Empowering Female Business Leaders in Asia Pacific
Behind every strong woman is a network of champions supporting her.
That was the main theme behind the recent Boston Scientific Asia Pacific Women’s Leadership Summit held in Bangkok, Thailand. Dozens of Boston Scientific female leaders from across Asia Pacific gathered at the event to discuss ways to support the drive for greater gender diversity in the region, covering a range of topics including ‘Finding my voice’, developing their own Mission, Vision and Purpose (MVPs), how to write their own success stories, building a network of champions and more.
The Summit is part of the region’s drive to support greater gender diversity, particularly at leadership levels. Companies with greater gender diversity at management level are shown to be better able to attract and retain talent, motivate employees, understand and respond to customers’ needs and address problems by incorporating more diverse views1. To that end, Boston Scientific has a stated goal to increase global representation of women to 40% at supervisor and manager levels by 2020.
"Creating pathways for women to become leaders takes a concerted effort from the entire organization – men, women, leaders and individual contributors," explained Paula Williams, Chairwoman of the Boston Scientific Asia Pacific Women’s Leadership Council and Head of Corporate Accounts, Australia. "It’s equally important for us to continue involving men in our discussions as gender equality is beneficial for the business as a whole.”
As in previous years, the Summit had a strong learning and development focus. With the support of representatives from both global and regional leadership teams, a “Network of Champions” for Summit participants was established to support their leadership journeys.
The Asia Pacific Women’s Leadership Summit is just one of many initiatives in which Boston Scientific is supporting and encouraging its next generation of regional leaders, including promoting a culture of diversity and inclusion to reflect the patients and customers we serve every day.
Learn more about the Summit here:
- Leave no one behind: Taking action for transformational change on women’s economic empowerment. A report of the UN Secretary-General’s high level panel on women’s economic empowerment 2017. Link
