) 248-4888 x111, sofia.poyhonen@ascendleadership.org
Lisa Hawes, Sterling Communications, (408) 884-5155, ascendpr@sterlingpr.com

More information about the event can be found at www.ascendleadership.org/event/executivecelebrationgala. Follow our event on social media through the #AscendNorCal hashtag.

We hope you had a great experience – learned from our hand-picked mentors, spoke with our partner companies at the Career Expo and made some valuable connections for the future, met new interesting people and connected with old friends, took away important lessons from Apple’s Arturo Nunez’s keynote speech and our other inspiring sessions and had fun at the Benefit & Awards Dinner.

To view conference photos by day, please click the following links:

Friday | Saturday | Dinner

Ascend, the largest non-profit Pan-Asian membership organization for business professionals in North America is holding its 2016 National Convention at the Disneyland Hotel, Anaheim on July 30th to August 1st. The Ascend Convention will be the largest gathering of Pan-Asian business leaders, professionals and students in North America with an expected 3,000 registered participants.

The convention theme this year is “Dare to Dream, Be Extraordinary, Ascend!” which speaks to the importance of dreaming big, becoming the best one can be, and reaching new heights. All industries are going through transformative change, and the attendees will hear actionable insights and latest trends from expert speakers, engage in these conversations and be at the forefront of change and innovation in their own organizations. Our three-day convention includes innovative, engaging programming, professional enhancement opportunities to develop the leadership skills of our attendees, combined with powerful networking and mentoring tailored for all attendees – from university students to professionals to senior executives and corporate board members. The career fair offers a fantastic opportunity for students and professionals to meet with various companies, learn about their career offerings, as well as network with industry leaders and key decision makers.

Ascend NorCal’s Awards Gala will honor business and public leaders and recognize their achievements in diversity leadership and service. Several senior executives from San Francisco Bay Area based global firms, as well as public dignitaries and officials, will attend the gala. It will feature a President’s wine Reception, celebrity emcee and live entertainment. A highly anticipated segment of the gala includes a thought provoking discussion on “Fostering diversity today for a better tomorrow” with select awardees. Ascend Bay Area Student Chapter scholarship recipients will also be honored.

“We have experienced tremendous growth in our first decade as a chapter and I am very proud of our program’s accomplishments in developing and promoting diverse talent. This year’s Awards Gala marks a major milestone in our journey and we are excited to have this forum to celebrate those in our professional communities who continue to inspire us and support our chapter’s goals,” comments Ajay Anand, President of Ascend Northern California Chapter.

“All of the individuals being recognized and awarded are considered trailblazers in their field and are especially inspirational to the Pan-Asian community and beyond,” remarked Judy Kopa, Co-Chair for the Gala and Board Member of Ascend NorCal Chapter. “They are being recognized for the impact of their work in the San Francisco Bay Area, our NorCal communities and of course, the broader world at large,” said Binita Pradhan, Co-Chair for the Gala and Board Member of Ascend NorCal Chapter.

For more information and to register for this event, please visit: http://bit.ly/21so8Z8

“Our Chapter wishes Cindy Lau continued success in Southern California. We look forward to welcoming Diana Hernandez to our Board of Directors.”
Ajay Anand, President, Ascend Northern California Chapter
Darcy Lopes, Incoming President, Ascend Northern California Chapter 2016-2017

Ascend works hard to extend its reach and to engage new community leaders to promote and support our world-class leadership and professional development and networking programs for Pan-Asian students, professionals and executives in the U.S. and Canada.

Diana Hernandez will join the Ascend NorCal Board as the Vice President of Marketing and Memberships. Diana brings over 15 years of talent acquisition experience and currently serves as the Recruiting Director for RGP in Northern California. Diana oversees RGP recruitment, talent management and retention strategy and execution for the practice across multiple RGP disciplines, including program and project management, information management, human capital, and accounting and finance.  She started her career in talent acquisition at Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) and served in progressive roles, including as a recruitment lead for entry-level management consulting for the Western U.S. region supplying talent in the Communications and High Tech, Retail, Government, and BPO industries. Diana then joined a change management consulting firm as a human resources manager and led recruiting and staffing enablement functions supporting consulting teams for mid-size to Fortune 500 clients. Diana holds a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Diana will join a ten-member board that oversees Ascend NorCal Chapter’s finances and strategic planning.

