← The Leadership Dance
The Leadership Dance
Ep. 5: Advocating for Asian Americans, with Norman Chen
00:41:44
In Episode 5 of The Leadership Dance, Norman Chen, CEO of The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), shares his journey from growing up as an Asian American in a predominantly white community to becoming a leader in advocating for the safety, belonging,...
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- [00:03]
Alisa Sue Lynch
Hello and welcome to the Leadership Dance. I'm Alisa sue lynch and today's guest is my friend, entrepreneur, investor and activist, Norman Chen. Norman is the CEO of the Asian American foundation, or TAF, and brings a 30 year career in entrepreneurship, healthcare and community leadership in the United States and Asia. Norman is passionate about building organizations in both the nonprofit and private sectors that positively impact society. Prior to his appointment at taf, Norman co founded the nonprofit Leading Asian Americans to Unite for Change or Launch and helped create a landmark study called the Status Index of American Attitudes towards Asian Americans. Norman was the founder and CEO of Asia Renal Care, a co founder of Delta Health Hospital, and as a venture capitalist, he led successful life sciences investments at Fidelity Asia Ventures and Six Dimensions Capital. So good to have you here, Norman.
- [01:03]
Norman Chen
Thank you for having me, Elisa. Great to see you.
- [01:06]
Alisa Sue Lynch
We first met at the East Coast Chinese Family Camp, also known as ECCFC, back in the 80s, which was a week long camp in the Poconos for Chinese American families. You know, having grown up in the mostly white suburbs in Delaware, that was the first time my sister Margo and I were surrounded by other Asian Americans like us. And it had a really big impact on me to be around people with similar lived experiences. What was it like for you?
- [01:33]
Norman Chen
You know, Elisa, those were very formative years for all of us. Like you, I grew up in the Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania area where there weren't a lot of other Asian Americans in my community. And I remember wondering in school why, among all the students in the class, I was one of the few that was so different from everybody else. For me, family camp was my favorite week of the year. Every morning, as you may remember, we dove into cultural activities like dumpling making, played sports in the afternoons and during the evenings enjoyed talent shows and even competitive ping pong tournaments. For us teenagers, it was such a thrill to meet others who look like us, shared similar backgrounds and had common interests. Experiencing that deep sense of belonging during that one week each year gave me a glimpse what it must have been like for others to feel accepted, connected and understood every day. I was jealous. That powerful feeling has stayed with me and in many ways has guided and shaped my path throughout my life.
- [02:26]
Alisa Sue Lynch
You know, it's really the same for me, Norman, Margot and I, and you know my sister very well. We were one of the only few Asians in our high school. And I remember even in kindergarten feeling different but still making good friends, but just not really having other people that looked like me. And I do remember, I wouldn't call it bullying but other kids can be cruel. And they would call me names, you know, pull on their eyes, and I don't think they meant to be mean, but kids are kids. So when I went to ECCFC and met people like you, and really there was diversity there for the first time. So not only was it seeing other Asians like us, but seeing so many different types of Asians. So there were cool kids, there were nerdy kids, there were athletic kids. That really also made an impact on me.
- [03:21]
Norman Chen
Yeah, I think people don't realize those, you know, childhood microaggressions that we went through. The name calling, the eye pulling, you know, it seems very superficial, but these are things that you and I and others remember our whole lives. So they really do have a lasting, you know, impact on us. And that one week at camp was where we were all part of the majority. There were all kinds of kids. We were teenagers. There were cool kids and fun kids. And again, at the end of that week, I went back and I said, boy, now I know what people in the mainstream feel like. Every day. We get this one week a year. They have this every day of their lives. And that was a real strong feeling for me.
- [03:56]
Alisa Sue Lynch
And I know you are still good friends with some of the friends that you made at eccfc. I know you see them play basketball with them maybe.
- [04:04]
Norman Chen
Yeah, well, you know, from our camp, little camp in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, we had Chef Ming Tsai, you know, go to our camp, and we had Chris Liu, who was ambassador to the un we had really incredible people come from that, but we just knew them as, you know, teenagers and hanging out all together. So it really did have a profound experience for impact on me for my whole life. And I've maintained relationships with several people from camp even to this day.
- [04:32]
Alisa Sue Lynch
So I'm really glad that we became friends. And even though we lost touch with each other over the years, as soon as we reconnected, it was just like being back at that camp. Well, almost.
