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[NPR] Often employees, rarely CEOs: Challenges Asian Americans face in tech

May 18, 2015

Yul Kwon, Facebook’s deputy chief privacy officer, is one of the rare Asian-Americans in a leadership role in Silicon Valley. (Courtesy of Yul Kwon via Facebook)

[NPR.ORG]

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.

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