High-flying Asian-Americans, like the three authors of the Ascend report, suggest that cultural patterns may contribute to the group’s under-representation at the top. “There’s something in the upbringing that makes Asians shy,” says Mr Gee. “Engineers are nerds, but within that self-selected group of nerds, Asians are even more nerdy.” “We’re brought up to be humble,” says Ms Wong. “My parents didn’t want to rock the boat. It’s about being quiet, not making waves, being part of the team. In corporate life, you have to learn to toot your horn.” “There’s a natural order of human relationships in Confucianism,” says Ms Peck. “You don’t argue, you don’t contradict authority.”

Read the full article here.

Ascend is celebrating our 10th Anniversary this year and we would love to hear from you! Send us a video or short paragraph about your experience with Ascend, how Ascend has helped you, and how you have given back. Feel free to give specific examples. We appreciate your creativity!

Best stories or videos will be featured at the convention!

CRITERIA

• You must be an Ascend member
• You must be attending the National Convention August 29-31, 2015 in New York City.
• First 30 submissions will automatically win a special gift at the National Convention. Stop by the Ascend booth (Booth # to follow) to redeem your gift on Saturday, August 29.

SUBMISSIONS

DEADLINE

Date: Monday, July 13, 2015 

Time: 1:00 to 2:00pm CST (to watch the live broadcast)

To listen to the two audio files please click here.

Below is an excerpt of the article, to read it in full please click here.

A new report on diversity in Silicon Valley shows that Asians and Asian-Americans are well-represented in lower-level positions — but, in comparison, severely underrepresented at the management and executive levels at five large, established tech companies.

Ascend, an Asian-American professional organization based in New York, found that although 27 percent of professionals working at those companies are Asian or Asian-American, fewer than 19 percent of managers, and just under 14 percent of executives, are.

Asian women are especially underrepresented. Out of all the Asian-American women working in tech, only 1 in 285 is an executive. That compares to a ratio of 1 executive per 118 professionals in the workforce as a whole — and, for white men in tech, a ratio of 1 in 87, reports Ascend.

Why are so few of the Asians and Asian-Americans working in tech breaking into management? Four Asians in the tech industry — two U.S.-born and two foreign-born — shared their experiences and perspectives with NPR's Arun Rath. They noted the importance of role models, the burden of expectations — and, in the case of Asians born abroad — the challenge of obtaining a visa.

The study analyzes the leadership pipeline using employment data filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) by five major Silicon Valley-based companies. It reveals some surprising results including that the glass ceiling is 3.7x times harder for Asian Americans to crack. Our new Executive Parity Index (EPI) calculator tool will allow any company to determine their EPI score.

Click here for the full report.

Click here for 1-page Executive Summary and the Press Release.

The EPI Calculator can be accessed here.

Please contact Sofia Poyhonen at sofia.poyhonen@ascendleadership.org if you are interested in speaking further about the study.

NEW YORK CITY — May 6, 2015 — It’s tough enough for women to crack the glass ceiling in business, but for Asian American men and women, the challenge is even greater. Released at the start of Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, a new study from the Ascend® Foundation (www.ascendleadership.org) examines a problem that has been hidden in plain sight for decades and, for the first time, quantifies the impact of race and gender in a data-driven investigation of Silicon Valley’s Asian glass ceiling.

The new report, Hidden in Plain Sight: Asian American Leaders in Silicon Valley (http://goo.gl/HeTLzs), analyzes the leadership pipeline using 2013 employment data filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) by five major Silicon Valley-based companies — Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, LinkedIn, and Yahoo. Concurrently, Ascend, the largest non-profit Pan-Asian organization for business professionals in North America, has rolled out a new Executive Parity Index™ (EPI™) calculator tool on its website (www.ascendleadership.org/?page=EPI) that can be used by any company to help measure its leadership diversity.

