New Initiative Aims to Boost Asian American/Pacific Islanders to 10% of Fortune 1000 Directors by 2025

Ascend Pinnacle, a network of pan-Asian corporate directors and aspiring directors, today launched a campaign to boost the number of Asian American/Pacific Islanders (AAPI) serving on Fortune 1000 boards from 4% today to 10% by 2025. Dubbed the “10x25 Initiative,” the campaign will work with search firms, other AAPI organizations and groups that encourage diversity in the workplace to identify and promote “board ready” AAPI individuals to serve on U.S. public and private company boards.

Although Asian Americans make up 12% of the U.S. professional workforce, only 72 of Fortune 1000 companies have any Asian representation on their boards, a study by KPMG and Ascend Pinnacle found. The push to increase the number of AAPIs on boards comes amid rising concern about bias against Asian Americans in the workplace. See this New York Times story.

“With Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders making up to 30% of a company's workforce in some sectors, such as technology, and with AAPIs being one of the fastest growing demographics for consumer spending, it is obvious that there should be more AAPI representation on boards," said Tim Buckley, Vanguard chairman and CEO, said in Ascend Pinnacle’s announcement of the 10x25 Initiative.