International Women's Day Lunch

Our flagship diversity and inclusion event of the year, the International Women's Day Lunch, returns with our highly engaging and renowned expert speakers and a buffet lunch at the Shangri-La Hotel.

This event, led by our Women in Business Committee, is a highlight for our diversity and inclusion activities throughout the year. All are welcome, save the date in your calendars!

Our empowering theme for the 2024 event is "Future proofing for Inclusion and Equity". We have invited a strong panel of speakers who will be sharing their perspectives and insights on how we can set up our future generations to drive inclusion and also talk about their inspiring personal journeys. This year will also include a surprise mindfulness activity led by Charlie Thakrar!

This is also a wonderful opportunity to network and learn from like-minded people and discover ways to empower each other. Let's celebrate and discuss how we can collectively shape a more inclusive future.

For International Women's Day 2024 and and beyond, let's Inspire Inclusion.

Thank you to our Title Partner, and Official Diversity and Inclusion Partner of the Chamber since 2014, Barclays. In 2024, we'll be celebrating not only 70 years of the British Chamber, but an amazing 10 years of celebrating diversity with our friends at Barclays! Thank you also to our Supporting Partner, North London Collegiate School (Singapore).

Interested in sponsoring our International Women's Day event? Sponsored tables are available, contact Lucy or Ashni for details.

Speakers

Emma Loynes

Chief Executive Officer, (Lloyd’s Asia) and Country Manager (Singapore) at Lloyd’s

Georgette Tan

President at United Women Singapore (UWS)

Leanne Robers

Co-Founder of She Loves Tech

Michele Lemmens

APAC CTO & Head of Business Sustainability at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

Mollie Rogers Jean De Dieu

General Manager at Longchamp

Toyin Ope

Head of Inclusion and Diversity, Asia Pacific at Visa

Emma is CEO (Lloyd’s Asia) and Country Manager (Singapore) at Lloyd’s, the specialist insurance and reinsurance marketplace, based in Singapore. In this role she is responsible for leading the Lloyd’s Asia platform, Singapore operations, market development, as well as driving strategic growth across Singapore and ASEAN.

Emma has over 25 years of experience in the insurance industry across a wide range of disciplines, including Claims, Portfolio Management, Risk and Regulatory, Operations and Transformation.
Emma joined Lloyd’s in 2018 as a Senior Manager in the Performance Management division before moving to a new role as Head of Commercial Transformation in 2020, where she was responsible for the development of a new global operating model, including the implementation of governance and oversight frameworks, as well as operating principles to deliver an optimised Global Network which supports the Market ambitions for sustainable, profitable growth.

Prior to Lloyd’s, Emma held several senior leadership roles at RSA Insurance, including Commercial Operations Director and Head of Commercial Schemes.
Emma is a member of the Women in Business Committee at the British Chamber of Commerce in Singapore.

She is a passionate supporter of the development of young talent both within the Insurance sector and wider industries. Emma is a member of several professional organisations, providing coaching and mentoring, including for ‘Advance’, Lloyd’s flagship programme for future female leaders.

Georgette Tan is President of United Women Singapore (UWS), a non profit organisation advocating gender equality, women’s empowerment and focused on building the pipeline of future female leaders.

She is on the board of the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations (SCWO) and is Chair of BoardAgender, an initiative of SCWO focused on increasing the number of women on boards in Singapore. She is also a board member of SG Her Empowerment (SHE), an NGO that gathers the views and input on issues surrounding the advancement of women and girls, land advocates policies that helps women and girls optimise their family, career and personal lives.

She serves on the Climate Action SG Alliance (CASA), other Alliance for Action (AFA) Committees relating to tech-facilitated gender violence and other women’s issues in Singapore, and serves on the industry advisory panel for the Global Women in Public Relations Singapore.

Georgette served on the Taskforce on Family Violence, co-chaired by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

Georgette was previously Senior Vice President, Communications at Mastercard, where for over 18 years, she was responsible for external and internal communication, and launched Mastercard’s Knowledge Leadership strategy with the establishment of numerous consumer, lifestyle and gender indexes. She also spearheaded Mastercard’s Corporate Social Responsibility efforts, which focused on education and development programs to help empower women and children across the Asia Pacific region.

Prior to joining Mastercard, Georgette was Vice President of Communications at CNBC Asia and Dow Jones Asia, and also held Senior Communications roles at the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board.

Georgette also advises female entrepreneurs of start-up ventures and social enterprises in the region.

Leanne Robers is the Co-Founder of She Loves Tech, the world’s largest startup competition and accelerator program for women-led and women-impact tech startups. Now operating in 72 countries, She Loves Tech is committed to building an ecosystem for technology, entrepreneurship and innovation that creates opportunities for women and closes the gender gap in startup funding. Since its founding in 2015, more than 15,000 startups have gone through SLT and have gone on to raise more than USD$400M. She Loves Tech aims to unlock USD1b in funding for its startups by 2030.

