Faye Sahai
Ascend N. California Co-President & Ascend Executive Network Co-Leader
For the past seven years, Faye has been a member of Ascend, where she stepped into a board member role in 2015 and a leadership role in 2020. She brings with her a distinguished career of more than 25 years in healthcare, finance, and insurance innovation; has served as an investment executive at Kaiser Permanente, Schwab, AIG, Blue Shield, and Deloitte Consulting; and founded three startups. She is a Founding Partner at Telosity Ventures, investing and advising startups to improve the digital health and mental well-being. She has served as an advisor and board member to over a dozen companies including Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, UCSF Catalyst, ANA Innovation Advisory, Samsung Emerging Technology Advisory, Innovation Executive Forum, Summer Search, and Autonomous ID.
Faye has been recognized by Insurance Business Hot 100 and Elite Women in Insurance Business America, Tech for Good Women in Tech, Ascend Leadership Award, Computer World’s Top Premier IT Leaders, Stevie Awards, Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Kaiser Permanente Asian Community, and Innovation Enterprise Best Ideation Award.
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Current Residence: San Carlos, California
Birthplace: Louisville, Kentucky
What do you enjoy most about Ascend?
Meeting new people at Ascend events and through Ascend Café, learning from others, and making a difference that will hopefully help improve my children’s lives and careers.
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How did you get introduced to Ascend?
While I was at Kaiser Permanente, I learned about Ascend through Buck Gee, Executive Advisor to Ascend. I appreciated his thought leadership and research with Ascend about the challenges Pan-Asians experience to being promoted into management and leadership positions.
What do you value about your cultural heritage and why?
My parents emigrated from Thailand to the U.S. I value Thai kindness, warmth, smiles, and food.
Tell us about your family.
My husband just retired from the software industry and has been advising companies and serving on several boards. Our daughter is a junior at Brown University and majoring in computational biology. Our son is working at Deloitte Consulting in San Francisco.
Are you a collector?
I collect global masks from our travels.