- [04:42]
Norman Chen
Well, we have stories on each other, so that. That. That ties us together, which may or.
- [04:47]
Alisa Sue Lynch
May not make it into this podcast. So pivoting a little bit. After graduating from MIT with a degree in biology, you eventually ended up living in Hong Kong for many years. Tell us, why did you go to Hong Kong? What led you to Asia and what were you doing there?
- [05:04]
Norman Chen
Yeah, again, like many Asian American kids, I was pre med in college and but was actually discouraged from pursuing medicine by my advisor, who was telling her own kids that the field of medicine was going through very difficult challenges. So instead of medicine, I pivoted and end up working in management consulting for a couple years before going to business school at Stanford. In between my first and second years at Stanford business school, I got this incredible summer internship at Procter and Gamble in China. And that was only two years after they had first entered China. And so it was fascinating for me as an American born Chinese to see how the emerging middle class in China aspire to the American dream and we're willing to pay for it. We would show old commercials that had head and shoulder product with these split head demonstrations. You know, half the head used head and shoulders, other half didn't use head and shoulders, and the half that didn't use head and shoulders had these massive dandruff flakes. These are ads that you know, they used in the U.S. you know, 30, 40, 50 years ago. But the consumers in China would look at those ads, see the clear difference and say, I have to get head and shoulder shampoo for my family because God forbid they would have massive dandruff flakes. And so it just showed you how exciting Asia was. The rise in consumerism and the power of brands like Procter and Gamble and other brands. So as a result I got an offer from Procter and Gamble. But again, being a pre med person decided I wanted to go back into healthcare. So I ended up working for a large healthcare company, Baxter International, selling medical equipment in Asia. And I moved to Hong Kong in 1992.
- [06:37]
Alisa Sue Lynch
I did not know you worked at P and G. You know, I worked at JJ on consumer products. What was your role at P and G?
- [06:43]
Norman Chen
So I was a lowly summer intern. But just being there for two or three months, I had such a strong impression from P and G because A, despite being such a large company, they were very aligned, very clear in their mission. And one thing that really stuck in my mind was people would say, no matter what the rules are and bureaucracy says and the reporting relationships, at the end, you should do the right thing. That was the golden rule. And I just thought that was brilliant that such a large company had something that cut through everything and just said, hey, what's the right thing for our business? And let's do that and let's make it happen. So I was very impressed by P and G. And today I still talk to people about my P and G experience. My role there was specifically to work on advertising research. And so that's why I used a lot of commercials and different kinds of commercials and I showed them to Chinese consumers to See which commercials were most compelling. And again, the ones that showed clear contrast between using P and G products and not using P and G products. So besides the head and shoulder shampoo we used, like Tide detergent, and the towels that were shampooed or washed in Tide were twice as high, twice as fluffy compared to the other ones. And it showed you that people there, you know, again, were really willing to spend up to 10% of their monthly salary because they really wanted. They dreamed of having this value. The other thing we learned from our research was that Chinese consumers at the time weren't interested in having Chinese models in the commercials.
- [08:12]
Alisa Sue Lynch
Really interesting.
- [08:12]
Norman Chen
They wanted American dream. And that means that meant people who looked Western or were Western. And so at that stage of the market's development, the aspiration was purely to the West.
- [08:24]
Alisa Sue Lynch
Wow, that's fascinating. That's fascinating. You know, I did an international assignment in China. I was only there for two years, but I wanted to talk with you about. Because when I first moved to China, I felt like a foreigner. I always say I went from being an Asian in America to being viewed as an American in Asia. You know, I spoke some Chinese, but they said, oh, you speak with an American accent. So I didn't really feel like I really belong there either. And I'm wondering, how was it for you?
- [08:55]
Norman Chen
I experienced many of those same. Same experiences when I was in Asia. But, you know, being in Hong Kong for 20 years was really fantastic. This was really the golden age for investors as the China market finally took off when China joined the WTO in 2001. And as Asian Americans, we had a unique window of opportunity where we could apply our Western education and business experience and our mediocre Mandarin at times, to a rapidly growing market before the local talent, you know, was yet developed. So I felt very lucky to be there around that time. It was empowering to see so many business leaders, government leaders, and society leaders that had Asian faces. But the irony was that although I was finally part of the majority, like you, people could always tell that I was American. They could tell us from. You could spot that from a mile away. And I realized that being Asian and American made me stand out, frankly, in both countries and in both cultures. But in a way, it gave me unique access and appreciation of both cultures. So, yeah, I think I learned as part of that experience that as much as I felt like an Asian in America, when I went overseas, I realized, actually I'm more American than anything else. Right. And that's what eventually brought me back home. But after 20 years yeah, and I.
