MAICSA organised its inaugural business luncheon series on 3 June at Boulevard Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. The guest speaker for this event was Datuk Bridget Lai, group CEO, Alliance Bank Malaysia Berhad and director, Alliance Financial Group Berhad (formerly known as Malaysia Plantations Berhad).

Datuk Lai delivered a talk entitled “Leadership Has No Gender” to a crowd of 200 participants comprising executives from regulatory authorities, public listed companies, professional bodies and institutions of higher learning.

According to her, some progress had been made in bridging the gender gap in position of leadership, but much remained to be accomplished before the Malaysian workplace could be said to be fair and empowering to women. While there are more women in senior management, those appointed to the boards of directors have decreased.

Datuk Lai urged women to lead by example and support other women. She further cautioned employers that by discriminating women at work, they were at a disadvantage as the talent pool was shrinking due to people were going abroad for work and there were not enough professionals, for example accountants and investment bankers.

She ended her talk by saying that leadership was not about gender. “It’s not about who is the most articulate or who is more feminine or masculine. It’s about consistently producing results and being able to energise and motivate your team members into doing something,” said Datuk Lai.

Among those who attended the talk were Companies Commission of Malaysia’s CEO Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil, Malaysian Institute of Certified Public Accountants’s president Dato’ Nordin Baharuddin and Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman’s centre for extension education director, Dr Prudence Goh.