The Dream Collective empowers potential female leaders in Singapore with inaugural bootcamp

Source: The Dream Collective. 

The Dream Collective, a global female corporate leadership training platform which offers a refreshing perspective on female empowerment and sparks a much-overlooked dialogue around talent development of female leadership in a corporate landscape, has launched the Emerging Leaders Bootcamp - Singapore Edition. 

Inspired by the MBA syllabi of the world's leading business schools, the programme works with leading corporations to identify, shape and equip high-potential young women with leadership capabilities. Designed to equip the next generation of corporate leaders with the skills, confidence, network and knowledge necessary to advance into higher management positions, the programme also recognises the importance of harnessing and honing soft skills. 

The two-day intensive programme focuses on upskilling five main areas of development – leadership, business, innovation, communication and wellness. The programme encourages collaboration through facilitated discussion, debate and skills training to deliver to members the skills and knowledge required to succeed in today's ever evolving and highly competitive corporate landscape. At the end of the programme, members are urged to set attainable goals to help them achieve new career heights.

Founded in 2012 by Sarah Liu, an entrepreneur deeply passionate about unlocking individual potential, The Dream Collective has worked with 123 leading corporations across Australia to deliver leadership programmes that empowers and equips high-calibre young professional women, and now, Singapore as well. 

Noticing a gap in leadership development opportunities that women faced in the corporate workplace today, The Dream Collective strives to build the pipeline of female leaders worldwide by empowering and equipping high calibre young professional women during the early to mid-stage of their careers. 

While Singapore is progressive in fostering entrepreneurship amongst women – it is ranked 8th best city for women entrepreneurs by the 2017 Women Entrepreneur Cities (WE Cities) Index by Dell – the Singapore corporate ladder is still proving to be a steep climb for women. According to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics, female representation within the science, technology, engineering and mathematics industries (STEM) in Singapore has been hovering around the 30% mark since 2006. A new study by Monster Singapore of 2,000 respondents revealed that 41% of local women cited a lack of opportunities for their career advancement. 

Liu said: “Singapore and Tokyo are proactively seeking out avenues to foster greater female empowerment in the corporate landscape. This is promising to see because like Australia, there is currently a gap in these markets when it comes to building up emerging female talent in the workplace.” 

Since its inception in 2012 in Australia, The Dream Collective has helped advance the careers of thousands of emerging female talents. With its launch in Singapore and then Tokyo, The Dream Collective hopes to power the momentum towards unshackling women from the gendered norms in corporate workplaces today. 

Interested?

The first session will kick off in October 2017. Register interest

Dove empowers women to challenge traditional limits around beauty and achievement

Real women are refusing to allow other people’s judgments of their beauty to hold them back from achieving their full potential. Their empowering stories are featured in a new film from Dove - #MyBeautyMySay, created to inspire all women to rise above any of the traditional stereotypes and limits society may place on them.

The landscape that informs this film was revealed in a new study from Dove - Dove: The Global Beauty Confidence Report. It paints a picture of a world where women want to be free to look any way that makes them feel confident, but are aware of the many limits put upon them by other people’s judgments about their appearance. Seven in 10 women believe they get more compliments about how they look than on their professional achievements at work, for instance.

Dove points out that commentary and judgment focused on how women look can limit women and place pressure on them to conform to a narrow standard of beauty, and said that seven out of 10 women want to live in a world where women and girls are judged by what they do and say, not on their looks alone.

“Somewhere along the way, it has become the norm to judge women based on their appearance. Dove created #MyBeautyMySay because we believe a woman’s beauty should not be used to belittle her achievements – instead, her beauty should be celebrated on her terms,” said Jennifer Bremner, Director of Marketing, Dove. “We want women to challenge this behavior that has unfortunately become commonplace in our society. We are giving all women a platform to speak out and join us to change the conversation.”

Eight in 10 women believe every woman has something about her that is beautiful, yet many continue to feel limited by society’s judgments of their looks. In fact, one in two women with low body confidence admit they don’t feel self-assured enough to be assertive in their own life. The women featured in the #MyBeautyMySay film tell a different story. Dove selected all of the women featured in the #MyBeautyMySay film because they live the message that by embracing your own beauty, you can free yourself from the limits others place on you:

Heather Hardy, 34 – Since taking up kick-boxing as a hobby to get in shape, Hardy has been told she is too “pretty to fight.” She is now a star in the ring, fighting professionally and working to raise the profile of oft-neglected female boxers.

Jessica Torres, 25 – Even from a young age, Jessica was constantly told she could not wear stylish clothing because of her size. She rejected this criticism when she started her fashion blog, Tiny Red Shoes, as a way of telling the world she isn’t embarrassed, but proud, of the way she looks.

Rain Dove, 26 – Rain faced unfair ridicule for years as others claimed her looks were too masculine. Now she earns her living from the androgynous appearance she has made her own, working as a gender-free model in New York, US.