- [10:08]
Alisa Sue Lynch
Always recommend to people, if you have the opportunity to live abroad, to like, jump on that opportunity, because I think you learn so much about yourself, your identity, other cultures. It's not always about the job, because I think that's often why people move abroad is for the work. But there's so much that we learn personally as well.
- [10:27]
Norman Chen
And it gives you a fresh perspective on the US because the US Is very ethnocentric or country centric. And if you go overseas, you realize people look at the US in different ways. And I thought that was healthy. So that was another kind of benefit I gained.
- [10:43]
Alisa Sue Lynch
Yeah, I had the same realization, because in China, China is the center of the world.
- [10:49]
Norman Chen
Literally.
- [10:49]
Alisa Sue Lynch
They totally believe that. Yes, you had a really successful run in Asia, but then you decided to move back to the US in 2012. Why did you decide to leave Hong Kong and how did you figure out what you wanted to do Next?
- [11:03]
Norman Chen
Well, after 20 years in Asia, where I met my incredible wife, Noriko Honda, who's a second generation Japanese American, she actually grew up in New York, but moved to Asia, like me, as an adult. One of the greatest things we did as parents was actually to raise our kids for the first eight and 10 years of their lives in Asia, where they developed a really deep sense of identity and pride. But eventually we decided we wanted them to grow up and spend time in the US as well. They were getting really spoiled with all the nannies and all the help in Hong Kong, and so we wanted them to develop some sense of what it's like to live in the US and so we moved back in 2012 after 20 years so they could attend middle school and high school.
- [11:40]
Alisa Sue Lynch
How was that transition for them?
- [11:42]
Norman Chen
Yeah, it was an adjustment. They actually grew up very much as international kids, and so for them, coming to the US Was a change. My kids, you know, as much as I love the US and, you know, told them all these great things and we would come back every summer. For them, when they came back, it was a cultural shift. And so they used to think that, you know, Asia was great. The food, the culture. And when they came back to the US at first, things took a while to get used to. And there are some things here in the US that they thought were really strange. And so it definitely took some time for them to get over it, but at this stage, they feel very much at home here.
- [12:15]
Alisa Sue Lynch
Have they ever been back or ever expressed any interest in living there?
- [12:19]
Norman Chen
Yeah, we go back regularly, and they love going back to Asia, but I think they also Realize, in terms of opportunity, the days where you could go over as an Asian American without having the language skills that the local people often had, without having the cultural context and the relationships, you know, those opportunities are much more limited now. And so I think they foresee their future careers probably to be in the.
- [12:43]
Alisa Sue Lynch
US So I wanted to talk about the fact that many Asian Americans are taught by a parents to assimilate into society and not to speak out. In corporate America, though, in order to get promoted and reach the executive levels, we need to be willing to advocate for ourselves and to be more visible. You were able to build a very successful career as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, but I'm sure it wasn't always easy being Asian in those worlds. Did you face any barriers or bias that you had to overcome?
- [13:14]
Norman Chen
Well, part of it was something that I managed myself, and that is by going to Asia. I had less, quote, unquote, bamboo ceilings to deal with. But still, you know, when I was in Asia, I worked for a global investment company, again doing healthcare venture capital. But despite being in Asia, where all the staff were Asian, the country heads were almost all white Americans or Brits. And so that was, you know, disappointing. But ultimately I realized that the culture of the organization did not fully appreciate people with my background. So I chose an environment that did. I ended up working in firms with strong Asian leaders afterwards and eventually volunteering in nonprofits where my contributions could be really appreciated. At the end of the day, it is really helpful to be in an industry where performance can be judged objectively, such as in investing, if you have great returns and great results, no matter what color your skin is, people want to keep you and retain you. And so I think that's one lesson learned is just really finding those careers, such as investing, such as funds management, where my wife is working, where it doesn't matter, you know, what your background is, it really what matters is your performance. And in fields like fund management, you know, women do really, really well because they have great returns and also they can overcome some of the biases in the finance industry. So, yeah, I think if to the extent you can find a playing ground where it's more equitable, I think that creates a lot more opportunity. Yeah.
