Seat at the Table with Vince Wong

November 12, 2018

“Seat at the Table” is Asian American Alliance’s signature leadership connection series. It’s a conversation with Central Indiana’s prominent Asian American business and community leaders about their journey to success and lessons learned.

AAAI was thrilled to have Vince Wong, VP of Strategy & Communications at Roche, as our featured speaker on November 5. Vince is a member of the CEO’s leadership team, the North America Diagnostics Executive Committee. Since joining Roche in 2003, his career has been on an upward trajectory. When Roche purchased a Tucson, Arizona company called Ventana Medical Systems, Vince moved west in 2010 to serve as the Senior Director of Strategic Planning there. He returned home to Indianapolis in 2016 to handle strategic planning, business development and corporate marketing and communications. Vince is a past president of AAAI and an honoree of the Indianapolis Business Journals’s “40 under 40”.

The moderator was Young-Hee Yedinak, President of the Board of Directors of AAAI.  The event took place on the beautiful campus of Roche in Indianapolis.

Here is what one of the Seat at the Table attendees, Amna Sohail, posted on LInkedIn about the November 5th event.

Amna Sohail
Business Analyst at High Alpha

I had a great time at the Asian American Alliance‘s Seat at the Table event this week with Vince Wong, VP of Strategy & Communications at Roche! Young-Hee Yedinak did a wonderful job of moderating the discussion. Vince shared a lot of valuable learnings from his personal and professional journey.

My favorite takeaways:

1) On Leadership: Being a leader means “creating an environment and culture where people feel like they can make a difference.” You have to “give people the opportunity to both fail and succeed.”

2) On Defining Success: It’s about “having the opportunity to build something” whether it’s new solutions or teams that are tied to a mission. On a personal level, it’s about maintaining relationships and staying true to the values that matter most to you.

3) On Diversity: Embracing diverse people and perspectives can help “harness and unleash the potential of individuals.” To accomplish this, you have to empower others to truly “bring their whole selves to work”.

4) On Leaning into Discomfort: When navigating challenging situations, it’s important to be willing “to take risks, make courageous choices, and always speak your truth.”

~Photos by KP Singh