Even in 2024, there is still a "bamboo ceiling" in Australia.

Like the "glass ceiling" — an invisible barrier for women in the workforce — the bamboo ceiling refers to the cultural factors impeding Asian Australians from advancing to leadership positions.

It's an issue that hit home for many at this year's Asian-Australian Leadership Awards on Thursday night, including Foreign Minister Penny Wong. 

Senator Wong, who arrived in Adelaide Hills in 1976 as a young girl from the Malaysian state of Sabah, shared what "eight-year-old Penny" said to herself at the time.

"The way I dealt with being abused, bullied, having our driveway vandalised, was to say to myself: 'I'm just going to be really good at everything'," she said in her address.

Senator Wong, who was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award, said "the map" to success looks "quite different" for Asian Australians.

"We all have a pretty clear map of what it means to be a man who exercises authority," she said.

"We see that in popular culture, the movies we watch, in leadership.

A built-in penalty for being Asian

A survey of previous Asian-Australian Leadership Award winners released this week by think-tank Asialink found 93 per cent of respondents believed their heritage had been a barrier to their success.

Asialink chief executive Martine Letts said it was disappointing such a bias against Asian Australians still existed in workplaces.

"It's very difficult to break through that bamboo ceiling if your identity and cultural heritage hold you back from professional progression," Ms Letts said.

It's a sentiment shared by Editorial Lead at Missing Perspectives, Alicia Vrajlal, who took home the award in the Media category.

Ms Vrajlal said the barriers she faced in her early career included being "pigeon-holed" into only writing "ethnic stories".

Starting off as an entertainment reporter, the Fijian Indian woman went from being "the only brown woman on red carpets, interviewing celebrities", to landing editorial roles at Refinery29 and HuffPost.

"When I spoke about my ethnicity and cultural background in some newsrooms in the past, I was often only given 'the ethnic story'," she told the ABC.

These "ethnic stories" that Vrajlal remembers being asked to write, did not always feel authentic to her.

"There were often headlines that felt sensationalised or were made palatable for a wider, white audience," she said.

These experiences are what ultimately led Ms Vrajlal to starting her own South Asian media company, Draw Your Box.

'Stakes are higher' for women of colour

Ms Vrajlal also said she felt blocked in some newsrooms when pitching stories not "seen as worthy enough of being published, or being 'sexy' enough to get the clicks".

Slower progression is an experience echoed by another winner, Alanna Kamp, who received the Community and Advocacy award.

Dr Kamp's work centres on improving the wellbeing of minority groups by providing anti-racism strategies through her research as a senior lecturer at Western Sydney University.

"The slower progression through promotion has definitely been the case for me," Dr Kamp said on the 10 years she has worked in the sector.

But Dr Kamp said people's assumptions of her cultural background were one of the ongoing barriers she faces.

Dr Kamp, who is of German, Chinese and Indonesian heritage, described herself as "fairly white passing".

While she acknowledges "the privilege" of this, it has led to "constant questioning" of her identity.

"It's quite tiresome but at the same time, it informs why I do the research that I do."

'So much potential in community not being used'

Kenny Cheng, who co-founded the new Asian-Australian Professionals Collective, was among the Asian-Australian Leadership Awards nominees.

Mr Cheng said the collective — just launched on Friday — was a community platform intended to foster new Asian Australian leaders.

He said in his 30s he felt there was something preventing him from progressing in his career but he didn't know what it was.

He said many Asian Australians were not aware of how important building relationships was for career development, making it even harder for them to break the bamboo ceiling. 

"The really important thing is having that community to know that there are people backing them," he said.

"We [Asian Australians] seem to just put our heads down and just do the hard work and then hope that it's going to pay off.

"Often opportunities come from having people trust you and know you, and it's not just about the technical [aspect]."

Mr Cheng said the goal with their initiative is that they could run conversation series featuring prominent Asian Australians where people can meet in person and talk.

"What makes me really sad is that there is so much potential in the Asian Australian community and it's not being used," he said.

"[We want to] give them the tools and resources, help them to understand what is going on, have the events where they can meet other people going through similar things."

Providing tools and resources as an ally describes Charlotte Young, a youth and disability advocate who was named the overall winner at the awards.

While studying full-time, Ms Young also works as an inclusivity consultant to national and international organisations including UNICEF and the US Embassy.

Ms Young has a Chinese father from Hong Kong and a Lebanese Australian mother.

While Ms Young said she has never experienced feeling like an outsider in Australia, she acknowledges that the barriers faced by the women above do indeed exist.

Over the years, Ms Young said she has watched both her parents embrace their cultures "wholeheartedly", allowing her to do the same.

Being diagnosed with a hearing loss at four-years-old, Ms Young said it was her mum who was her biggest champion while navigating doctors and diagnoses.

"My mum kept advocating relentlessly against doctors who wouldn't believe her when she said I had a hearing loss," she said.

"Without that kind of advocacy from mum, I probably wouldn't be where I am today."