Asian women break the ceiling of American companies: AMD makes history, CEO and CFO are housekeepers

AMD CEO Su Zifeng, CFO Hu Jin

Fenghuang.com Technology News Beijing time on January 13th news, American chip maker AMD is believed to be the first major American company to appoint an Asian woman as chairman, CEO and CFO at the same time, which is the first among the constituent stocks of the S & P 500 index. first time. The move is significant given the barriers Asian-American women face in reaching the top management.

AMD announced on Wednesday afternoon local time that it will hire Jean Hu from chipmaker Marvell Technologies as its new CFO. Hu Jin holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Claremont University and graduated from the Department of Chemical Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology. AMD said that Hu Jin will start work on January 23 this year, replacing the retiring David Del Kumar (Devinder Kumar), who will work at AMD until April to ensure a smooth transition.

Hu Jin

Currently, AMD is led by Lisa Su, who serves as both the company’s chairman and CEO. So, are there any other companies in the S&P 500 that have Asian or Asian-American women holding both key positions of power as CEO and CFO? The answer given by DiversIQ, a provider of public company diversity, equity and inclusion data, is AMD alone.

“It is certainly rare to have an Asian female CEO in the S&P 500, and unique to have an Asian female CFO!” DiversIQ representative Blake Eastman wrote in an email. “We are very confident about this,” the email said.

Arista CEO Ural

Eastman noted that of the 507 CEOs in the S&P 500, only three are Asian women, including AMD’s Taiwanese-American Lisa Su and Arista Networks’ Indian-American Jayshree Ullal. ) and Indian-American Reshma Kewalramani of Vertex Pharmaceutical. Only two other companies have Asian-American CEOs and CFOs, but only one of them has an Asian-American woman as its CFO. It is the energy company Enphase, which has Ms. Mandy Yang as its CFO and its CEO is Asian male Badri Kothandaraman (Badri Kothandaraman). The CEO and CFO of Waters, a professional measuring instrument company, are both Asian men.

Mandy Young as Enphase CFO

DiversIQ also mentioned some previous Asian female CEOs, including PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi and Gap’s Sonia Syngal, but did not find that the CFOs of these companies were also Asian women. Since 2016, only 10 Asian-American women have served as CFOs at S&P 500 companies, and only five continue to hold the position today.

Recent research shows that fewer than 10 percent of companies in the S&P 500 are led by women. Fortune magazine reported this week that for the first time, female CEOs accounted for more than 10 percent of the Fortune 500 list. A recent McKinsey study found that only 1.8 percent of top management positions are held by Asian-American women, and that representation and promotion rates for Asian-American workers in senior positions have declined. McKinsey research shows that in 2021, less than 1% of Asian women will be promoted from senior vice presidents to top management.

An AMD spokesman said the company couldn’t confirm the milestone because it wasn’t something they were tracking and had no comment. A representative for S&P Global said the firm could not confirm the report because it does not track such data. (Author/Xiao Yu)

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