MSC ACCOUNTANCY, NANYANG EXECUTIVE MBA, NANYANG FELLOWS MBA, NANYANG MBA

A Morning Well Spent At The NBS Ceo Breakfast Series

Article contributed by: Maria Clara, MBA Class of 2018. 

On 19th of September 2017, MBA participants, faculty and alumni met again for the NBS CEO Breakfast Series. The event was held at The Fullerton Hotel and the topic of the morning was Women in Leadership.

The panel of speakers was integrated by Diana The, Chief Counsel at AON Hewitt APAC for the Middle East & Africa; Elaine Yeo, Managing Director – ASEAN for Laerdal Singapore Pte Ltd; Stephanie Syptak-Ramnath, Chargé d’affaires, a.i. at the U.S. Embassy in Singapore; and Yuko Nakamura, R&D Director for Procter & Gamble. The session was moderated by Prof. Ravinder Agarwal, and our Dean for Postgraduate Studies Prof. Nilanjan Sen introduced the event to the audience.

I was very surprised –and satisfied- by the significant attendance from our male classmates. As the topic of the event was Women in Leadership I expected most of the audience to be women.  Thank you guys for the great support!

The session started with Prof. Agarwal asking the panelists about their path to leadership and success. Each of them gave a short introduction of the remarkable moments on their way to leadership positions. When it came the time for Yuko Nakamura, she took some household and skin care products out of a bag and said she preferred to tell her story illustrating it with some of the products she has helped to develop at P&G. She mentioned how proud it made her to know that those products are present in the house of her friends or neighbors.

The speakers were also asked about what they considered to be successful and Diana The mentioned that to be successful is not a state, it’s what is lived on the way. She emphasized that we need to question who defines success and that it is different for every person.

Elaine Yeo mentioned the importance of the family support she got to develop her career, and how help from family is crucial for working women in Asia.  She commented how grandparents play an active role in the upbringing of children of working women in Asia, compared to North America or other European countries.

Millennials were also a topic of discussion and Stephanie Syptak-Ramnath commented on the effort us as millennials should do to be perceived as serious and less informal. She mentioned how our executive presence matters as not everybody will end up working in a start-up. Other panelists agreed on how we need to be less fragile, not take things personally as we cannot spend our careers feeling hurt by others.

It was a very interesting morning, an opportunity to learn from and share with leaders in different areas of society.  Looking forward to the next NBS CEO Breakfast event!