Female Asian bankers fear discrimination following the Jensen Huang affair
If Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang can spark an 8% drop in NVIDIA's share price after admitting an affair with an attractive suspected Chinese spy many years younger than himself, what would happen if senior bank CEOs confessed something similar? What if major western banks or hedge funds were found to have employed female spies in senior roles?
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As Huang's infraction percolates the markets, there are gnawing fears that financial services firms will become more hesitant about employing Chinese women in the future. "There are very few Asian women at the top of Western banks as it is," says one female managing director in Hong Kong, speaking off the record. "It's still a boys club here, especially in the markets business."
The object of Jensen Huang's affections didn't work for NVIDIA but was reportedly in Huang's orbit as a major buyer of NVIDIA chips in Asia. Bloomberg reports that they were first photographed together at a conference in 2024.
Bankers and hedge fund managers have already taken to speculating who Chinese spies might be. One senior female trader said it's become an excuse for sexist jokes and that the real issue is the integrity of the NVIDIA CEO. "He's betrayed his ethics," she says, arguing that it's men and not women who should be subject to greater scrutiny.
"If this Chinese spy situation is real and serious then people will be doing a lot more due diligence before senior hiring," says the head of one financial services search firm in New York.
The female MD in Hong Kong said the affair risks triggering discrimination against all Asian women in financial services. "Americans can't differentiate between Singaporean women and Chinese nationals," she observed. Earlier this year, one young Asian woman in Singapore wrote here that she'd been subjected to significant sexism and that her male colleagues had closed ranks against her.
NVIDIA's board said it "has no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised," but that it is investigating suggestions that Huang "has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort," all the same.
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