This week the two Co-Presidents of Nanyang Business School's Women In Business Club - the first of its kind at Nanayang - tell us i their own words what they hope to achieve for their members.
Nanyang Business School's Women in Business Club has a mission to nurture female leaders for the near future. Founded in August 2011, it is led by two female MBA students, Filda Yugianstoro from Indonesia and Clarie Kwa from Singapore.
Starting with 12 members, it has now expanded to 18 and is awaiting the next batch of MBA participants. The club is structured around knowledge, skills, visibility and social responsibility. Members join the club because they get the benefit of being exposed to knowledge and skills not taught in a traditional MBA curriculum. We invest substantial time and effort in soft capital such as building charisma during presentations and understanding your personal leadership style.
Running a club that counts several nationalities among its members has been a beautiful experience for us. Of course, it was not a bed of roses especially since we had no predecessors to rely on for advice. The two co-chairs wear multiple hats. One is a full-time student and a full-time mother (mothers cannot take leave, can they?). The other is a part-time student with a full-time job.
However, we share the vision of seeing the club take off and understand the service required from leaders. We are privileged to have help extended by club members to source for senior professionals and the school for supporting its activities in logistics and finance.
A special characteristic of our club is its inclusiveness. We recognize that men and women must learn to work alongside one another. Hence many of our events are open to the guys too. Similarly, our club mentorship programme includes male mentors.
Being a small organization with big dreams, we constantly seek collaborations to benefit our members, the school and even the society. A fine example is the Nanyang MBA Olympics which we jointly organized with the school’s CSR club. Ultimately, network is an asset and networking is an ability which we leverage heavily on to nurture this budding organization and its members.
The biggest challenge for women in business at the moment is making their presence known – seen and heard. The business setting has traditionally been male-dominated, even in the MBA class. As observed frequently, few women speak up. There has even been research that suggests women’s unwillingness to speak up is biologically influenced.
We are not sure how useful this piece of information is but we do know one thing for sure - women who can overcome any inner doubts or fear are able to stand out more than others. Women have come a long way since our grandmothers’ and mothers’ time. With each generation, women have achieved milestones for themselves and our generation will not be an exception.