Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) is not just another corporate ESG propaganda, there are real business values and social impacts. Companies in the top-quartile for diversity are more likely to have industry-leading profitability and innovations, ability to retain top talents or even attract more investors with their growing interest in ESG factors alongside financial metrics.
“Diversity”, in corporate landscapes, means treating each employee as an individual, acknowledge their strengths and the potential they bring. Organisations should guarantee fair treatment (including equitable pay and recognition, equal access to resources and opportunities, etc.) regardless of prescribed gender, age, race, class, physical conditions or other factors. Robust DE&I processes and strategies can positively impact the bottom line – everyone feels they have a voice, feels valued, empowered and respected.
This track will prepare you for becoming a DE&I champion - to provide actionable insights on how to cultivate a truly inclusive workplace culture, from getting buy-in from leadership, to strategies adoption and implementation, and ultimately drive business outcomes and success.
Our Speakers
Cities like Hong Kong are rapidly evolving, driven by governments, talents in the cities and more and more importantly, technology. Where does the future of Hong Kong as a global city look like in the future? How will technology and innovation reshape the way Hong Kong is structured? Joining us with the insightful dialogue about our paveway to revive Hong Kong with energy, technology and future-proof city map. Work-life balance is the most desired factor for a job hunting candidate, as survey reveals. Yet it remains the most unmet expectation. Among many other employers’ virtuals, how can companies effectively communicate their working culture and attract talents who align with it? How to cultivate a productive environment benefiting both the employees and employers? Technology creation and adoption has rapidly accelerated under the pandemic, playing an increasingly prominent role in our economy and lives, and opening up exciting new opportunities. However, the tech industry continues to have a distinct gender gap, with women only representing 26.7% of the global technology workforce, of which only 5.5% are at CEO level. Why is it critical for the tech industry to prioritise gender diversity this next phase? How can organisations create gender inclusive workplaces in the Hong Kong tech space? Attention to workplace diversity and inclusion (D&I) has been on the rise in recent years. However Hong Kong / Asia seems to be lagging behind, most of the companies have not enacted any non-discrimination policies in workplace. In the Asian workplace culture, being openly LGBTQ+ may seem to be a hindrance to one’s career prospects; discussing sexual orientation or gender identity at work would also be conceived as “unprofessional”, therefore most LGBTQ+ employees would rather remain closeted in the workplace. Given that tech itself is a special space that embraces individuality & innovation and breeds more openness towards diversity (half of Glassdoor’s top companies for LGBTQ+ people to work in were tech companies), it would be insightful to see what tech industry is doing to embrace a more inclusive workplace in Hong Kong, and thus inspired the other industries to take part. As businesses compete for talent, expand into new markets and accelerate innovation, they need to commit and prioritise D&I to create a truly inclusive environment that will be attractive to future generations of LGBTQ innovators and consumers. There are over 70,000 disabled employees in Hong Kong, some are serving in Hong Kong’s leading industries such as financial services and trading. Despite the physical and mental challenges, they contribute to the economy and bring values to companies just like everyone else. How to leverage technology to unfold their potential further? Employee experience has become a buzzword, a point of focus, or even a competitive advantage for companies in fighting for talents in the past few years. Did the concept brew from the Great Resignation? Is it a new hype or is it here to stay? Programme
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We are committed to protecting your privacy. We will never collect information about you without your explicit consent.
We are committed to protecting your privacy. We will never collect information about you without your explicit consent.
We are committed to protecting your privacy. We will never collect information about you without your explicit consent.
We are committed to protecting your privacy. We will never collect information about you without your explicit consent.