- [14:41]
Alisa Sue Lynch
And I have found sometimes if you're not in the right environment, you need to change your environment.
- [14:47]
Norman Chen
Absolutely.
- [14:48]
Alisa Sue Lynch
In 2020, you founded an organization called Launch with a Mission to address racism, representation and resource issues for the Asian American Pacific Islander community, or aapi. A year later, you became CEO of the Asian American foundation taf, which is focused on fighting Asian hate. Tell us more about the impact you're looking to make through your work and why are you so passionate about it.
- [15:13]
Norman Chen
You know, when I was making my transition from Asia back to the US I've been. I got more involved with nonprofit work. I was working actually in Asia for some medical nonprofits for neonatal kids in China, rural China. Coming back to the Bay Area, I got involved in areas that I was interested in. I worked at my son's school board, my son's school board. I worked for the Nature Conservancy. I worked in marine biology and in sports, Other nonprofits that I was really passionate about. And it was all for other communities, not so much for my own community. And so when in 2020, 2021, Covid was had shut down the whole world. And Asian Americans were being scapegoated for having brought Covid. You know, you heard the Wuhan flu and Kung flu. And we were getting attacked and shocking at shocking levels. A group of friends and I asked ourselves, well, what can we do to help our community? How can we finally give back? We really felt appreciative that our parents had made the long journey to come to the US and they'd given us great opportunity for education, for career. And so now that it was our time to figure out what we could do to give back. And so with launch, six friends and I got together and we started the small nonprofit to really try to help the Asian American community in the US we did two major things while we were there. Number one is we raise some funding to support get out the vote videos in key battleground state of Pennsylvania. This is in 2020, to show more Jeremy Lin videos to encourage Asian Americans to go out and vote. And we talked to Christine Chen at API Vote. She said would be interested in supporting these videos. We said, fantastic, we love Jeremy Lynn. We love the cause of getting out Asian American voters. So that was just financial support. But then the other question we asked was if you look at anti Asian hate, there are groups that are kind of citing the number of incidents of anti Asian hate, but very little research or data about what are the underlying causes of anti Asian hate. And then when we looked at hate research, we realized that stereotypes oftentimes are the root causes. Because with stereotypes, you other another group, you say, these group is different from Mars. They are funny, they're odd. We make jokes about them. But eventually those jokes or those stereotypes can become scapegoating and that can lead to violence. And so we saw that unfortunately with COVID that Asian Americans were seen as being potential threats and bringing over disease that led to attacks and massive attacks against Asian Americans, and that led to violence against our. And so that's made us want to really understand the research about stereotypes. And the last study about perceptions of Asian American stereotypes have been done 20 plus years ago. So long story short, we created a study called the Status Index, which is basically to be the first study in over 20 years about perceptions of Asian Americans by all communities in this country. You know, all races. We came up with some really startling statistics. For one, we asked people, hey, can you name a famous Asian American? He heard this before, but for the most part, you know, we thought people would say, yeah, I know some people. I know Connie Chung, I know Yo Yo Ma. I know Kamala Harris. It turns out that over half of Americans could not think of a prominent Asian American and to this day, still have it. And we already asked 20,000 around the country.
- [18:29]
Alisa Sue Lynch
Not one single one, not over half.
- [18:32]
Norman Chen
Exactly. And the number one answer after saying I don't know consistently has been Jackie Chan. Right. Whom we love, but actually is not even Asian American. He's from Hong Kong. And then the person behind Jackie Chan is Bruce Lee. So you see a pattern here. These are people that have been in Hollywood, have been around for a long, long time and have played these kind of stereotypical Asian, Asian American roles, that is Martial artists. If you do more research, you find that within Hollywood, Asian American men are often seen in gangster martial arts kind of roles. Women are often seen as also martial artists, maids, prostitutes, you know, very stereotypical, often unflattering kind of roles. And so this study, the Status Index, was a great way for us to begin to try to address the underlying biases and stereotypes that we need to fix before we try to address even anti Asian sentiment. So that was really meaningful. And again, we did it all within about a year's time with lunch. But then eventually with TAF was formed, I had the opportunity to join them.
- [19:37]
Alisa Sue Lynch
As a CEO and talk a little bit more now about TAF. What is TAF's mission? How does it build on what you had started with launch?
