Originally authored by toni.ravelo
This year for International Women’s Day at SAP Singapore, we were delighted to have Stefan Ries, CHRO and Member of the SAP Global Managing Board join us for a special Men4Women event.
The event, which was hosted by our co-lead for BWN Singapore, Sree Vidya Sekharan was attended by women and men from across the SAP Singapore offices.
We kicked off with a welcome from Stefan who encouraged us to make every single day International women’s and men’s day and who challenged managers to be bold and hire more female leaders.
We then moved on to a panel discussion. Joining Stefan Ries on the panel were- Jeanette Tan, VP for Global Corporate Affairs, SAP APJ, Marion Ryan VP SME SAP APJ, Darren Rushworth, Managing Director, SAP Singapore.
The first question went to Stefan on the topic of diversity and he shared the five areas of focus for him in HR, which are:
- Talent Development
- Leadership Development
- Organizational Transformation
- People Sustainability
- HR Sales Leaders
All the aforementioned areas have a diversity and inclusion component embedded in them. We then heard from the rest of the panelists who touched on how they are making a difference to promote diversity.
Jeanette Tan encouraged us to express our ambition and reach out for those opportunities that we as women may be interested. She also pledged to mentor three women this year as part of her IWD Pledge for Parity.
Marion Ryan talked about organizations and leaders understanding a woman’s need to take a pause to care for their family or elderly parents. And then she talked about women taking away the fear associated with failing at a sales position. Her pledge this year for IWD is to encourage more women to take on sales positions.
Darren Rushworth talked about the unique competitive advantage women sales leaders have because of their strong emotional intelligence. And with a little encouragement women are just as capable as men to become amazing sales leaders. His IWD pledge is to hire the best person for the job, as he believes that there will be a natural balance of diversity if we hire the best person for the job.
We closed the session with a fun game called ‘Tie the Knot’ and a networking lunch session. Overall feedback from this event was great, and the need to get more men engaged in the topic and to continue investing into the subject rang clear!
Jeanette Tan, VP GCA SAP APJ, Jairo Fernandez, SVP HR SAP APJ, & Marion Ryan, VP SME SAP APJ
We'd like to give a special thank you to all the BWN Singapore core team members who came together to make this event possible. It's because of their diligent work and passion for BWN that we've been able to have such a great event and chapter. And also a very kind thank you to our executive sponsor, Richard McLean, CFO SAP APJ who continues to encourage us.
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