Congratulations to AmCham's Women of Influence Committee on another successful high-octane summit last Friday and all the best to Out On The Street and Community Business for their landmark events this week. Meanwhile, at TWF, we are gearing up for tonight's TWF 2016 Gala sponsored by Bloomberg which will celebrate women's progress and spotlight women in technology.
We were thrilled that Anson Chan - TWF honorary patron, received this year's AmCham Women of Influence Lifetime Award and Stephanie Hui - former TWF Board member, was the recipient of the Professional of the Year Award. Congratulations also to this year's Champion for the Advancement of Women, Ben Way - a TWF Male Ally, and Best Company for Women, Marriott International - a long standing TWF corporate partner.
In other awards ceremonies happening last week, kudos to Jeanette Chan/Paul Weiss for winning the Outstanding Practitioner Award at the sixth Euromoney Asia Women in Business Law Awards and to all the other award recipients.
On the subject of women and awards, Kimberley Cole of Thomson Reuters recently wrote a blog account on why women-only awards still have a place and a point in this day and age. The piece attracted critical comments mostly from men complaining about reverse discrimination including one observer who posted "[women] can't compete with the big boys so [they have to] createtheir own awards".
At TWF, we think women still need and want to see other women role models. Identifying exceptional women who other women can relate to via women-only awards is another way of providing the much needed examples of female talent and female leadership currently lacking in many industry conferences and awards events.
Congratulations to Kimberley for being one of 7 shortlisted finalists for the inaugural Telstra Business Woman in Asia Awards which will be announced this Wednesday. For over two decades, the Telstra Business Women's Awards have championed women from diverse industries ensuring their achievements become part of the national conversation; women who are passionate, courageous and ready to challenge the accepted way of doing things. This year, Telstra decided to extend the Awards to include business women in Asia who have the passion, courage and determination to challenge the status quo. As Telstra puts it: "The Awards exist because exceptional business women deserve to be celebrated... [we need to] recognise brilliant women in business today and inspire the generation of tomorrow."
As always, we would love to hear your views on this topic. Please write to me at su-mei.thompson@twfhk.org.