My name is Joe Chu, and I am a big sports enthusiast and loyal Golden State Warriors fan, growing up in a single parent family with 2 younger sisters, my entrepreneurial mother is the boss inside & outside the house who has always been my inspiration and role model. I work for a company calls Steelcase one of the largest office furniture providers in the World, and my role is to support Steelcase distributors & customers in SEA, Taiwan, Macau, and Mongolia. Over 15 years of experience in the furniture industry, I have worked with hundreds of companies from traditional banking industry to trend setting tech firms, from Japan to Barbados I traveled the world to witness numerous office opening, expansion and sometimes downsizing. Furniture is a simple yet critical components to the overall employee’s workplace experience, which helps to stimulate desirable behaviors, and overtime cultivating a healthy company culture. The biggest satisfaction from what I do is seeing client's cheerful face after every project completion.
Mr. Walter Tsui is the Co-Founder and CEO of CareER. Walter, though visually impaired, is an adventurer at heart, and has a strong commitment to support highly educated people with disabilities or special education needs in Hong Kong. Under Walter’s leadership, CareER, which was established in 2014, was recognised by the Vienna-based Zero Project Award 2021 of being the Innovative Practice for Employment from Civil Society. It was also awarded by The Hong Kong Council of Social Service as the Most Impactful Small and Medium-sized Nonsubvented NGO in 2019. Prior to starting his venture in CareER, Walter has worked in a number of multi-national corporations, including L’Oréal, Gammon, Goldman Sachs, UBS, and King & Wood Mallesons, from where Walter acquires relevant work and people skills that empowers him to lead CareER. Accompanied by his seeing-eye dog Range, Walter has devoted himself to serve the Hong Kong community by attending a number of committees hosted by the Hong Kong Government and other statutory organisations, majority of his volunteering focuses on promoting diversity and inclusion in Hong Kong. Walter is a sports lover. He has practised Chinese martial art “Wing Chun” for over 10 years, and participated in Hong Kong’s New Year Winter Swimming for over 20 years.
Thomas is a Cambodian-American consultant with 5+ years of combined consulting and industry experience in the areas of HR transformation, talent strategy, change management, innovation, HRTech, people operations and data analytics. He has spoken at dozens of events around the topics of HR Trends, the Great Resignation/Reshuffle, Future of Work and Millennial and Gen-Z Talent Strategy. Thomas is the Co-chair of PwC LGBT network, Shine and corporate liaison for male allies initiative. Prior to joining PwC, Thomas helped launch and run a leading HRTech company as Chief Operating Officer. Before that, Thomas was an Innovation Consultant at an Innovation PaaS company advising Fortune 500 clients on their innovation/marketing/HR strategies. The SMEs Thomas has helped launch and grow raised investments worth US$25+ million. Thomas holds 3 Bachelor Degrees (BA/BS/BBA) in Economics (USA), Political Science/International Relations (USA) and Business Administration/International Business (France) and a Master of Sciences in Applied Economics (Hong Kong). In addition to the USA (Washington D.C. & Orlando, FL) and France (Nancy), Thomas has also studied/lived in Germany (Lüneburg), Taiwan (Taipei), Cambodia (Phnom Penh) and China (Guangzhou, Suzhou & Xi’an).
Ronald Lok is the Head of Strategic Programs for SAP Greater China, responsible for implementing global initiatives and subsequent change management activities in the region. Awarded as the D&I champion, he is also the chapter lead for “Pride@SAP” in Greater China – an employee network group dedicated to promote LGBTQ+ awareness and broader D&I values in workplace.
Loic is the Commercial Director for OJ Group’s Asia operations. As a passionate social entrepreneur , he is also the founder of OJ Ability where he leads a team of passionate recruiters and disability inclusion advocates. Their mission is simple, support the careers of people living with a disability and accompany employers in their inclusion journey. The whole team are themselves living with a disability and to help them achieve their mission, they are partnered with 22 NGOs and 7 universities in Hong Kong.