- [19:45]
Norman Chen
Well, TAF is, you know, very unique in that several prominent Asian American community leaders and business people like Jerry Yang Jo Tai Joe Bay Li Lu Peng Zhao and others came together and said, we need to really create a leading national organization to help support the AANHPI community. So TAF was formed in 2021 with a large amount of awareness and also significant funding to really be the leading national organization that's working on three main areas. We work on safety, work on belonging, and work on prosperity for our community. And a lot falls underneath safety, belonging and prosperity. But ultimately, we want to make sure that our community members feel safe where they are around the country, that they feel like they belong in classrooms and also in movies and entertainment and in broad society, and that we can prosper economically and also within our communities. And so we work in multiple pillars in those areas to create that safety, belonging and prosperity. And now, after three years, it's been a very short amount of time. We have 40 staff around the country. We have initiatives in anti hate and safety, in education and narrative change, and also in representation of resources. And we continue to do a lot of incredible research to raise awareness of issues around the country for our community.
- [21:08]
Alisa Sue Lynch
That's so super important. And I want to dive a little bit into safety because as you mentioned, during the pandemic, anti Asian hate really started to come out into the open. Clearly it was already there, but people then felt more comfortable with expressing that. And I remember my uncle, who was in his 80s at the time, lives in New York City, and he was called names and then actually pushed on the subway platform. Luckily not pushed in front of the subway, but after that incident, he just felt like, I don't want to walk around. I don't want to take the subway anymore. He was scared. He was really scared. Rightly so. And I know you probably have examples of people, you know and myself who grew up here, was born here in America. I even was looking around, just being more conscious of who was around me when I was outside. So you were recently here in Seattle and shared some of the results from your safety study. And I know you did one in New York City as well. Can you talk a little bit about what those trends are? How are people feeling?
- [22:17]
Norman Chen
Absolutely. I mean, at the time, it did make the news, and nationally, they were reporting about the attacks against the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander community. But since then, the news coverage has actually really died down. And there's a false perception that these attacks have died down and they're not affecting our community anymore. Well, our data has shown, and we've done two studies already in New York and Seattle, as you mentioned, that just in the last year alone, 40% of our community members in those two cities have experienced either a verbal or a physical attack because of their race. And 20% have actually experienced a physical attack just in the last year alone, which is shocking. This is far higher than anything that's been reported. And it Just shows you that if you live in those cities and you commute and you interact, you're traveling, you're confronted almost daily with these kinds of incidents. And it's very, very difficult on people's mental health. We know that our community members in these cities all around the country are now changing their behavior. They're not going out at night, they're not using their native languages because they're fearful. And so it's still very much an issue. And so what we have done with our partners is help to build up a national anti hate network of over 56 partners around the country that we provide funding for to help them do the important work they do to support victims and survivors in their communities. Be it legal support, medical support, financial support, all kinds of support, we help our community partners provide that support to the community members, and we also bring them together so they can share and support each other and come up with best practices to help address this terrible wave of anti Asian hate. So these are important things that need to be done to help our community members adapt to this new environment. And we're continuing to do other safety studies, at least around the country, so we can identify in specific cities what are the issues, what are the opportunities, and how can we work together to really make a difference.
- [24:19]
Alisa Sue Lynch
So, first of all, what an incredible amount of progress that you've made in only three years at taf. And second, thank you for this important work that you're doing. It's really critical and we need to continue to drive more awareness. And it's wonderful that you're actually connecting community organizations and generating the data and then also helping to provide resources. So that's fantastic.
- [24:42]
Norman Chen
Thanks, Elisa. Yeah. One of the things that TAF has done because the Asian American community is very fragmented, right? We have all our different ethnic groups, we have all our different sectors and cities. You know, that's created an opportunity for us to come in and working with many existing wonderful organizations to bring people together and to convene them. So we work across all ethnic groups from North Asia to South Asia, including the Southeast Asian community, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Filipino, you know, the whole range across Asia. We also work across all sectors, so nonprofit philanthropy, government, media, and also business. Oftentimes in the past, the business community hasn't been as engaged with the nonprofit community. And so we really work to bring them together. Then we work across political ideologies. Right? Our community is very united about safety. Right. We care about the safety of our elders, our younger people, you know, all of our generations. We care about prosperity. We care about health care. So there. There are many common issues that we're very aligned on. And so those are the issues that we prioritize, we focus on. We want to see ourselves represented properly in TV and movies. And so these are the initial important programs that we do that bring together our community to work together and create more power, more impact than ever before.
