12th Asian Women in Leadership Summit

Nurturing Women Leaders for a Better Future

June 8, 2023 | Fullerton Hotel | Singapore

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ABOUT AWLS 2023

Nurturing Women Leaders for a Better Future AWLS 2023 will focus on how companies, governments and society at large can nurture and harness the power of women leaders for a better shared future. We face the twin challenges of need to improve quality of life while we address the challenges of climate risk, inequality and geopolitical realignment.
As the humanity heals from the trauma of the pandemic, women leaders from all walks of life can bring new perspectives and lead the society with compassion and empathy to a better, shared future. By enhancing both, the depth and range of contribution of women to the economy and society at large, we can craft a speedy and more balanced resurgence after the pandemic. We will also discuss how younger women executives can play a more active role in creating new enterprises, including sustainable and green businesses.

SPEAKERS

COO, Property | Standard Chartered Bank

Michele Lemmens

Michele Lemmens

Head of Business Sustainability & CTO APAC, TCS

Ms. Low Peck Kem

Ms. Low Peck Kem

Chief Human Resources Officer & Advisor

The Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center,
SP Jain

Group Chief People Officer, Boardroom Pte Ltd (Full-Time)

APAC Head, Circle One by UBS

Mahalakshmi Srinivasan

Mahalakshmi Srinivasan

CEO APAC, Indicia Worldwide

Corrado Forcellati

Corrado Forcellati

Director, Paia Consulting

Antoinette Louis

Antoinette Louis

Vice President -Talent Acquisition, Mastercard

Head of Partnerships, GovTech Singapore

Co-Founder Anna Rainn

Andy Postlethwaite

Andy Postlethwaite

SVP, Performance Materials APAC, BASF South East Asia Pte Ltd

Kaustav Chakravarthy

Kaustav Chakravarthy

Chief Human Resource Officer, Hoya Vision Care

CEO & Founder, MOXY

Ex-Head,Leadership, Talent & Culture, ASM

Senior Director - Print Quality,
HP Inc

Director - Print Operations,
HP Inc

Keynote Speaker | Executive Coach | Facilitator

KeyNote Speaker | Executive Coach | Leadership Trainer

Veronica Llorca-Smith

Veronica Llorca-Smith

DEI Advocate,
Writer and Consultant

Director, Capital Market Strategy, Swift

Oluchi Ikechi-D’Amico

Oluchi Ikechi-D’Amico

Partner, Head of Strategy & Transactions APAC, Capital Markets.

Singapore Country Leader,
WTW

Sanjeev Chatrath

Sanjeev Chatrath

Partner, Financial Services, EY

Workforce Advisory | Partner, Ernst & Young Advisory Pte Ltd

Senior Advisor - Asia Pacific,
NeuroLeadership Institute

AGENDA

08:30 – 09:00 Registration
09:00 – 09:10 Welcome Remarks

By Quest Group
09:10 – 09:30 Keynote Address

Ms. Low Peck Kem CHRO & Advisor, Public Ser. Div. Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore
09:30 – 09:45 My leadership journey

Ms. Teo Soo Leng
Senior Director, Print Quality, HP
09:45 – 10:45 Panel: Journeys of successful women leader
Moderator:

DR CJ Meadows - The Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center, SP Jain

Whikie Liu - Director, Capital Market Strategy, Swift

Storm Dalati - COO, Property, Standard Chartered Bank

Oluchi Ikechi - D'Amico-Partner, Ernst & Young Parthenon

Antoinette Louis - VP, TA, Mastercard

Michele Lim - APAC Head, Circle One by UBS

Moderated panel conversations with successful women leaders followed by Q&A.
- Navigating success, overcoming key challenges, discovering & engaging with mentors
- Advice to their ‘younger self’ and to emerging women (and men) leaders
- Key learning from pandemic years & how it has changed them and prepared for future
10:45 – 11:15 Networking Break

11:15 – 12:15 CXO Panel: Redefining Women Leadership for 2030
Moderator:

Sanjeev Chatrath - Partner, Financial Services, EY

Choo Oi San - Country Leader, WTW

Andy Postlethwaite - SVP, BASF

Mahalakshmi Srinivasan - CEO APAC, Indicia Worldwide

Khatija Aslam - CEO & Founder, MOXY

Conversations with senior business leaders on how they personally propose/plan to promote and nurture women leaders followed by Q&A.
- Role of women leaders in driving growth & resurgence
- Women as effective business leaders, championing decisions amidst divisive opinions
- Experiments and successes in supporting women talent
12:15 – 12:30 Launch: Executive Briefings Series EY & AWLS Partnership
12:30 – 13:40 Lunch Break

13:40 – 14:30 Workshop: The Power of Your Network Build & Leverage Relationships to Achieve Success

Facilitated session on perspectives and tools for effective professional networking.
Group activity led by the facilitator to utilise the networking and ice-breaker tools in smaller roundtable groups followed by learnings debrief
14:30 – 15:20 CHRO Panel: Gender-lens: The Future of Workforce?
Moderator:

Nitin Goil - Senior Advisor - Asia Pacific,NeuroLeadership Institute

Kaustav Chakhravarthy - CHRO, Hoya Vision Care

Ryme Dembri – Ex-Head, Leadership, Talent & Culture, ASM

Soumee De - Workforce Advisory | Partner, People Advisory, EY

Moderated panel session with HR and D&I Heads on building workforce of the future with a gender-lens approach, followed by Q&A.
- Upskilling and supporting women to create an inclusive leadership
- Bringing back women leaders
- Managing the gender pay-and-opportunity gap
- Navigating expectations on D&I – quick wins or long-term reforms?
15:15 – 15:45 Networking Break

15:45 - 16:30 Workshop: Inclusive Language to Create Inclusive Culture

This workshop will highlight how the language can create and sustain biases and how to overcome.

