September 27, 2013, by Graham Kendall

International Corporate Women Summit – Women in Business and Management

This post was contributed by Christina Chin and Geetha Baskaran

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International Corporate Women Summit- Women in Business and Management, 30 August 2013 in Hotel Istana Kuala Lumpur

Women have made much progress, pushing the envelope in many fields, yet there is still much room for improvement especially in the field of business and management. The UN Secretary-General had stated that “Where women are educated and empowered, economics are more productive and strong; where women are fully represented, society is more peaceful and stable.”

ASLI’s International Corporate Women Summit aims to address the under-representation of women in boards and senior management positions by providing a platform for businesses to explore ways of furthering the advancement of women. The participants received useful insights on key success factors and common pitfalls or hurdles; learnt about policies and issues concerning gender equality in the workplace, as well as the source of assistance and opportunities available from the partnerships or network with like-minded people and share their thoughts of ways together to advance women in business and management.

There were 23 speakers on the day presenting and sharing their virtuous thoughts and opinions. Our very own

CEO & Provost Professor Christine Ennew was one of the speakers on promoting gender equality in the workplace. Other distinguished key speakers also includes HE Maria, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary from the Embassy of the Argentine; Ms Nora Abd Manaf, Senior Executive Vice President and Head of the Group for Maybank Human Capital; Ms Pauline Ho , Assurance Leader from Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Ms Regina Rahim, Managing Director and Deputy Regional Head of Marketing Asia Pacific ex Japan, Nomura Asset management Malaysia Sdn Bhd. The session was moderated by Mr. Johan Mahmood Merican, CEO of Talent Corp Malaysia.

Based on the data by the Department of Statistics Malaysia, 48.6% of the total population in Malaysia comprise of women. In 2011, the Malaysian Cabinet under Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak approved legislation requiring businesses to achieve 30% representation of women in decision-making positions. However, only 26% of senior management roles are filled by women with the most common positions being Human Resource Director, Chief Financial Officer and Sales Director according to the Grant Thornton International Business Report. Given this strong evidence to promote gender diversity and equality, it is essential for businesses to nurture the role of women as our major force in driving the economic growth.

 

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