International Women's Day Webinar | British Chamber of Commerce Singapore on Glue Up

About the Webinar

As part of our three-day International Women's Day activities for 2022, this panel discussion will review the biases creating barriers for professional women in today's society.

These can be summarised in four main areas, which will each be covered in the discussion and Q&A for audience participation:

Physical barriers, such as design influences that devalue female needs
Financial barriers, such as masculine perceptions of "breadwinners"
Mental barriers, such as enabling women to have a respected voice, and imposter syndrome
Educational barriers, such as laying the right foundations for future generations and changing workforce perceptions

With thanks to our Official Diversity & Inclusion Partner, Barclays, and Supporting Partners for our International Women's Day events this year, St. James's Place Wealth Management, Mercer, Swire Shipping and NatWest Markets.

FEATURE YOUR BRAND AS A SUPPORTING SPONSOR

Companies looking to lead the way in diversity, inclusion and equality may consider our Supporting Sponsor option, which includes:

Branding as a Supporting Sponsor on all promotion and post-event content across all our International Women's Day activities this year
Either a branded table of 5 attendees; or 5 individual passes; for the lunch event on 8 March
Up to 20 passes for our virtual panel discussion on 10 March

Our events team will be in touch with those who book this option to confirm your attendees for each event.

ABOUT OUR INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY ACTIVITIES

The British Chamber of Commerce Singapore has been leading on diversity, inclusion and equality since 2014, with a flagship IWD event held each year in partnership with our title sponsor, Barclays.

This year we will be hosting a combination of three in-person and digital activities for you to enjoy - an International Women's Day Lunch on 8 March, a special BritCham Singapore podcast episode on 9 March, and a virtual panel discussion on 10 March.

Find out more about our past activities and diversity resources for your businesses on our Diversity & Inclusion Information Hub.

Speakers

Andrew Ashman

Head of APAC Loan Syndicate at Barclays Bank PLC

Ruma Balasubramanian

Managing Director for Southeast Asia of Google Cloud

Carma Elliot

College President at United World College South East Asia (UWCSEA)

Tamara Gillan

Founder, The WealthiHer Network and CEO and Founder, Cherry London

Andrew has been a member of the Barclays Investment Banking team for over fifteen years, covering the origination and distribution of investment grade, LBO and structured finance loans in the Asian and European loan markets.

In his current role, Andrew heads the APAC Loan Syndicate team at Barclays, based in Singapore, with a focus on the underwriting and distribution of loans from across Asia and Australia.

Andrew is Chair of Asia Pacific Loan Market Association’s (APLMA) Singapore branch and is a member of APLMA’s Green and Sustainable Loan Committee, which was instrumental in
developing the APLMA/LMA/LSTA Green Loan Principles. Andrew also sits on the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Green Finance Industry Taskforce with a mandate to accelerate the development of green finance across ASEAN.

Andrew is Chair of the British Chamber of Commerce’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee and represents Barclays as D&I sponsor at Britcham.

Prior to Barclays, Andrew has held positions at Citigroup in London and Frankfurt, AMP in Sydney and Capco in London.

Andrew holds an M.Eng in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College, University of London and a MBA in Finance from London Business School.

Ruma Balasubramanian is the Managing Director of Google Cloud’s business in Southeast Asia. She is responsible for driving all revenue and go-to-market operations for Google Cloud Platform and Google Workspace, and working with teams across Google to help customers reimagine their business through data-powered innovation.

Ruma joined Google from Cisco where she was the Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer of Asia Pacific including Japan and Greater China. In her eight years with the company, she played an instrumental role helping customers pivot their go-to-market strategies towards focusing on customer experience and supporting Cisco’s shift to software driven recurring revenue.

In her 30 year-long career in technology leadership, Ruma has also served as Vice President and General Manager of Hewlett Packard’s Enterprise Services Sales in Asia Pacific and held roles in CSC Consulting, A.T. Kearney and EDS Technologies.

Ruma holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering from Columbia University and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. She has lived in Singapore with her husband and two daughters since 2007.

Carma joined United World College South East Asia (UWCSEA) in July 2019, as the inaugural College President. UWCSEA is proud to be part of a movement which inspires and is inspired by its students and alumni—to take action and to make a difference locally, nationally and internationally. The College celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2021/22, and Carma is leading colleagues in developing a vision and strategy for the next 50 years.