Fiona joined The Women’s Foundation as CEO in September 2017, combining her senior leadership experience with a passion for TWF’s mission to serve marginalised women and girls in Hong Kong. Her responsibilities include strategic planning, donor relations, overseeing grants and programmes, as well as government relations and community outreach. A former lawyer and Hang Seng Index company secretary, Fiona has lived in Hong Kong for over two decades having cultivated a career as a senior legal professional and adviser to a number of leading corporations in Hong Kong and around Asia including PCCW, AIA, AIG, Aviva, Chow Tai Fook Jewellery as well as SMEs, start ups and non-profit organisations. She is the Co-Founder of Room to Read's Hong Kong Chapter and helped establish the Regional Programme office in New Delhi, India. She is former Deputy Chair and a Director of the Australian Chamber of Commerce Hong Kong (AustCham), and was Founder and Chair of its Women in Business Network. In 2015, Fiona won the People’s Choice Award for the Advancement of Women in Business at the AustCham-Westpac Australia China Business Awards. In 2020, Fiona was selected as the winner of the "Outstanding Achievement" award for the Women in Business Law Awards Asia 2020 for her professional accomplishments as well as advocacy and influence. In 2021, she was recognised at the AmCham Women of Influence Awards 2021 as Non-Profit Leader of the Year for her work to advance gender equality. Fiona holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sydney and is a Fellow (FGIA FCG) of the Governance Institute of Australia and the Chartered Governance Institute, a member of the Law Society of New South Wales, Australia and a Graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) and sits on its Hong Kong Committee.
Alan Hau is the Head of Program Management at OneDegree Hong Kong Limited. He is the technical lead who oversees projects in-house to optimize insurance operations using data and analysis and external products to drive customer acquisition. Having worked in small and large teams with over a decade of experience in financial services and startups, Alan has held key roles across the lifecycle of various software products including ideation, engineering, deployment, and maintenance.
Mary McHale is based in Hong Kong and is currently the Director of Named Accounts for Asia-Pacific where she is responsible for leading the sales teams to define and execute strategies leveraging key partners and consistent global selling practices to drive increased revenue growth and stronger relationships across a core group of strategic accounts. Mary joined Equinix in 2017 as the APAC Director for Business Development in Digital Payments and Banking. In this role she was focused on the growth and expansion of the FSI ecosystem at Equinix. She is a strong advocate for advancing women in leadership and serves as an Asia-Pacific chapter lead for the Equinix Women’s Leadership Network. Mary also volunteers as the Chair of the American Chamber of Commerce Women of Influence committee in Hong Kong. Mary has more than 25 years of experience in the banking and financial services sector including leadership roles at Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America. Mary received an MBA with honors in Marketing Management from DePaul University in Chicago and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Marquette University.
Mashiat Lamisa, a socially conscious product & design engineer, very recently joined as a Product Manager at Lalamove. She has previously worked as a Product Engineer building digital and hardware products for entrepreneurs. She co-founded a medical startup in Hong Kong that helps sterilize stethoscopes in a cost-effective way. She loves to harness her innovative thinking and design acumen to find solutions for the most pressing societal challenges like circular economy and accessible healthcare. She co-founded Asia’s first electronic device repair community. And devices that cannot be repaired or fixed? She turns them into jewelry through her social enterprise Projekt that helps people turn their broken computers into art and wearables. Her TEDx talk encourages people to bring an end to throwaway culture and know how to fix their own devices. Graduated first class from HKUST, this changemaker awardee wants to create a big impact in the realm of electronic waste.
Ms. Rainie Pan is a founding board member and managing director of the Hong Kong PropTech Association. She is also a Principal at Oliver Wyman, focusing her work in the digital and financial services practices and currently leading the firm’s regional Social Impact initiatives in Asia Pacific. Rainie brings diverse experiences from fintech, proptech, and organizational transformation as a consultant, an in-house strategist and an entrepreneur. She also serves in various volunteering capacities at non-profit and public sector organizations, including the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks, the Hong Kong Blockchain Society, and the Cherie Blair Foundation, providing coaching and mentorships to female entrepreneurs and students. Rainie holds a master degree in Global Finance from the HKUST and NYU Stern, and a bachelor degree in Actuarial Science from the University of Waterloo. She is also a charterholder of CFA and FRM designations.