an exciting mentorship programme for women in Technology that aims to promote knowledge sharing in the Tech space and to cultivate culture ambassadors.
Launch of our brand-new year-long GRIT Mentorship Program that aims to connect young women in the Tech space with established female tech leaders from our Best Workplaces(TM). A big thanks to Channel NewsAsia for featuring this.
The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.
Technology is a ubiquitous facet of our everyday life, but we are not all represented equally in tech professions.
Globally, women fill fewer than a third of roles in technologies and our share is not growing[1].
In a post pandemic world, women are still under-represented in the STEM workforce.
If technology is the primary catalyst for change in the world, then equal women representation in this sector is critical. We need the voice and perspectives of women when solving today’s complex issues.
In line with this aim, Great Place To Work® is launching a Women Mentorship Program – GRIT. Partnering with senior women executives from our Best Workplaces, we recognize that not all women leaders in the Tech sector have access to the resources, mentorship and culture that women executives in Best Workplaces have.
The goals of this program is to support high-potential mentees working in the tech space to grow and develop both professionally and personally. We believe the mentee will find value in a mentoring relationship with a seasoned women executive, a safe space for them to share and grow.
The executive who will best benefit from this program will possess these characteristics:
Since the role of the mentor is to support the growth and development of the mentee, we envision the mentor spending time with the mentee over a 12-month period. The intent is to share their professional and leadership experience and provide a safe space and sounding board for mentees, including.
This is a 12-month program, projected to start in January 2023 and end in December 2023.
It is envisioned that the mentor-mentee will spend about an hour each month, connecting either virtually or in-person. The goals of the program are
Note: GPTW will provide a Mentorship Conversation Guide as a reference for mentors and mentees
For any enquiries, please contact Great Place To Work’s GRIT program secretariat Mei Shaan: meishaan.shaw@greatplacetowork.com if you have further questions.
©2022 Great Place To Work® Institute Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Mel has over 15 years of experience in APAC markets, particularly in Southeast Asia and Greater China where she has built and led in-market high performing sales teams. As a certified Co-Active Coach and Adobe Leadership Circles Alumni, she is a strong advocate of life-long learning and has a keen interest on coaching and mentoring. She is part of the Coaches@Adobe global community.
Menaka has over 17 years of experience across advertising, marketing and commerce. She is most passionate about digital marketing and its ever-changing Mar-tech ecosystem. Menaka strongly believes in empowering people to be leaders at all levels, while inspiring others through passion, integrity and appreciation.
A keen adopter of life-long learning & growth-mindset, Yanti is the Head of Sales Operations for Adobe Southeast Asia, Korea and Greater China. She is a change agent and has led teams through M&A and internal re-organizations successfully. Yanti thrives on being able to make a difference to people’s lives or by providing a listening and empathetic ear to all near and far.
Eileen Goh is the Head of ASEAN Partner and Singapore Marketing with over a decade of marketing experience in different industries from manufacturing to petroleum and now the technology sector. She is passionate on equality for women in workplaces and has a strong interest in Chinese culture and heritage. She is currently the Chapter Lead for Women of Cisco Singapore.
Jacqueline Guichelaar leads Customer Experience in Asia Pacific, Japan, and Greater China, helping customers transform their businesses through Cisco’s broad portfolio of software, subscription, and services. During her 30-year career, Guichelaar has witnessed and shaped several significant industry trends. She attributes her success to the talent she surrounds herself with and is passionate about developing individuals to reach their potential.
Joyce is responsible for leading the field marketing team for APJC to develop the overall marketing strategy, go-to market campaigns, programs, partner and digital communications. During her 17 years in Cisco, Joyce has held numerous marketing positions including Strategy & Planning, Audience and Partner Marketing. Joyce is passionate about operating in the value creation zone to drive business impact.
Michiko Kamata is currently Managing Director for SMB Sales in APJC and leads APJC SMB segment business growth including country sales, channel, portfolio and online strategies. She has more than 20 years Cisco career experiences as a system engineer, marketing, business development and sales.
Bee Kheng is the President for Cisco Systems in Southeast Asia and is responsible for driving Cisco’s profitable growth and leading its go-to-market operations across 10 countries in the region and has held a number of leadership roles. Bee Kheng brings with her more than two decades of experience in the enterprise technology industry across Asia-Pacific and Japan. She is passionate about encouraging women to pursue a career in STEM.