Participants will discuss the case studies shared in their tables and share their findings,
16:30 – 17:20 Sustainability Panel: D&I and Sustainability- Accelerator for change
Moderated panel session with sustainability, D&I and change / transformation leaders,
- Role of talent diversity in sustainability solutions
- Evolving organisation roles and opportunities
- Green skills – looking at talent differentl
- Importance of sustainability and purpose for sourcing and retaining
- Changing the way, we drive performance and results
17:20 – 17:30 Closing Remarks

By Quest Group

PARTNERS

Gold Partner

Silver Partner

Associate Partner

Supporting Partner
Knowledge Partner

veronica_l

About Veronica Llorca-Smith

DEI Advocate, Writer and Consultant

She works as the APAC Director of Leaders for Good, a DEI company where they help organizations across all industries create customized DEI strategies to build inclusive and high-performing teams. Some clients include Toyota, Grab, NRMA, Business Australia amongst others. She is based in Hong Kong, where she has lived for 15 years and leverages her expertise in APAC and 6 languages to promote inclusion in the Region.

Veronica’s profile on Leaders for Good:https://leadersforgood.org/about/

Advocacy on social media

Veronica is a DEI content creator and leverages various social media channels as well as podcasts to promote inclusion in organizations and society. Starting in July 2022, she has published over 200 posts and articles and has reached a digital audience of 10,000.

Through daily content creation and engagement, Veronica's objective is to create advocacy for inclusive leadership across all industries. She leverages technology to level the playing field for under-represented groups and contribute to a more inclusive society.

Linkedin: Veronica publishes daily posts on DEI raising awareness on topics like inclusive language, inclusive meetings, cultural agility, linguistic inclusion, gender equity, disability and many others. Her content is a mix of educational posts leveraging her work experience, personal storytelling sharing experiences across different cultures (mostly Asia), and infographics on DEI to inspire inclusive leadership. https://www.linkedin.com/in/veronicallorcasmith/

Medium: Veronica has published over 100 articles on topics around diversity and motivation. She also founded her Medium publication called A Smiling World which welcomes writers from all backgrounds and promotes diversity, inclusion, and positivity. Some write about their experience with autism, body dysmorphia and others.
https://medium.com/@verollorcasmith
https://medium.com/a-smiling-world

Podcasts and TV shows: Veronica has spoken at multiple Podcasts and TV shows to talk about diversity and inclusive leadership and cultural agility. Publication on Amazon: ‘The Lemon Tree Mindset’

In February 2023, Veronica published her ebook, The Lemon Tree Mindset: 19 lessons to reinvent yourself. The book’s foundation is that everyone has unique superpowers that need to be unleashed to create the best possible version of yourself.

Kaustav Chakravarthy

About Kaustav Chakravarthy

Chief Human Resource Officer, Hoya Vision Care

Kaustav serves as the Chief Human Resource Officer for HOYA Vision Care, a global leader in optical technology innovation and one of the world’s largest spectacle lens manufacturers. Based in Singapore, he leads a 200-strong global organisation of Human Resource and General Administration professionals who work closely with the executive leadership of his organisation to deliver their people strategy around the world.

In his previous assignment with Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning Inc., Kaustav served as the Executive Director for their Global Human Resources organisation. Before that, at the Lenovo Group, Kaustav served in multiple roles including as the HR Director for South-East Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea, and before that as the Asia Pacific Director for People & Organisational Capability. In earlier assignments, Kaustav has served as Vice President, Leadership & Talent Development for Accenture’s global Growth Markets, Learning & Development Leader with Ernst & Young GSS India, and with other companies like Robert Bosch and Infosys Ltd.

Kaustav has two Master’s degrees in Business Administration and Counselling Psychology and is pursuing a third in Industrial-Organizational Psychology. He brings to the table over 24 years of professional experience in varied fields, mainly corporate HR and consulting, with deep domain expertise in Talent Development, Performance Management, Leadership Development, Organizational Development and Change Management. As an L&D/OD consultant, Kaustav has consulted with a large number of organisations across industry sectors, delivering measurable business results. As a corporate HR leader working for Fortune 500 organisations, he has led global teams, spearheaded large international change and transformation projects and acquired significant general management experience. He also helped co-found a successful boutique L&OD consulting firm early in his career. Kaustav is also a seasoned training facilitator with thousands of hours of training experience.

On the personal front, Kaustav is a passionate singer trained in Indian classical music and plays several instruments. He shares his love for music and art with his wife, Dr. Geetha Bhat, who is a veteran concert musician of the Veena, well-known child psychologist and a pioneer of music therapy for special-needs children. They have two young children: their daughter Manasvi, aged 20, is an accomplished Bharatanatyam dancer; and their son ShreeRaghava, aged 15, is one of the youngest certified Yoga masers in the World.