The Committee of 100 Asian American Career Ceilings Initiative event, featuring a fireside chat on the topic of “The Career Ceiling Challenges in Journalism” with two highly respected journalists, Nicole Dungca, investigative reporter for The Washington Post and President of the Asian American Journalist Association, and Amy Qin, reporter for The New York Times, was held on Tuesday, February 13.

Asian Americans have faced significant career obstacles in the journalism industry, as is true in many industries. Our two panelists, who both are long-term veterans in the journalism industry, shared their observations about the career ceilings problem in journalism, their personal experiences, and the advice that they would give to Asian Americans pursuing careers in the industry.

The fireside chat was conducted by Peter Young, Committee of 100 member and Chair of the Committee of 100 Asian American Career Ceiling Initiative.

Nicole Dungca
Investigative Reporter, The Washington Post
President, Asian American Journalist Association

Amy Qin
National Correspondent, The New York Times

Amy Qin is a national correspondent for The New York Times, covering Asian American communities. She joined The Times in 2012 and previously worked as a correspondent based in Beijing and Taipei. She is based in Washington.

As a China correspondent, she looked closely at how Chinese citizens thrived, coped and struggled in a landscape of deepening political control. In 2019, she was part of the team that chronicled the Chinese government’s crackdown on Uyghurs, a series that was a Pulitzer finalist for international reporting. In early 2020, during the start of the coronavirus pandemic, she was one of the few foreign correspondents on the ground in Wuhan after the city was locked down. Several months later she was part of a group of journalists from The Times and other news outlets that was expelled from China.

Fluent in Mandarin, Qin is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and Oxford University. She has taught international reporting as a visiting professor at U.C. Berkeley. She grew up in Northern California and spent childhood summers at her family’s ancestral homes in two of China’s spiciest provinces, Shaanxi and Sichuan.

Peter Young
CEO and President
Young & Partners  

Peter Young is CEO and President of Young & Partners, a boutique corporate strategy and investment banking firm focused on the life science and chemical industries. He manages the firm and is actively involved in client projects, transactions, and financings. Under his leadership, Young & Partners has established and maintained its position as a highly regarded firm serving the corporate strategy, M&A, restructuring, and financing needs of clients worldwide. He was previously head of industry groups at Salomon Brothers, Schroders, and Lehman Brothers, a senior private equity executive with J.H. Whitney & Co., and a senior member of Bain & Co., a corporate strategy firm.   

Mr. Young received a BA in Economics from Yale, an MS in Accounting from NYU, and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he graduated as a Baker Scholar. He is a CPA and a Chartered Global Management Accountant. He serves on several boards of directors, both corporate and non-profit; and is a board member of Société de Chimie Industrielle, a leading life science and chemical industry non-profit organization; and on the Editorial Advisory Board of Pharmaceutical Executive. He is also the New York Regional Chair for Committee of 100.