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Last week, our team celebrated the launch of half the sky a career platform connecting women to equal opportunity employers. We hosted an evening Celebrating Remarkable Women at the stunning venue The Mark, and what an amazing event it was! Just take a look at these picture highlights:

More than 60 business leaders, professionals and media joined us for this launch event, where they learned from our Founder and CEO, Sabrina Ho, who gave a rousing speech on half the sky’s vision and mission to increase the female talent pipeline help companies find new ways to support women at work and build a diverse and inclusive workforce.

While there was a wealth of knowledge and key learnings shared throughout the event, one notable and exciting portion of the event were the panel discussion delivered by our four keynote speakers. Each offered her or his unique perspective, and we wanted to share the key takeaways we gleaned from each one. Take a look:

Sara Cheng

CEO, Fuji Xerox

Key Takeaways:

The higher a woman climbs the corporate ladder the less women she will see how do we break this trend? At the senior level, there absolutely is a glass ceiling and I see it. There is a lack of representation at the senior level and also the board level, unless we have some very strong champions, we need some interventions, for example, certain target and objective setting.

I believe intervention is needed because human beings we have unconscious bias, if we don’t have intervention, it will not change.

Chris Mead

Head of Talent Acquisition APAC, DuPont

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​Key Takeaways:

• Some corporations are hesitant to approach gender diversity and inclusion in the workforce how does Dupont address this?At

  Dupont

  we have a fantastic inclusive culture and our core values are 217 years old - we realise the workforce is changing, today employees increasingly choose their prospective employer based on the values that they represent,

It is no longer the employer’s choosing the workforce. Especially for highly skilled in demand talents. So, as an organisation if you do not have diversity and inclusion at your core it will become increasingly difficult for you to attract top talent male or female.

Alexandra McKenzie

The British Deputy High Commissioner

Key Takeaways:

Why is gender equality so important? From a government perspective Gender equality in the workforce is not just a business imperative but a moral imperative

No country can flourish if it leaves behind 50% of its people – we have to make sure that 50% of the population those holding up half the sky are part of the economic conversation.

The economic impact would be significant if women were playing the same role as men in the workforce adding 26% to global GDP. So, gender equality, diversity and inclusion are a fundamental part of our foreign policy so that women are holding up half the sky all over the world.  

Duncan Hewett

SVP & General Manager, Asia Pacific & Japan, VMware

​Key Takeaways:

• How does diversity impact leadership teams.There's a piece of research that came out earlier this year that talks about the tipping point and the

  tipping point is 25%, and

The tipping point is about where do you go from being a minority to actually being a community, and that tipping point I can tell you from a personal experience is real!

Because when we went pass that tipping point, the behavior in my leadership team changed and we became more attractive for others to join.

So, there you have it! We hope these key lessons provide great inspiration to you as you continue on your career journey. Please join us as we seek to level the playing field for women at work and build a diverse workforce for the future of work.

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