An active presence in the startup community, Leanne is also a mentor for the Singapore Tourism Board tech accelerator program and previously for the Facebook Community Accelerator Program. In 2019, Leanne was selected as an Obama Leader (Asia Pacific) and was awarded the Booking.com’s Tech Playmaker of the year award and Champion of Change award 2020. Leanne is also a Microsoft Regional Director, a program where Microsoft selects 200 of the world’s top thought leaders to advise and be a Key Opinion Leader to the Microsoft network. She was also named Singapore's Top 100 Women In Technology by the Singapore government in their inaugural list and Prestige Magazine’s Women of Power 2022 and 40 under 40 list 2021. Most recently, she was awarded the Woman of the Year special award, presented by Princess Charlene and Prince Albert II in Monaco.

Leanne has founded a diverse portfolio of businesses, including Comish (an art x technology platform), a fintech service platform in New York and a lifestyle company that built and managed boutique hotels and F&B outlets in SEA. Prior to her startup journey, she worked at corporates in the UK and across SEA covering a variety of roles, including business development, consulting and leadership.

She holds a BS in Psychology, and she was awarded the Paul J. Korshin Award for Excellence and Entrepreneurship from the University of Pennsylvania, where she received her MSc in Leadership and Management.

Michele Lemmens is the APAC CTO & Head of Business Sustainability at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), one of the worlds largest purpose-led information technology services and consulting company's. She has spent her career shaping and bringing to life new initiatives, businesses and programs that need clarity of purpose and diverse thinking to deliver meaningful outcomes.

She has successfully designed, built and delivered new initiatives, across multiple geographies, often led by strategies focused on new business models, new market entry strategies, M&A, JVs, start-ups and strategic alliances across multiple partners to realise collective value. One of her career highlights was setting up a women's only business centre in Saudi Arabia. Michele is a champion of positive change and blends this commitment and energy with her volunteering, advising, advocacy on Sustainability and innovation, contributions to accelerators and also academic institutions.

She is also on the board of a sustainable foods company in NZ and a NFP fellowship in Singapore focused on women successfully transitioning from prison. She is passionate about harnessing her diverse experience for more purposeful impact.

Mollie Rogers Jean De Dieu is the General Manager of French fashion and accessory company, Longchamp, in Singapore and Malaysia, Founder of Emotional Inclusion®, a non-profit organization where she exercises passionate advocacy for humanizing the workforce. She is also the author of “Emotional Inclusion, A Humanizing Revolution At Work”, published by Penguin Random House in September 2023 and a TEDx speaker (https://we.tl/t-HKGYsJ4vI7) where she outlines her vision for humanizing work cultures.

A seasoned veteran of the people industry, Mollie has listened to and witnessed countless stories of individuals struggling to navigate work while facing the ‘perfect storm’. Over her two-decade-long career, Mollie has grappled with the reality of the subject matter and the urgent need to advocate a safe platform where emotions can be heard, recognized, and dealt with.

Today, Mollie champions a new paradigm of corporate leadership with Emotional Inclusion® that requires companies to recognize and care for the humanity of the individuals they lead by investing in tailored, emotionally inclusive medical, mental health pillars.

Mollie’s work-through her organization and its programs-draws on the latest research in positive and behavioral psychology, leadership development, and organizational change. Through her Emotional Inclusion® podcast (available on iTunes/Spotify), Mollie hosts renowned global leaders who are advocates for emotionally inclusive workplaces. She ultimately aims to shatter the archaic business landscape’s status quo by leading the way to a wholesome, new mindset in the workforce.

A self-proclaimed citizen of the world, Mollie grew up between Africa, France, the United States and has made Asia her home for the past seventeen years. She currently resides in Singapore with her family.

As the Head of Inclusion and Diversity for Visa Asia Pacific, Toyin leads the development and Implementation of the Inclusion and Diversity strategy for 19 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. She spearheads initiatives aimed at cultivating a diverse and inclusive culture within Visa.

With her extensive experience across five continents, she excels in adapting and applying global strategies to address regional and local challenges, developing tailored programs that ensure every employee feels valued, psychologically safe and empowered to contribute.
Toyin has lived in six different countries and views herself as a true global citizen. With over 16 years of experience, she has led various projects focused on Inclusion and Diversity, Wellbeing, Social Impact and Strategy projects in North America, Europe, Middle East,Africa and Asia.

Toyin began her career in Finance and commercial strategy roles at Shell and then led several strategic Inclusion and Diversity projects with Governments and NGOs to increase the representation and advancement of Women and People with Disabilities
Toyin obtained her master’s in education from Harvard University and MBA from Queen’s University in Canada after graduating from University of Manitoba in Canada.

Highlights from earlier IWD events

Table of 10

Book a non-branded/sponsored table for your colleagues or team.

Standard PriceS$1,600

Individual Members Ticket

Member PriceS$190

Individual Non-Members Ticket

Standard PriceS$215

Supporting Partner - Member Company

Align your company with diversity, equality and inclusion by becoming a Supporting Partner for our IWD event. The value of this sponsorship includes brand promotion across the marketing of the event and a branded table at the lunch in a priority position. For more information contact Lucy or Ashni at the Chamber.

Member PriceS$3,000

Supporting Partner - Non-Member Company

Align your company with diversity, equality and inclusion by becoming a Supporting Partner for our IWD event and receive a 12-month membership included in the value.

Sponsorship includes brand promotion across the marketing of the event and a branded table at the lunch in a priority position. For more information contact Lucy or Ashni at the Chamber.

Standard PriceS$6,000

British Chamber of Commerce Singapore

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International Women's Day Lunch