Using a novel EPI approach to compare representation of South and East Asians in the leadership pipeline, the Ascend report uncovers surprising new insights about the role of race and gender in Silicon Valley:

·       Although both race and gender are factors that contribute to a glass ceiling, the impact of race is 3.7 times more significant than the impact of gender as a negative factor for the Asian workforce within the companies examined.

·       While white men are 42% more likely than white women to be an executive in these companies, they are 149% percent more likely than Asian men to be an executive, and 260% more likely than Asian women to be an executive.

·       For Asian women in these companies, this translates into a “double whammy” race-plus-gender problem: Only 1 of every 285 Asian women is an executive, less than half the ratio for the entire workforce of 1 executive per 118 professionals.

“Most surprising is that the EEOC data has been widely reported, but no one bothered to look at its real implications,” said Buck Gee, a former vice president and general manager at Cisco and one of the study co-authors. “With the EPI analysis approach, we now have a simple and meaningful way to measure and compare executive pipelines by gender and race.”

A Wake-Up Call for Employers and Employees

“The common assumption is that Asians are successful since so many of them already work in Silicon Valley companies,” said Janet Wong, a former partner at KPMG and study co-author. "However, our deeper EPI analysis reveals that while Asians are well-represented —even overrepresented— at the staff and professional levels, they are underrepresented in the management pipeline and barely seen at the executive levels."

This gap is a huge wake-up call for both employers and employees. “We believe this huge disparity is attributable to the clash between elements of traditional Asian culture and American corporate culture, specifically gaps in awareness, expectations, role models, and behavior,” added Wong.

Denise Peck, a former vice president of marketing at Cisco and the third study author, stated, “While these gaps bring an important issue to the foreground, the good news is this is an addressable problem. The fastest and most effective way to build an Asian leadership pipeline is to attack the problem from both ends. Companies can conduct an affirmative search to identify high potential Asian managers and leverage culture-specific leadership programs, and Asian professionals must develop and demonstrate soft leadership skills. While many companies already realize that they have an Asian leadership gap, they can get a deeper understanding of their gender and racial gaps with an EPI analysis.”

What’s Your Company’s EPI?

Many companies are unaware of the extent of their leadership pipeline problem, although every company with more than 100 employees is required to file an EEOC report. An easy way to determine whether your company has a leadership diversity imbalance hidden in plain sight is to plug the data from your most recent EEOC report into the EPI calculator on the Ascend website. Please also download a free copy of Hidden in Plain Sight: Asian American Leaders in Silicon Valley.

About Ascend Foundation and Ascend

Ascend Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization with a mission to educate, advocate, and enable Pan-Asian business leaders to reach their full potential. Through its research and thought leadership activities, the Foundation’s goal is to help Pan-Asian leaders make greater impacts in business.

Ascend (@AscendLeader) is the largest, non-profit Pan-Asian membership organization for business professionals in North America. Established in 2005, Ascend’s network includes 60,000+ senior executives, professionals, and MBA/undergraduate students involved in its 40+ chapters. As a career lifecycle organization, it offers robust leadership and professional development programs designed to cultivate Pan-Asian talent by supporting its members in reaching their career potentials and by supporting its corporate partners to develop a strong, diverse, and inclusive workforce to achieve business growth. Visit www.ascendleadership.org for more information.

©2015 Ascend Foundation. Executive Parity Index and EPI are trademarks of Ascend Foundation. Other brand names may be trademarks of their respective owner(s). Information is subject to change without notice. All rights reserved.

Contact:

Sofia Poyhonen, (212) 248-4888, sofia.poyhonen@ascendleadership.org

Lisa Hawes, Sterling Communications, (408) 884-5155, lhawes@sterlingpr.com

Sign up now for the 2015 Ascend National Convention to lock in 2014 sponsorship pricing. (Offer valid through November 30, 2014.)

Please click here for the pricing sheet.

For more information and to sign up, please contact Anna Wei at anna.wei@ascendleadership.org

August 23rd-25th, 2014
The Washington Hilton | Washington D.C.