How Autodesk Asian Network cultivates belonging and professional growth

3 min read

The Autodesk Asian Network (AAN) employee resource group (ERG) was founded in 2019 to create a sense of community and support for all of Autodesk’s Asian employees. Its mission is to create empowerment and belonging globally for Asians at Autodesk by driving leadership and professional development to empower Asian employees, raising awareness of Asian culture to encourage employee engagement, and building partnerships between employees and local Asian communities.

I’ve gained valuable insight and advice from AAN-organized professional development events to help me advance in my career, so I was honored to take on the role of AAN global lead earlier this year. While we have representation of Asians in Autodesk as individual contributors, the lack of parity of Asians in senior leadership roles stood out to me as a challenge. I was motivated to serve as the global lead of AAN to advocate for the needs of our Asian employee community and find ways to support Asian employees advancing into management and especially senior management roles.

AAN members get to volunteer to support the local communities where Autodesk operates, attend professional development sessions to get advice, network with other employees, participate in mentorship programs, and celebrate our heritage and cultural festivals together like Lunar New Year, Diwali, and the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Celebrating Asian Heritage Month

Asian Heritage Month is an annual global celebration at Autodesk, and this year’s theme is “Embracing Cultural Identity.” We are hosting events aligned to this theme throughout the month of May, including a keynote from Jane Hyun, author of Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling; a virtual panel discussion with four of our senior Asian leaders; and a variety of celebrations at local offices around the world.

Asian Heritage Month is an opportunity to celebrate the diversity within the Asian community. We are not a homogenous group; there are significant cultural differences between East Asians and South Asians, first-generation Asian Americans and third-generation Asian Americans, Vietnamese and Korean and Japanese. Our ethnicities and where we grow up are a big part of our identities, but there is so much more depth to the Asian community. I believe having the opportunity to celebrate the diversity within the community helps create the awareness that Autodesk is a global company, and our Asian colleagues bring their corresponding perspectives with them to work.

Cultural heritage is multifaceted in more ways than what meets the eye. Race, ethnicity, and where you grow up are a huge part of it, and gender and religion also play a role. To me, embracing my own cultural identity means staying true to my values and bringing my authentic self every day.

My heritage is that of multiple generations of immigrants: with Indonesian Chinese parents, growing up in British-governed Hong Kong, and being in the Chinese majority with a culture that has strong Western influence. I embrace my Chinese heritage with my training in Chinese martial arts, having been a kung fu practitioner for two decades, and occasionally performing with my pipa, a traditional Chinese instrument. I celebrate by sharing aspects of my heritage with others, like when I perform martial arts or Chinese music.

Advocating for the Asian community

My most memorable experience as a member of AAN was when I got to interview Kristi Yamaguchi during last year’s Asian Heritage Month keynote. Having watched Kristi compete as an Olympian, the opportunity to interact with her and get her insights was phenomenal. She has inspired so many Asian Americans, and I felt the spark she created — even in a virtual event — with her presence and her candid interactions with our employees.

Having the platform to advocate for the Asian community by learning what’s top of the mind and important to the Asian community within Autodesk, the opportunity to uplift each other, and hearing all the different voices within the community.

I encourage any Autodesker who is interested in joining AAN to come lend your voice and add to the depth of this amazing and diverse community. We have a board of volunteers who are passionate about advocating for our community, and we are eager to partner with everyone to create allyship and uplift each other.


Learn more about Autodesk’s employee resource groups here.

Tags and Categories

AAN ERG Diversity
______
icon-svg-close-thick

Cookie preferences

Your privacy is important to us and so is an optimal experience. To help us customize information and build applications, we collect data about your use of this site.

May we collect and use your data?

Learn more about the Third Party Services we use and our Privacy Statement.

Strictly necessary – required for our site to work and to provide services to you

These cookies allow us to record your preferences or login information, respond to your requests or fulfill items in your shopping cart.

Improve your experience – allows us to show you what is relevant to you

These cookies enable us to provide enhanced functionality and personalization. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we use to deliver information and experiences tailored to you. If you do not allow these cookies, some or all of these services may not be available for you.

Customize your advertising – permits us to offer targeted advertising to you

These cookies collect data about you based on your activities and interests in order to show you relevant ads and to track effectiveness. By collecting this data, the ads you see will be more tailored to your interests. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

icon-svg-close-thick

THIRD PARTY SERVICES

Learn more about the Third-Party Services we use in each category, and how we use the data we collect from you online.

icon-svg-hide-thick

icon-svg-show-thick

Strictly necessary – required for our site to work and to provide services to you

Qualtrics
W
Akamai mPulse
W
Digital River
W
Dynatrace
W
Khoros
W
Launch Darkly
W
New Relic
W
Salesforce Live Agent
W
Wistia
W
Tealium
W
Upsellit
W
CJ Affiliates
W
Commission Factory
W
Google Analytics (Strictly Necessary)
W
Typepad Stats
W
Geo Targetly
W
SpeedCurve
W
Qualified
#

icon-svg-hide-thick

icon-svg-show-thick

Improve your experience – allows us to show you what is relevant to you

Google Optimize
W
ClickTale
W
OneSignal
W
Optimizely
W
Amplitude
W
Snowplow
W
UserVoice
W
Clearbit
#
YouTube
#

icon-svg-hide-thick

icon-svg-show-thick

Customize your advertising – permits us to offer targeted advertising to you

Adobe Analytics
W
Google Analytics (Web Analytics)
W
AdWords
W
Marketo
W
Doubleclick
W
HubSpot
W
Twitter
W
Facebook
W
LinkedIn
W
Yahoo! Japan
W
Naver
W
Quantcast
W
Call Tracking
W
Wunderkind
W
ADC Media
W
AgrantSEM
W
Bidtellect
W
Bing
W
G2Crowd
W
NMPI Display
W
VK
W
Adobe Target
W
Google Analytics (Advertising)
W
Trendkite
W
Hotjar
W
6 Sense
W
Terminus
W
StackAdapt
W
The Trade Desk
W
RollWorks
W

Are you sure you want a less customized experience?

We can access your data only if you select "yes" for the categories on the previous screen. This lets us tailor our marketing so that it's more relevant for you. You can change your settings at any time by visiting our privacy statement

Your experience. Your choice.

We care about your privacy. The data we collect helps us understand how you use our products, what information you might be interested in, and what we can improve to make your engagement with Autodesk more rewarding.

May we collect and use your data to tailor your experience?

Explore the benefits of a customized experience by managing your privacy settings for this site or visit our Privacy Statement to learn more about your options.