Why haven't Asians scaled corporate heights?

In Silicon Valley, "Asian" and "success" often seem synonymous.

Asians lead all racial groups in levels of education and income, and they are a quarter or more of undergraduates at elite universities such as Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. The Census Bureau recently said Santa Clara County had the largest annual Asian population growth in the United States — for the third successive year.

But an eye-opening first-of-its-kind "census" of local executives shows that while Asians make up more than a third of the work force at some of Silicon Valley's biggest tech companies, they are far less prominent in the boardroom or the highest executive offices.

Asians represent about 6 percent of board members and about 10 percent of corporate officers of the Bay Area's 25 largest companies.

Among the 25 largest Bay Area companies by revenue, 12 had no Asian board members, and five had no Asian corporate officers according to the new study.

Despite the prominence of Asians at Silicon Valley tech companies — they are least 23 percent of the work force at Cisco Systems, Intel, Sun Microsystems, eBay and Advanced Micro Devices, according to a Mercury News review of documents filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — they have made no gains in the share of board seats at large tech companies since 1999.

"There is an underlying belief in the Asian community that there is a corporate glass ceiling," said Buck Gee, a retired Cisco vice president and former Silicon Valley CEO who co-authored the study. "This has been talked about in the Asian community for a long time."

Gee and Wes Hom, a retired IBM vice president who was also the senior chair of the company's Asian Diversity Task Force program, built their survey from company data on Web sites and Securities and Exchange Commisson filings from the third quarter of 2008.

Gee asked where all the Asian CEOs were back in 2006, when the resignation of two Chinese vice presidents caused him to take a look around at Cisco. To his shock, he realized he was the only Chinese vice president in the networking giant's product-development organization.

"I thought, 'That can't be right,' " Gee said. But it was.

Asians are better represented among the leadership of Bay Area companies compared with all Fortune 500 companies, Gee and Hom say, but the Bay Area also has the highest percentage Asian population among the nation's big metro areas.

They place much of the blame for Asian non-advancement not on big companies, but on limiting factors within Asian culture and the failure of Asian executives to mentor younger colleagues.

"It's mostly our fault," Gee said. "It's mostly up to us to figure out the skills we need to develop, and to get those skills."

Gee and Hom and a small group of executives are organizing a Corporate Executive Initiative, hoping to work with Bay Area companies to foster the career development of promising younger Asian workers.

Social factors

The executive census and a related paper — "The Failure of Asian Success in the Bay Area" — say several social factors hold Asian managers back, including cultural deference to superiors, which U.S. managers may view as a worker lacking confidence or knowledge; a lack of strong English skills; and a failure of some Asian workers to invest enough effort in networking.

While East Asian cultures and educational systems tend to encourage technical excellence and respect for authority, they may not do as good a job developing leadership and communication skills, Gee and Hom say.

"The culture says you don't have to raise your hand — just do a good job," Hom said.

Among the 100 largest Bay Area companies, Gee and Hom found 13 Asian CEOs. But six were the founders of their company.

The list of companies without Asian corporate officers includes Apple, AMD and Symantec, according to the study. The list of companies without an Asian board member includes Intel, Oracle, Chevron, eBay and Symantec.

Hidden problem

Given the high-profile successes of a few Asian entrepreneurs such as Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, and with so many Asians who are mid-level managers, the lack of top executives is "a problem hidden in plain view," the study says.

"Everybody agrees this is the case, but very few Asians are willing to come out and make a stink about it," said Jane Hyun, an executive coach and multicultural leadership strategist, and the author of "The Bamboo Ceiling," a 2005 book about the limits on Asian career advancement.

"You don't see an Asian Al Sharpton-type figure out there. You don't see people making waves that we haven't really reached these positions," Hyun said.

Cisco, which has one Asian board member, is trying to unearth the management talents of its Asian workers.

The company has created a "Cisco Asian Affinity Network," which helps employees develop their business, communication and influence skills. "Diversity and inclusion is a top priority for Cisco," said spokesman Ken Lotich, echoing the statements of many companies.

Academia, too

Hyun and others say the situation is not limited to business. At Stanford University, Asians made up 24 percent of the undergraduate Class of 2008. But university officials acknowledge they have no record of having an Asian academic administrator above the level of department head in the school's history.

Gee and Hom say their goal is to launch a dialogue about how Asians can fully contribute their business talents.

Nevertheless, Hyun said U.S. business culture can limit Asian advancement if existing leaders are unfamiliar with leadership styles from other parts of the world.

"Organizations want you to demonstrate leadership in a certain way," Hyun said. "There is definitely a pressure to be like the senior leaders that are already in place."