By Randall Yip, AsAmNews Executive Editor
Gold House this morning released its 6th annual A100 list of the top Asian Pacific Islanders with the most impact on American culture and society in the last year.
Household names include Ali Wong, Steve Yeun and Lee Jung Jin, the cast and creator of Beef, Shoheil Ohtani and Olympian Eileen Gu in sports, and Joanna Gaines and Shay Mitchell in fashion and lifestyle.
“Honoring the diverse and essential contributions of the Asian Pacific diaspora helps celebrate how far our community has come-while distilling, for the masses, how we’re supporting and leading in society, said Bing Chen, chairman and co-founder of Gold House, a group that champions Asian Pacific creators and businesses. Chen spoke to AsAmNews via email.
Headlining the list in their categories are the A-1’s. The honorees include trans rights advocate and model Geena Rocero in activism and journalism, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan in business and technology, Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria in entertainment and media, Vanity Fair editor Radhika Jones in fashion and lifestyle, and baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani in the category of sports and gaming.
The A1’s will be honored at the Gold Gala on Saturday, May 6. That will be preceded by a welcome reception for all 100 honorees along with the judge the day before. Sunday, May 7th will feature a gathering of the most influential Asian Pacific women and non-binary leaders at the first-ever Gold Women Brunch.
Gold House released its first A100 list in 2018 and through the years, Chen has seen the spotlight on Asian Pacific Islanders shine brighter and brighter. He notes the number of potential nominees grew immensely in six short years.
“What’s changed most is how many are now noticing. In the early years, we were constantly asked: “are there even 100 Asians who are good enough to honor?” We always knew there were–and far more. What’s changed is the world now knows, too,” Chen told AsAmNews.
This year Gold House will induct 14 previous A100 honorees into its Hall of Fame.
The inductees are:
Bela Bejaria, Netflix Chief Content Officer
Erik Spoelstra, Miami Heat head coach
Fareed Zakaria, CNN anchor/journalist
Helen Lin, Publicis Group Chief Digital Officer.
Jeremy Lin, professional basketball player
Michelle Yeoh, Academy Award-winning actress
Padma Lakshmi, Television host and chef
Priscilla Chan, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative
Ramsey Naito, Paramount and Nickelodeon animation president
Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO
Sun Choe, Lulu Lemon chief product officer
Taika Waititi, Oscar-winning director
Tammy Duckworth, U.S. Senator
Tony Xu, CEO Doordash
Most notable is the number of people on the list from the business world.
Chen says 42% of the 234 recently IPO’d companies have an Asian founder/co-founder while 41% of the Forbes Midas List last year was Asian Pacific. Yet the bamboo ceiling remains a real barrier in executive offices.
“When we control our own C-suites and Boards, we are able to diversify them more rapidly, hire and elevate inclusively, and more. We must pursue extra work in technology and finance where Asians over-index as employees. 30% of tech employees are of Asian descent, but are single digits in the C-suite, said Chen.
He urged companies to nurture their mid-level employees while Asian Pacifics partner with their allies in other communities and in c-suites and boards.
You can see the full list of A100 honorees here.
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