- [26:02]
Alisa Sue Lynch
So one of the reasons I started this podcast is to encourage people to embrace what makes them different. And that could be your ethnicity, your race, or the fact that, you know, you were a professional dancer before or a basketball player, which I know we're going to get into. I'm curious, how did you find your own voice, gain your confidence to really become an activist? I mean, you describe yourself as an activist now, but it doesn't sound like you were one before when you were in the investment and venture capital communities.
- [26:36]
Norman Chen
Yeah, I mean, my life has been a journey to pursue areas that I'm most passionate about and most interested in. And so, you know, early on, as I discussed, I made that pivot from kind of pre med to business, and then the pivot from US to Asia. And in hindsight, I mean, I don't know how well I planned it all out at the time, but in hindsight, it was all meant to allow me to enjoy my areas of interest, but also to hopefully excel and do well. And luckily we timed it so we were in Asia when Asia China took off, and that created opportunities. But also, I think I understood at that time that I had something to bring to Asia. Right. Having been educated and having grown up in the States, but then seeing all this massive opportunity in China and other countries to bring that international perspective like you did to Asia as well. I mean, that was, again, looking at my interests, my skills, but also my strengths, and then bringing that to the table. So it all has kind of. It's been a long journey, and it all makes sense in hindsight. Although I can't say that I planned it all out perfectly, looking forward. But my time in Asia was really valuable because for me, as an Asian American growing up and Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, you again, question, or you wonder about your identity, you wonder about kind of why am I, you know, Chinese American when everyone else is just, you know, mainstream, if you will. But then you go to Asia and you learn more about your culture and identity, you appreciate, gosh, there's so much richness here, so much that I am fortunate to be able to have access to because I have an Asian background. So they gave me just a greater sense of ability and confidence. So then when I came back here, you know, I think I had a little bit of a. A little bit of a different attitude about being Asian American. And I wanted to share, I had this deeper sense of pride. Our parents are always telling us, be proud about being Chinese. And, you know, when you're a kid, you're like, you're not sure why and so much. But now, having spent time in Asia and having my kids born and raised in Asia, that sense of pride is really strong. And so that does support my work here at taf. We're really trying to build that sense of pride and appreciation for our culture, for our community, but also for our whole country. They can see us in with our true dimensionality and not see us just in terms of monolithic terms. So that is something that I'm really, really proud of, and it does affect my confidence and even taking on this job at taf. I mean, no one's ever created, you know, an Asian American nonprofit slash foundation that works across all these different sectors. But I feel like I was really fortunate to have a great background for this. And so it's been wonderful and very, very rewarding.
- [29:12]
Alisa Sue Lynch
Well, we're lucky to have you in the role. I want to ask you about the recent election. Has anything changed in how you're thinking about your approach at the Asian American Foundation? Are there new areas of focus or an increased sense of urgency?
- [29:28]
Norman Chen
You know, from the very beginning, the Asian American foundation was founded as a nonpartisan or bipartisan organization because regardless of the administration, we need to support our community. And so we really try to work with all administrations, people of all different political backgrounds and within our community. Now, as you've seen, you know, about 30 or 40%, you know, are conservative. About 50 to 60% are more liberal. And so, again, to service that entire community, we need to understand the issues from both sides and work together. So the overall mission for CAF hasn't changed at all. We're still working on safety, belonging, prosperity. We do know that in the last administration, there was Covid, there was scapegoating, as mentioned, of Asian Americans. And so we're very alert to that and want to make sure that that doesn't occur again in this administration. And so we will be vigilant, we will be working with people on both sides of the political spectrum to really trying to promote our safety, our belonging, our prosperity. So no major change in terms of our mission, but an awareness that we need to stay vigilant and make sure we really are doing all that we can to help our community.
- [30:41]
Alisa Sue Lynch
That makes sense. So the Asian American foundation recently co sponsored the inaugural Asian Corporate Directors Conference with Russell Reynolds, also known as acdc, which I love. I don't know if I think in one of your future conferences you need to bring in this rock and roll theme. I know, but I felt really lucky to attend. Thank you for inviting me. And there were a number of Asian Fortune 250 board directors there. Can you share more about what the ACDC is looking to accomplish by convening such an elite group of Asian leaders?