“As a child I was called ‘ugly’ and ‘plain’ because of my appearance, but the way I look has allowed me to set myself apart and lead a flourishing career as a gender-free model,” said Rain Dove. “I am lucky that I have been given a chance to speak out about the limits that have been placed upon me. By working with Dove, I hope to inspire others to relinquish the standards and rules society attempts to place on women.”

Interested?

View the #MyBeautyMySay film. Dove is inviting women to share their own stories of overcoming beauty limits with #MyBeautyMySay

Dove also believes in the importance of starting the conversation early in life around beauty confidence. To date, the Dove Self-Esteem Project has reached the lives of over 19 million girls with self-esteem building tools. Download the tools for the Dove Self-Esteem Project

Hashtags: #RealBeauty, #MyBeautyMySay

Mannish, plain and ugly were just some of the things Rain was called as a 10-year-old girl who soared at a height of 6ft 2in. She was always misunderstood, from being confused as a man when she volunteered as a firefighter in her teens, to being cast with other men when she applied to be a runway model as she grew older. But it was at that moment on the runway when she decided to take the opportunity and challenge the industry’s perceptions of what it means to be a woman. How do you define beauty on your own terms? #RealBeauty #MyBeautyMySay

A photo posted by Dove (@dove) on Jul 22, 2016 at 11:58am PDT

Great Women Malaysia kicks off the Great Women Connect Series

Source: Great Women Malaysia. Puan Nadira Yusoff.

Great Women Malaysia today kicked off the Great Women Connect Series, a platform to spark opportunities for women-in-business globally to share ideas and experiences in trading. It also aims to facilitate global partnerships, establishing networks and realising potentials especially for those with intentions and readiness to go outside Malaysia.

Great Women Malaysia (GMW) is an initiative aimed at helping and facilitating Malaysian women in the underserved and rural communities move up the economic and value chain through participation of entrepreneurial or artisanal activities, focusing on fashion and lifestyle industry.

The GWM is part of a larger initiative called ASEAN Great Women, which enables Great Women initiatives from all participating ASEAN countries to collaborate on resources, cultural and ethnic materials, designs, skills and talents, and to develop products that can be commercialised globally. The Great Women development model had its start in the Philippines in 2011, motivated by the need to assist women entrepreneurs to overcome challenges of product sourcing, design, production, packaging and marketing. ASEAN Great Women was launched in 2015 as a regional platform for gender economic empowerment as well as competitive supply-chain integration in ASEAN.

The Great Women Connect Series seeks to develop the women's professional sector locally, regionally and globally in three main areas of economic, professional and social life. It aims to do this through dialogues with local and global initiatives. The series will also mobilise international diplomatic support for the advancement of women in society.

According to Puan Nadira Yusoff, head of Great Women Malaysia, “Empowering women and fully engaging them in the business and economic sectors has become a key global development priority, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region where significant gender gap in economic participation persist. Promoting opportunities for both women and men makes good economic sense. It is important that both men and women are able to fully contribute to national and regional economic growth and trade. And this is the reason why we hold today’s interactive session.”

“Women’s SMEs in Malaysia have experienced strong annual growth albeit a relatively low initial level of women’s participation in SMEs. While cultural norms continue to limit women’s role in business, the general business environment in Malaysia is comparatively favourable. Women-in-business needs support from the government as well as from initiatives like us,” she added.

Puan Nadira Yusoff is a thought leader in the Malaysian's entrepreneurial ecosystem, as well as CEO at Nadi-Ayu Technologies. She is involved in programmes that are initiated by the ministries in Malaysia, such as 1ASEAN Entrepreneurship Summit (1AES), 1Malaysian Entrepreneurs (1MET), Global Entrepreneurship Movement (GEM), GREAT and many more. She currently leads several NGOs/initiatives namely Great Women Malaysia (GWM), Women Entrepreneurs Network Association (WENA) and Girls in Tech (GIT).

Representatives from the Sharjah Business Women Council of the UAE participated in today's session, including Nada Al Lawati, Founder and CEO of Seed Group International, Huda Al Lawati, Senior Private Equity Professional, most recently Chief Investment Officer for the Abraaj Group in MENA, Sally Denton from Head of Irthi, Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council (part of NAMA*), Dr Amal Al Ali, Founder of CARDIFF Management Consulting & Training and Assistant Professor in Sharjah University, Ayesha Jasem, Membership and Services Senior Executive of the Sharjah Business Women Council, and Lina Mohammed Hamdan, Senior Manager - Strategy of the Sharjah Business Women Council.

Interested?

Read the WorkSmart Asia blog posts about the launch of GEM in Malaysia and WENA's Vital Voices Mentoring Walk in March 2016

*The NAMA Women Advancement Establishment was set up in the UAE in December 2015. It aims to develop opportunities for women in the economic, professional and social sectors. NAMA Women Advancement Establishment will also organise training, mentorships, provide advice and examine law and legislation concerning women.