Judy Lee talks about her journey to becoming a notable ASEAN leader and why she emphasizes education and networking to retain female employees and leaders.
Chapter: Retaining female talent
About: Judy Lee is the independent director at DBS Group Holding and DBS Bank, a Singapore-based corporation with branches across Asia. She is also the managing director and co-founder of Dragonfly LLC, a consulting firm in New York, United States of America. She is a strategy consultant, risk management expert, and capital markets professional with 30 years of experience. As a leader who has concerns about gender equity and diversity, she encourages companies and board members to prepare women to become next-generation business leaders by allocating more resources for education, exposure, and technology.
Why do you think it is important to have women on a board?
Having a female leader on a board is about so much more than fulfilling a quota. We need to eliminate groupthink and stereotyping about women, who always seem to be viewed as inferior to men. Making women part of the board can help a company not get blindsided but instead be more diverse and inclusive. And the best way not to be blindsided is to be engaged and open to new ideas, thoughts, and opinions.
As leaders, we have to realize we’re not actually managing for today. We’re managing two to three years ahead, and there will be new talent coming in. So, so we need to have the ability to bring in new experiences and create an open forum.
Having women on a board is about more than just representation. It’s important to have very well-prepared, educated, highly capable, engaged women serving as contributing board directors. We ensure that these women are board-ready by preparing them through education and onboarding programs. We need to have these engaged and prepared female leaders who are ready to serve as board members.
“The common goal or purpose has to be the growth and success of the company. However, it’s also crucial to make sure that the board’s composition—the culture—is conducive enough to allow diversity to flourish.”
Is there anything special that you’ve done as a board member or as an executive in terms of retaining women at DBS?
At the individual level, it is important to recognize that stereotypes are real and that there are biases, whether they’re conscious or not. If we’re called out on it, we have to try not to be defensive about it. We need to be conscious of the judgments we make.
At the group level and the company level, we need to bring more women in and retain them in the talent pipeline. When you are just starting out, everyone comes in pretty much the same when it comes to education. The first five-plus years of a career is pretty much equal. But then, what makes the difference is the exposure. I think companies have to really give women exposure to the field that they are interested in exploring.
“If women don’t get exposure, they surely won’t get the experience. Therefore, I believe the experience is essential in developing high-level leadership for female workers”
What can companies do differently about their brand image or their business practices to retain the top talent amid the Great Resignation?
We’re heading into a structural period of inflation in the wake of the pandemic. Wage inflation, welfare, and social support system costs will be high, and we aren’t going to be out of the woods with the pandemic anytime soon. This will be a new normal. With supply chains and protectionist policies, we’re facing strong headwinds. I think there will be a big adjustment coming that will be hard and fast. I think that’s something that is going to hit very hard and will be an element of the Great Resignation.
To bring people back to the workforce, it’s also about having a purpose and an identity for what you’re doing. It is important for people to understand that you’re not necessarily going to have a workforce that’s going to be with you for 10 years.
“To grow and improve your people, you need to allocate more resources into training so people can get up to speed and acclimated to specific corporate cultures in a very short amount of time.”
Having regular training also slowly enables people to be open and more welcoming of transformations in the workplace, shifting their mindset from traditional to more progressive. We also need to keep in mind that talent is much more fluid than we ever thought.
How do you think these strategies will impact the way organizations should think about their talents?
It’s actually about how you treat people in general. It’s not a one-stop event where you recruit and hire a person and you’re done. It’s about the entire journey of talent and leadership development. The top companies already know this. There’s been a lot of evolution around talent management and ways of managing multigenerational workforces. Leaders need to constantly be aware and open-minded about this.
At the same time, what I like about the new talent is that they have much more access to resources. I think talent nowadays is much more progressive and can learn very quickly. In this age of technology, you can go online and take free courses on Coursera. Individuals recognize that they are front and center, and because of that, it’s not the companies that are going to be taking charge. Employees are in the driver’s seat of their own talent development. Therefore, as companies, we are only responsible for mobilizing their personal leadership skills and talents and allocating these human resources appropriately in the company. It will be an interesting balance.
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