A career British diplomat for most of her adult life, Carma worked in a wide variety of roles across continents, including bilateral politics, trade and investment, education, culture, immigration and protocol. Her diplomatic career spanned the UK, Europe, China and Saudi Arabia, where she was the first female Director of Trade and Investment. Her final three diplomatic postings were as Consul-General in Chongqing (China), Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and Shanghai (China); and as Minister (Culture and
Education) in the British Embassy in Beijing while working for the British Council.

Carma also served as Executive Director at China’s single largest international NGO, Half the Sky Foundation (2010–2013), focused on enriching the lives of China’s orphaned children. Her work supported a unique partnership with the Chinese government, developing a training programme for local child welfare workers and towards building a sustainable future for the NGO.

Throughout her professional life, Carma has affected meaningful change in the government, international education and development sectors in several countries, most recently completing a complex business transformation at the British Council in China. Carma has been honoured twice by Her Majesty The Queen, for her service to UK relations with China (2003) and in recognition of the success of the UK pavilion at Shanghai Expo (2010).

Originally from Scotland, Carma is proud to call herself a global citizen. She grew up living in multiple countries and so identifies as a ‘third culture kid’ with formative life experiences that will be familiar to many who live and work in Singapore. Through her
professional life, she has developed a deep knowledge of the cultural nuances required to successfully navigate and create intercultural understanding and an appreciation of the importance of respecting diverse perspectives.

Carma first visited China as a student at Fudan University in Shanghai in 1984/85. China and Chinese culture remains a passionate interest - as are baking and reading. She is a single mother, with two children

Tamara is an entrepreneur, change-agent and champion for female empowerment and equality. As a single mother Tamara has had to fight for her own success and passionately believes women deserve to be recognized.

Tamara is a key-note speaker, researcher, award-winner, advocate and natural born collaborator who brings together businesses, the media and influencers to create lasting change. Tamara has featured in Financial Times, Telegraph, Bloomberg, Forbes, The Times, CNN Business, Daily Mail, Sky, BBC, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and Stylist.

By leveraging the power of collaborative action and bringing together 15 leading financial organisations, Tamara created the WealthiHer Network on International Women’s Day 2019 to drive the economic advancement of women globally. The network’s mission is to arm and equip women with the knowledge, tools and confidence they need to prosper and build a more equal world.

Tamara is an experienced Chief Executive, having founded and run two independent, successful and award-winning marketing agencies over the past 15 years. She launched Cherry London in 2009, in the middle of the global financial crisis, and spearheaded the rise of partnership marketing. Cherry has been responsible for some of Europe’s most high-profile collaborations, including Visa’s London 2012 Olympics campaign and building O2 Priority’s loyalty and media revenue (a relationship spanning nearly 10 years) and helping to launch HSBC Jade in over 8 markets.

Tamara is a champion of diversity and a natural born collaborator. Life Mantra: Together, we are stronger.

Agenda

March 10, 2022

Main Schedule

4:30 PM - 4:45 PM

Opening Remarks

4:45 PM - 5:45 PM

Moderated Discussion

Andrew Ashman

Ruma Balasubramanian

Tamara Gillan

Carma Elliot

5:45 PM - 6:00 PM

Audience Q&A

Partners

International Women's Day Supporting Partner

St. James's Place

https://www.sjp.asia

St. James’s Place is one of the largest wealth management companies serving the expatriate and Singaporean communities living and working in Asia, with many years of experience and offices in Hong Kong, China and Singapore. As a UK FTSE100 company which is looking to grow its footprint in Asia, St. James’s Place is delighted to support The British Chamber of Commerce Singapore. The strength of the St. James’s Place business is underpinned by satisfied clients, their referrals and the dedication of the unrivalled team of St. James’s Place Partners. The key to this success is constantly evolving to meet the ever-changing needs of a diverse client base and being personally committed to providing quality face-to-face advice and the very best client service.

NatWest Markets

https://www.natwest.com/markets

NatWest Markets helps global financial institutions and corporates manage their financial risks and achieve their short-and long-term financial goals while navigating changing markets and regulation, built around rates, currencies and financing products. Our activities are organised to provide financing and risk management services:

• Trading & Flow Sales: Provides liquidity and risk management in rates, currencies, credit and securitised products through a combination of voice and electronic delivery.
• Financing & Risk Solutions: Built around integrated financing, debt capital markets and risk management solutions, on a foundation of insightful content and structuring.

We provide our clients with global market access and proven distribution capability through our sales and trading hubs in London, Amsterdam, Stamford and Singapore, as well as sales offices across key locations in the UK, Europe, the US and Asia.

For more information about our business, please visit www.natwest.com/markets

Members

Member PriceS$14.02

Non-Members

Public PriceS$28.04

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British Chamber of Commerce Singapore

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About the Webinar