- [31:16]
Norman Chen
We're delighted to have you there. Elisa. Thank you for joining and also to have Russell Reynolds as a wonderful partner with us on the AC on the inaugural acdc. Russell Reynolds has been organizing similar events for the black Latino communities for over 20 plus years, certainly for the black community. And the power of these convenings is incredible because by bringing together leaders within a community, you actually develop network opportunities and relationship building that is very, very powerful for increasing the number of board representatives in the future. So we took a playbook, a page out of the playbook from Russell Reynolds for these other communities and helped to create this first ever event. And it was wonderful to have so many corporate leaders and community leaders come together to meet each other, build relationships, understand each other, talk about key issues and in the future to really support our community to try to continue to increase more Asian American representation on boards. Not because you know it's the right thing to do, quote, unquote, because it makes sense from a corporate business point of view. Right? With many of our partners and our companies, they have 20, 30% of their employees are Asian American. We know that there's a 1.7 trillion or more dollar Asian American market in the US so for both customer reasons and also for employee reasons, you need to have Asian American representation on your board and in your senior leadership. And the shocking statistic which our friend David Chana Ecuilar helped to identify is that among the Fortune 1062.5% roughly of boards have 0 Asian Americans on them. 0 Asian Americans, 0 Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islanders. So a huge underrepresentation, which again doesn't lead to the most optimum business decisions. And so through this organization, acdc, through other initiatives that we're working on with the search firm and with McKinsey, we're excited to actually make a difference and increase the representation of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders on corporate boards. And we feel that if you have a seat at the table at the top, you can actually influence the right kind of decision making to support, you know, a full diversity within your workforce, including AANHPIs. And we also are collaborating with Ascend that's been doing this work, very much so, for many years. And so people from Ascend were at our event, including Anna Mok and I look forward to again, learning from their experience and working with their programs to build up the pipeline of talent to sit on AANHPI boards.
- [33:57]
Alisa Sue Lynch
I love all these initiatives that you're working on and that I'm starting to get involved in and hopefully we can get more people supporting you as well.
- [34:06]
Norman Chen
Yeah, there's a lot to be done and, you know, we're working in multiple areas and I can guarantee there's something within the TAF portfolio that is of interest to anyone out there.
- [34:16]
Alisa Sue Lynch
And we'll include a link to the Asian American foundation so that people can take a look and dive deeper.
- [34:22]
Norman Chen
Please sign up for our newsletter and follow us on social media.
- [34:26]
Alisa Sue Lynch
So, switching gears, you know, earlier we talked about our Chinese family camp that we went to and how there was a diversity of different people, including cool kids and even athletic Asians. And I think you qualify as one of the athletic Asians. I know you're very passionate about basketball and I wanted to hear more about that. Like, how often do you play? And are there any actually leadership lessons that you've learned from basketball? Because I've certainly learned a lot from dance that applies in business.
- [34:57]
Norman Chen
Well, I'll compare some of mine. I'd love to hear if they apply to the dance world as well. Elisa? Yeah, I've enjoyed basketball my whole life. I've enjoyed sports my whole life. I can't say I was ever at a super elite level. I never played for my high school team or anything, but maybe because of that, you know, my bones and my body has continued to allow me to play even in, into my 50s. And so I do play in a regular, we call Old Man League here at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. And we even get to play national tournaments, which is a lot of fun.
- [35:25]
Alisa Sue Lynch
Oh, wow.
- [35:26]
Norman Chen
And yeah, what makes it, what makes it really fun about basketball for me, and some people say this about golf and other sports is I could spend half an hour or 15 minutes playing with someone on the basketball court and I really get a sense of what kind of person they are, you know, just from playing basketball. And this is where I'm curious if there's a dancing analogy. But there are some Wonderful videos on YouTube where you have different stereotypical basketball players. The guy who always is shooting Never passing. There's the guy who always is calling fouls. You know, you can tell a lot about people. Are they team players, are they competitive, are they athletic, are they lazy on defense? These are things that you can tell a lot just in a few minutes. And so, yeah, for me, as a character test, as a way to get to know somebody, it's a wonderful way to build relationships. And to this day, I'll meet people and they'll say, hey, didn't we play together on the McDonald Road court and in Hong Kong and when we had all the cars driving up the hill, we're breathing in all these exhaust fumes while we're playing basketball. I mean, they remember the time we played together and those. You do really build kind of lifelong relationships because of that. So, yeah, it's an important part of what I do. I think at some point I need to switch over to golf, probably. But for now I'm really trying to hang in there and continuing to play basketball.
