Nor Azura Abdul Wahab talks about her work as a passionate procurement expert and the importance of open communication, coaching, and collaboration to retain female employees.
Chapter: Retaining female talent
About: Nor Azura is the chief procurement officer (CPO) at Telekom Malaysia (TM), the national telecommunication and digital infrastructure provider. Since October 2021, she has been responsible for TM’s overall procurement strategies and contract management services. Highly regarded as TM’s home-grown talent, she has more than 20 years of experience working in a variety of areas and divisions of TM.
What lessons had the greatest impact on your career?
The right guidance from the right people goes a long way, especially early in your career. I was one of the lucky people who has been given the right opportunities, guidance, and exposure to develop a set of core competencies. As I look back on my career, I truly appreciate all of my male bosses who, despite the differences in gender and the gap in rank, were willing to give me a shot after knowing my level of commitment and my willingness to learn. Now that I am where my bosses were, I look forward to paying it forward and giving back to my subordinates and my teams.
“I got some great advice from my most impactful superior: don’t wait for people to give you what you want. Ask if you feel that you deserve it or if it’s what you want. If you don’t get it, at least you know you asked.”
What is TM doing to attract and provide a platform for women to rise into leadership positions?
TM has really evolved. In the past, it was not uncommon for me to come into a meeting and be the only woman in a room full of men. Today, we still have a way to go, but we have a lot more women at the top than ever before. This is a sign that we are doing something right. When assessing a candidate for a job, we look not only at gender but also at competencies. As this merit-based assessment becomes the norm, we then begin to consider how to identify high-potential women and give them opportunities to lead.
Many leaders experience problems when their female employees start to build families. How do you resolve these issues?
Retaining women when they are starting a family is a challenge as old as time. As a female, I truly empathize with them and would like them to stay in the organization, even after their pregnancies. Rather than looking at this as a woman-specific issue, I look at this as a management issue. Pregnancy is something that you have nine months to plan for in an organization— plenty of time to ensure that there is minimal disruption and that the workload is shared. When a female colleague gets pregnant, it is everyone’s responsibility to step up and share the workload, including mine. In such a situation, I find it helpful to have an open discussion with all the team members so we can collaborate and address everyone’s concerns.
“If we ensure that everybody collaborates and everybody tackles the same problem, I believe every challenge is manageable for all of us.”
How do you inspire young talent?
I tend to put high-potential young talent under my mentorship and coaching. I have more than 200 team members at TM, and I spend a little extra time with some whom I have found to be especially talented and inspirational. These are the people I would like to groom to be successors to the current leaders in the next five to 10 years. I call on these high-performers directly, even when they don’t have a direct reporting line to me, and I give them opportunities to rise to the occasion. I coach and mentor them to ensure they have a good overall understanding of the business, and eventually, they become trusted sounding boards for me. By placing my confidence and trust in young talent, I hope to motivate them to do more and flourish in the organization.
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