Women’s History Month is in full swing, and our leadership team has been hard at work making history and making her story in celebration of this year’s theme: Providing Healing, Promoting Hope. @WiFA celebrated International Women’s Day #IWD with our flagship “Spotlight Series” where we shone a spotlight on a series of outstanding female leaders who were put forward by our corporate members as “embodying the values of D&I” in our daily work. With this series, we want to say THANK YOU to each of these wonderful leaders for walking the talks by participating at a variety of events seeking to inspire both men and women to become advocates, change makers, and leaders in our community.
Being part of WiFA has been extremely rewarding over the years. We have grown as a community and are recognized as helping to bring biases to the front stage for examination. We still have a long way to go though, where biases and comments like “women aren’t technical” still plague all industries and it is important that we recognise these biases and call them out.
My path into banking was non-traditional: graduate in biochemistry, forensic analyst supporting a law enforcement agency and before I knew it, I was hired to investigate misconduct and data leakage cases. I quickly found myself taking on different jobs to lead. My journey was not straightforward. I faced biases caused by myself, and biases caused by others in the beginning of my career. We all have biases, and these can prevent us from hearing or valuing these different ideas and perspectives.
Like so many of you, I am confident that I could never have broken the bias without this lean-in community. I am a product of my managers, mentors and the insightful leaders who made mentorship, nurturing, and coaching their top priorities. I am incredibly lucky to have people in my career and in this WiFA Community who trust in me and helped me to #BreakTheBias.
Today, like so many of us, I work to pay this mentorship forward by advocating for other women in #leadership. If you are not already a @WIFA member, we hope that you will join us in building a more diverse and inclusive workplace for the next generation of leaders.
By working together today, this month, this year, and in the years to come we can all #BreakTheBias.
by Bonnie So, Co Chair and Board Member at bonnie.so@wifasia.org