- [36:47]
Alisa Sue Lynch
That's great. Have you coached basketball as well?
- [36:50]
Norman Chen
Yeah, I have coach for my daughter and in Asian leagues and non Asian leagues as well. I will mention that at taf, one of our highlights of the year is an event we have called the Summit in May. But thanks to our friend Joe Tai, being a board member and owner of the Brooklyn Nets, we have held kind of a Asian American celebrity basketball game at the Barclays center last year and brought together prominent, you know, Asian American ballers like Andrew Yang and Simu Liu and our staff and people from APEX for youth in New York City and just have a great time just enjoying sport, enjoying the camaraderie from all that. So, yeah, we do include as much basketball as I can in the Taft programming.
- [37:36]
Alisa Sue Lynch
Well, you can do that as a CEO, I guess to your question, I don't know that in dance is as similar of a team sport as you talk about where you can kind of tell when you go into a dance class too much about a person's personality. But I would say dance is similar in that it brings people together. Like everybody loves to dance and you can continue to do it throughout your life. And I think people just on the dance floor have fun. You know, maybe at the professional level it's maybe a little bit more serious. But once you learn to dance or you don't even know how to dance and anybody can dance, which I love about that.
- [38:15]
Norman Chen
Kind of like pickleball, right? Everyone that we were at the weekend playing pickleball had a good time, no matter the level and just actually having that camaraderie and that time together is priceless.
- [38:25]
Alisa Sue Lynch
And I think maybe this is true for sports in general. But I just played pickleball this morning, and we never ask each other about work. You just show up, you play, and. And on the pickleball court, you can tell a lot about people and how aggressive or how good they are. So that's my new sport. So maybe my final question is, what advice would you give to your younger self about navigating your career while staying true to yourself?
- [38:51]
Norman Chen
You know, I was thinking about this, and I don't know if I've had a lot of pearls of wisdom here. I think my whole life I've been very conscious about trying to balance self versus career. And so that's why I decided, for example, not to work at investment banking. I didn't want that lifestyle, so I chose consulting. And then when I was trying to decide between med school and medicine versus business, you know, I also did a rough calculation in my head and said, do I want to, you know, go into industry that's very noble, very rewarding, but also one that's going through so much change, or do I want to pursue, you know, business where I could still work with doctors, but also bring some new dimensionality to it by having a chance to go to Asia, et cetera? So I've really tried. I think, I think it's important throughout your career to maintain your true. Stay true to yourself, if you will. And so for me, it's always been about what are my interests, what are my skills, what am I good at, where can I be successful? Okay. And so where are the opportunities? So looking at all three of those dimensions, I think is really, really important. And I don't know how much I would have changed. You know, looking in hindsight at my career, I was very fortunate to have a chance to go overseas, but also very fortunate to pivot from the for profit world at a hundred percent now to the not for profit world. And as people say, you often have multiple careers in your lives. I feel like, you know, I've been fortunate to be able to pursue different areas of interest based on what I thought was most important to me at the time. And I've been able to, you know, hopefully make a difference. So, yeah, I would say stay true to what you want to do, what you think you're good at, and where you see opportunities, and hopefully things will work out.
- [40:35]
Alisa Sue Lynch
I'm also hearing from what you're saying, Norman, that you've been very strategic about your choices, but you've also followed your passions, which is super important, and that's kept you engaged. So it's kept you a learner throughout your career. And then the third thing that is clear throughout your career is impact. You really have wanted to make an impact on others and you continue to do so.
- [40:58]
Norman Chen
Yeah. Thanks, Alisa. Same for you. I mean, the next thing I have to figure out is social media, but it seems like you've already conquered that, so.
- [41:06]
Alisa Sue Lynch
So, Norman, it's been so much fun to have you on the podcast and to learn about your leadership dance. Your advocacy and leadership is making a real difference for Asian Americans. And I'm excited to support you in any way I can. Thank you so much for joining me.
- [41:22]
Norman Chen
Thank you, Lisa. Really enjoyed it. And congratulations on this wonderful podcast.
- [41:27]
Alisa Sue Lynch
Like subscribe and share the Leadership Dance, where we explore how to choreograph the career of your dreams and chat with visionary leaders who are breaking barriers in the arts and business worlds. Until next time, keep dancing.