HKA celebrates International Women’s Day 2021

I choose to challenge gender bias and gender roles mentality to provide women with more senior leadership and management roles. The barriers to women in leadership should be broken down. Women can make great leaders just as well.

I choose to challenge unconscious bias at workplace and focus on work performance and merit. Both men and women should have equal opportunities to progress and succeed throughout their careers. Gender or family responsibilities should not be seen as a disadvantage.

I choose to challenge gender bias to promote flexible working and work-life balance for both women and men. This includes enhancing regulation or workplace policies in relation to maternity, paternity, shared parental leave, childcare support and elderly care which will enable working mothers to achieve their career goals as well as fathers to be more involved in the upbringing of the child and childcare duties. Focus should be on results, not clock-times.

Nurul Sabri, Senior Consultant, Middle East

I will be true to myself and support myself when others judging me based on women stereotypes. I will also strive to support other people to live their own life, no matter which gender they feel like belonging to. I will always keep in mind that all genders are equal.

Yingnan Chen, Associate Consultant, Asia

I #ChooseToChallenge the gender pay gap, which I truthfully did not believe existed to the extent that it does across all forms of employment. After progressing in my career and increasing my exposure to company recruitment and remuneration processes, and seeing the obstacles my partner faced when returning to the work force, it became resoundingly obvious that it is intrinsically part of our work-place society. I believe that great strides have been made to reduce the imbalance, but that we will only see meaningful change if high-profile sectors such as sport, the media and finance advocate and create a level playing field, with our support.

Ben Ripley, Associate Director, Oceania

I will drive awareness and promote recognition of ALL female contributions and achievements regardless of whether those achievements impact a board room or a living room. As a champion and ally, I will work to instil a sense of meaningful social responsibility to eradicate the notion that women merely hold supporting roles in society, and celebrate women for being undisputed architects of humanity.

Seyran Celik, Associate Director, Americas

I choose to challenge gender stereotypes at workplaces that women are perceived as less talented, less competent or less suited for high-pressure leadership roles than their counterparts, in particular in engineering and construction industries.

I will do this by actively providing feedback and encouragement to my peers and team members in pursuing their career goals and call out unprofessional behaviours to disrupt gender bias.

Ada Zou, Senior Consultant, Oceania