NAAAP Atlanta posted on September 27, 2011
Forbes.com: 09-27-2011 : Anne Doyle, Contributor
I just returned from several days in Dallas where three generations of fabulous Texan women gave me a taste of how women with “ganas” (or drive) are on the move and beginning to flex their collective muscles as leaders and vital engines of economic growth. Here’s a taste of female Southwest “stirrings” I witnessed.
Thear Sy, Senior Director
Accenture
WIN/NAAAP
Until Cambodian-born Thear Sy, who arrived in this country at age nine and is now a senior director with Accenture, invited me to speak at NAAAP’s ”Leadership Inspired by Women” conference of the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter, I had never heard of the National Association of Asian-American Professionals or its WIN (Women inNAAAP) network. Three major corporations, jcpenney,AccentureandRaytheon, sponsored the conference. What did I learn after spending a gorgeous Saturday in all-day training sessions with 140 Asian American women hungry to sharpen their leadership skills?
- Cultural differences among Americans of Japanese, Cambodian, Chinese, Hawaiian, East Indian, Viet Namese or Phillipine descent can be as distinct as those between U.S. Latinas of Cuban, Mexican, Spanish or Brazilian descent. The biggest mistake Caucasians make about Asian Americans is to assume they think alike and share similar cultural backgrounds.
- Asian Americans striving to achieve leadership positions in this country (both men and women) often feel they are pushing up against very similar cultural headwinds as those women still face in professional environments where white men are the leadership norm. “The general perception of Asian women in this country is that we are hard-working, smart and do really good work. But when it comes to leadership, a lot of people don’t think we’re up to the task. But of course we are,” Sy told me.
- My primary message to the three generations Asian American women and theirNAAAP“brothers” who were there to support the conference was the same I give when speaking to leadership audiences all over the country: Heterogeneous groups consistently outperform homogenous groups when solving complex problems. Our companies, our nation, the human family all need people who think differently around the decision-making tables.
Valerie Freeman, CEO
Imprimis Staffing
Texas Women Ventures
At the NAAAP conference, I also met Valerie Freeman, CEO ofImprimis Staffing Solutionsand one of the founders of theTexas Women Venturesfund. An equity fund that invests in women-led companies, TWV is focused on helping turbo-charge established businesses with strong track records and revenues of $7 to $70 million. But the high-achieving Texans who founded the fund in 2009 aren’t simply loaning money, they’re also providing high-level mentoring, networking opportunities and valuable connections to the next generation of women entrepreneurs.
And guess what’s the icing on the cake. “Our investors are getting excellent returns,” Freeman assured me. Hmmmm. Investing in successful, ambitious women these days may be a much smarter investment than taking your chances in the stock market with all those Fortune 500 companies with few, if any, women in their board rooms.
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