Over 200 people from the Asian Pacific Islander community attended the welcoming reception for Dr. Qi Lu, president of Microsoft’s Online Services Division recently at China Harbor Restaurant in Seattle. Earlier that day, Microsoft announced it had entered a strategic search and advertising partnership with Yahoo!.

Microsoft hired Lu, a senior Yahoo executive in December of last year, with a direct reporting relationship to Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer. Prior to joining Microsoft, Lu spent 10 years at Yahoo! His role included serving as the executive vice president of engineering for the company’s Search and Advertising Technology Group.

“There are some key qualities to being an excellent leader that can make a difference in your organization,” Lu said, as he referred to Jim Collins, author of Good to Great. “Be competitive but humble at the same time. The individual needs the team to make things happen.”

Lu worked at IBM’s Almaden Research Center and Carnegie Mellon University and was a faculty member at Fudan University in China. He received advanced degrees in computer science from Fudan University and Carnegie Mellon University and holds 20 U.S. patents.

Bellevue-based Executive Development Institute (EDI) worked with a number of event sponsors to organize the reception. EDI develops culturally-tailored leadership programs. In addition to its programs, EDI works with the community to organize receptions highlighting diverse leaders and cultural traits that guide them through their careers.

Since its inception in 1994, EDI has graduated more than 400 Asian Pacific professionals from its Leadership Discovery program. This year, EDI is piloting a new version of Leadership Discovery, which has been culturally tailored for Hispanic professionals, and has launched Leadership Navigation, a program for mid- and senior-level professionals. For more information about the Executive Development Institute, please visit www.ediorg.org.