Executive Advisor, Ascend
Buck Gee is an Executive Advisor to Ascend, a nonprofit Pan-Asian organization of business professionals. In 2010, he co-founded the Advanced Leadership Program for Asian American Executives, an executive education program at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
He has co-authored numerous Ascend research papers on the topic of the Asian glass ceiling, including “Hidden in Plain Sight” (2015), “The Illusion of Asian Success” (2017), “The Diversity-Equity Gap in the Fortune 500” (2023), and “What About the Women” (2024). He has written opinion pieces on Asian American issues published in the Harvard Business Review, the New York Times, USA Today, the San Jose Mercury-News, KQED, and salon.com.
He is a member of Committe of 100 and serves on its board of directors as NorCal regional chair. He also serves on the boards of the Chinatown Media and Art Collective (CMAC), the Asia Society/Northern California, and APIAVote.
Mr. Gee retired in 2008 from Cisco Systems, where he was Vice President and General Manager of the Data Center Business Unit. He joined Cisco with its 2004 acquisition of startup Andiamo Systems where Mr. Gee was President and CEO. A Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur, he was an executive at Crescendo Communications (acquired by Cisco ‘93) and Com21 (IPO ’98). He has also taught computer and engineering courses at Stanford University and Howard University.
In 2022, he received the Distinguished Leader award from the Chinese Historical & Cultural Project (CHCP). He has also received the Distinguished Community Leadership Award from Ascend in 2019, the Executive Excellence Award from the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA) in 2015 and the Civic Entrepreneurship Award from the Asian Pacific Islander Leadership Institute (APALI) in 2012.
He holds BSEE and MSEE degrees from Stanford University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