Claudia helps to drive digital marketing for demand generation, e-commerce and also branding with CMC Markets, Red Hat and now CrowdStrike. She enjoys understanding people’s challenges and guiding them which explains why mentoring is such a big part of giving back what she has learnt.
Kristine is a Senior lawyer who has worked both in private practice, globally, and as in-house counsel for over 20 years in the Asia Pacific region. She is a passionate advocate of diversity in the workplace, an experienced business builder and people leader.
E-Ying is the gregarious Marketing Director for CrowdStrike Southeast Asia and North Asia and has 15 years of experience in the technology sector. She is passionate about mentoring females in a predominantly male industry and hopes to share how a female can reconcile professional goals with personal goals.
Alison is responsible for growing Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud presence in ASEAN and Taiwan by building partnerships, developing high performing teams and driving customer success. Alison was previously based in Hong Kong as the Regional Vice President of Greater China, where she was also the President of the Salesforce Women’s Network.
Cecily has more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry. Her primary responsibility at Salesforce is to serve as a trusted advisor, driving success for customers, partners, and the communities. An equality champion, Cecily is the Executive Sponsor for Salesforce Women’s Network in Singapore and is especially passionate about helping young women develop their careers.
Nisrita’s role at Salesforce is to be a trusted business partner to C-suite executives – guiding them through tough decisions using data as an anchor. This involves managing acquisition challenges, change management, long term strategy planning, business and organization structure planning and strategic projects. She believes that being a Mentor is a trail guide – sharing knowledge and experience, coaching the individual to find their path, build a plan and to help follow it.
Sarada is a highly motivated and performance-driven professional with 23 years of experience in Singapore covering ASEAN, SAGE and APAC markets. Sarada has team management and leadership experience of managing diverse team across APAC from onboarding, nurturing, motivating and inspiring teams.
Having been in leadership roles for more than 22 years, Brandi has successfully driven strategic programs, designing and implementing agile project management offices, cultivating teams and demonstrating superior client management skills. Through challenges and missteps, she has learnt to navigate corporate and consulting politics while also being a women in technology. She enjoys mentoring others and dedicates considerable time to the growth of young leaders and new project managers.
Yian Ling joined Thoughtworks Singapore in 2016 as a User Experience Designer. Since then, she has worked on many domains within the public sector, including case management systems for social services, dashboards for enforcement agencies, informational and transactional portals for citizens and businesses. She continues to shape products, services and experiences for clients in her current role.
Jiaci has been in engagement lead roles in different key accounts in China, Singapore and Germany. She hopes to share how she grew in her leadership journey and to share with other female leaders how to navigate family, work and self.
Thao Dang is a passionate and accomplished technology leader with extensive experience partnering with clients to deliver effective technology strategies and lead the successful delivery of complex technology projects. At Thoughtworks, she partners clients as a trusted advisor to help them formulate technology strategies to support their business. She is also an advocate for Women in Technology having presented and run programming sessions in schools through Little Miss Geek and volunteering with Coding Girls
Varuna has been mentoring thought leaders in QLDP programs and QA bootcamp and hopes to share her valuable experience with mentees.
ABOUT OUR METHOLOGY
To be eligible for the World’s Best Workplaces list, a company must apply and be named to a minimum of 5 national Best Workplaces lists within our current 58 countries, have 5,000 employees or more worldwide, and at least 40% of the company’s workforce (or 5,000 employees) must be based outside of the home country. Extra points are given based on the number of countries where a company surveys employees with the Great Place to Work Trust Index©, and the percentage of a company’s workforce represented by all Great Place to Work surveys globally. Candidates for the 2017 Worlds Best Workplaces list will have appeared on national workplaces lists published in September 2016 through August 2017.
ABOUT OUR METHODOLOGY
The Best Workplaces in Asia List
Great Place to Work® identifies the top organizations that create great workplaces in the Asian and Middle Eastern regions with the publication of the annual Best Workplaces in Asia list. The list recognizes companies in three size categories:
To be considered for inclusion, companies must appear on one or more of our national lists in the region, which includes Greater China (covering China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau), India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka and UAE. For the 2021 Asia List, companies ranked on the national list in the Philippines will also be included. Multinational organizations must meet the following requirements:
Multinationals also receive additional credit for their efforts to successfully create an excellent workplace culture in multiple countries in the region. The data used in the calculation of the regional list comes from national lists published in 2019 and early 2020.
