Preparing Women for Leadership and Board Positions

23 October 2020
LeadWomen Welcomes 40 Women Leaders to the WIL Alumni Community

We are delighted to welcome another 40 women leaders to the WIL alumni community! Ladies – you join an alumni community of 200+ exceptional women leaders.

In 2014 we launched the pilot Women in Leadership programme. The programme has continued to evolve over the years to meet the changing needs of the participants. New components for WIL 2020 included Mindful Leadership, Peer-Peer Coaching and the Current Affairs Roundtable (new addition in 2019).

The WIL programme was designed to be conducted face-to-face and no one expected that 3 weeks before start of the programme, we would be making some major changes due to COVID-19. Lockdown hit us on 18 March, and we kicked off the WIL Induction on 7 April. Within that timeframe we had transitioned the programme to run virtually. Needless to say, WIL 2020 looked like no previous programme. The feedback and desire to keep WIL going, regardless of delivery method, was so strong, that the demand for the programme resulted in us running 2 simultaneous cohorts – virtually. Read on to see our WIL 2020 Graduation highlights.

WIL 2020 Alumni have access to LeadWomen membership benefits until the end of 2020.
Join our exclusive LinkedIn Group, and our upcoming Board Coaching event "Unleashing Latent Potential Across Generations" on 12 November. See more details below.

To all alumni - If you would like to renew your membership, stay tuned as we will be announcing the LeadWomen Membership 2021 soon.
LeadWomen in 2020
WIL has been around for 8 years now and we wanted to provide you with an update on what has been happening at LeadWomen since. Many of you will know us as the go-to for training in women leadership and directorship. Since our inception in 2011, we have focused on training aspiring, new and established women leaders as they embark or continue on their leadership journey. In addition to WIL we have also trained over 1000 ladies to be board-ready.

We continue to trailblaze and drive the demand for greater inclusion and diversity (InD). To support this LeadWomen has expanded its offerings to include networking and visibility as well as board sourcing services. Additionally, we work more and more closely with companies who are seeking for the right women talent to meet their business needs. As such, we have conducted a number of advisory and consulting projects including diagnostics, I&D blueprints and awareness and training programmes addressing a wide range of challenges ranging from processes to mindset change to unconscious bias.

We are also excited to share that together with UN Women, we will be inviting 300 Malaysian corporates to expand on their gender equality efforts by joining the Women Empowerment Principles Malaysia Campaign. This collaboration with UN Women comes at an opportune time. You could feel the momentum for increasing women in leadership in 2019, and with COVID, many companies are in survival-mode which means that InD will be de-priortised for 2020 and possibly 2021. With the launch of the Women Empowerment Principles in Malaysia we will be able to support companies to keep InD on their radar and still meet those critical InD milestones and KPIs.
 
What changes have we seen? 
In 2014 we were at 13.2% women on boards of Top 100 PLCs. As of Q2 2020, we are now at 26.5%. Looking at total PLCs, we've seen an increase from 10.2% to 17.0% in the same time frame. While we still have a long journey ahead of us to reach parity, it is a good time to reflect on the efforts that have gone into moving the needle, and celebrate the successes.

At LeadWomen we continue on our journey to increase women representation in key decision making roles and hope you will continue on this endeavour with us.

Best regards,
Anne & Marcella
Recommend a colleague or friend
If you found the WIL programme beneficial and would like to recommend a colleague or a friend, registrations for 2021 are now open.
Join our exclusive WIL Alumni Community LinkedIn Group
WIL Alumni can:

  • Keep in touch
  • Network with other WIL Alumni
  • Share the ways in which they have been implementing the skills learnt through the WIL programme
  • Share tips or extra information
We are looking forward to seeing our members' involvement in this new group where we also will be posting exclusive offers and news for our future programmes!
WIL 2020 Graduation Highlights
Virtual Graduation
On Monday 21 September, twenty WIL delegates joined in for the first-ever WIL Graduation – Virtual Edition. We kicked-off with a reflection session that was filled with inspirational and touching stories, both professionally and personally, from the delegates. We were then honoured to have Datin Ami Moris, CEO Maybank Kim Eng speak about her leadership journey learnings, challenging us to use our platform for good, to invest in social capital, to do a social audit and to make sisterhood “cool” again.
Face-to-Face Graduation
After a successful Virtual Graduation on the Monday, we welcomed the rest of our WIL delegates to a Face-to-Face graduation at The FourSeasons Hotel KL on Tuesday 22 September. It was great to finally see everyone in person after all these months of communicating virtually, the energy in the room was infectious! Our delegates were able to meet their peers and also their mentors who they have been working with. It was an honour to have Tan Sri Dr Jemilah Mahmood, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Malaysia on Public Health, speak about her leadership journey, especially during this challenging time.
Thank you to all of our WIL Mentors
This year was the first time we hosted a Mentor Appreciation Lunch and the turnout was fantastic. More than half of the mentors were able to join us for a lively and impactful discussion and brainstorming session on how to continue building on the mentoring component of the programme.
Join Us at an Upcoming LeadWomen Event
2 November
Members' Meet & Greet
with Anne Abraham & Dr. Marcella Lucas
5 November
UN Women x LeadWomen
Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs) Awareness Training
12 November
Virtual Board Coaching
"Unleashing Latent Potential Across Generations"
18 November
ICDM x LeadWomen
Branding for Board Directors: Enhancing Your Profile for the Board
8 December
Members' Meet & Greet
with Anne Abraham & Dr. Marcella Lucas
14 January
UN Women x LeadWomen
WEPs Malaysian Activators Campaign Launch
20 January
Members' Meet & Greet
with Anne Abraham & Dr. Marcella Lucas
For enquiries, email info@lead-women.com
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