SAN FRANCISCO — Bolstered by three years of providing corporate networking opportunities and civic service, the rapidly growing Corporate Asian American Employee Network, (CAAEN), recently announced the establishment of a one-of-a-kind leadership development/training program for Asian Americans who work in corporate America.
This six-month CAAEN Leadership Training Program is designed to cultivate and identify those skills and relationships needed by Asian Americans in the workplace to not only climb the career ladder, but ultimately contribute to the community through their newly developed leadership skills.
The program will commence on January 19, 2007, and be divided into three parts: a one-day intensive seminar on the cultural strengths and inhibitions of Asian Americans, a six-month “webinar” series featuring lectures from top Asian American executives in both the private and public sector, and finally, two half-day mentoring sessions where senior Asian American business leaders personally mentor those in the program at a ratio of one mentor to five applicants. The 20 successful applicants, for the inaugural program, were selected from the Asian American employee associations of the 26 corporations that currently make up CAAEN.
“The main goal of this program is to develop leaders that will not only advance through their businesses, but also and ultimately bring those leadership skills back to the community,” said Ray Su, co-chair of CAAEN (Hewlett Packard). “In addition, for CAAEN, I’m also hoping that we are sowing the seeds for future leaders of our organization.”
CAAEN is a network of Bay Area Asian American employee groups in the private, public and educational sectors. With a goal of promoting personal and professional development of Asian American employees primarily through networking and sharing best practices, CAAEN boasts an impressive array of Asian American employee associations from such recognized businesses/public agencies as: Hewlett Packard, Kaiser Permanente, Wells Fargo, Cisco, Macy’s, GE, Visa, the City and County of San Francisco, the Port of Oakland and the University of California, San Francisco.
“Hopefully, what CAAEN does,” stated Wayland Chan, the other co-chair of CAAEN (PG&E) “is that it exposes and gives some insight to our members on the best practices of corporate America so that they can navigate the corporate maze and better further themselves as well as our community.”
“I’m so proud of what CAAEN has become,” remarked CAAEN co-founder Joyce Chan. “When we started it was almost a loose federation of about 13 companies. Today, we’ve doubled our membership and have the ability to present a leadership training program. It’s inspirational and shows we are becoming a force in corporate America.”
Since their membership is defined through these Asian American networks. Senior CAAEN officials estimate that either directly or indirectly their organization represents approximately 15,000 to 20,000 Asian American corporate employees.
Due to space limitations, the leadership program is designed for active CAAEN members. For those interested in the program or joining CAAEN, please contact Wayland Chan or Ray Su through the organization’s website at www.caaen.org.