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Women leaders on female corporate representation amidst a pandemic

06 Mar 2022

Female representation in Sri Lankan boardrooms is far less than 10%, keeping us behind India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, according to data. For a country where 52% of the population is female and over 90% of them are literate and a little over 35% of them are engaged in the workforce, male dominance in company boardrooms is quite striking. Female representation at senior or even mid-level corporate jobs is not impressive either. However, there are several women who made it to the top in the country’s corporate sector. Coinciding with the International Women’s Day on 8 March, we spoke to eight such female leaders from the industry: Adfactors Public Relations Lanka Chief Executive Officer Rezani Aziz, Hatton National Bank Chairperson Aruni Goonetilleke, Hayleys PLC Executive Director and Hayleys Agriculture Holdings Ltd. Managing Director Jayanthi Dharmasena, Softlogic Life Vice President/Head of Marketing Kavindra Rajapaksha, MAS Holdings Director – Corporate Affairs Rajitha Jayasuriya, Softlogic Invest Chief Executive Officer/Director Niloo Jayatilake, Sunshine Holdings Group Head of Human Resources Michelle Senanayake, and 99x Chief Operating Officer Shehani Seneviratne.  We asked them four questions.  We have seen economic instability and even political volatility in this country. But a pandemic of this nature is unprecedented. As a woman in the corporate sector, how do you feel about this pandemic and how are you managing it from affecting your firm/business? Sri Lanka’s corporate sector lacks women’s representation but this trend was changing in the recent past. However, the pandemic has once again slowed down this process. What do you think should be done to ensure that this does not slow down more women’s entry into corporate hierarchy? How are you ensuring smooth operations of your firm/business amidst an economic crisis? What kind of support do you expect from the Government to encourage more women to enter the corporate sector?  Answers Adfactors Public Relations Lanka Chief Executive Officer Rezani Aziz Once the shock of the sudden lockdown passed and we as a team quickly adapted to the new ways of working, keeping the team motivated to deliver seamlessly was a challenge. As a practice and business, public relations becomes a dire necessity for corporates and with clients in healthcare, pharma and across all verticals requiring speedy service in the throes of the pandemic lockdown, dealing with internal staff issues and external stakeholders, our workload doubled. On reflection, I feel being a woman has and will always have advantages. Women bring a whole-life perspective to their jobs. They don’t come with just an economic perspective. They come with a full perspective. When the pandemic’s lockdown came hard on us in March 2020, when we were totally unprepared, for me, personally it brought back memories of managing my family of three teenage sons – school, sports, exams, expectations, meals, issues, incidents, crises all packed in a day’s work. Business as usual for any woman straddling multiple roles, having the experience to handle it all, while working.  The values and attributes are what helps women to navigate turbulence successfully and come out ‘top of the pops’. More strategic, more long-term solutions to a problem, tending to use more of a team approach, sharing ideas and involving others in problem solving. Building consensus, getting feedback from others, accepting critique and not taking things personally, problem solving rather than taking credit for it, with less ego; all of which are intrinsically woven into a woman’s DNA.  I believe women also see issues that affect people’s health as a priority that needs to be addressed immediately. They are thinking of the greater good for everyone without hurting others in the process. The pandemic should not be a deterrent or an excuse towards any futuristic development process. Some of the strongest sectors have shown remarkable resilience through the toughest times and bounced back stronger than ever. Look at the apparel sector, their January 2022 export performance has been the best ever for the past five years. The real estate development sector and many others have performed remarkably well.  Women’s representation is a national imperative and not a ‘nice-to-do’. There should never have been a slow down. It boils down to leadership and who holds the reins. What we could do is showcase and create role models of women in corporate boards and how the bottom line is impacted positively as a result. You are asking a comms person – I guess we have a role to play here! Times are tough but I believe ‘this too shall pass’. Keeping spirits up becomes vital. We as an organisation are concentrating on learning and development and encouraging staff to enrol in available training opportunities. I believe in times of difficulty, the best way to keep teams engaged is learning and development. Up-skilling and gaining knowledge strengthens and expands their outlook and performance.   I think it’s not an area for the Government to be involved. A government policy/directive that mandates a quota for women on boards is debatable – my sense is that corporate boardrooms should decide and nominate suitable women on their boards. Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) recommends 25% of women in any corporate board. Sri Lankan corporate boards should evolve to have at least one woman director, regardless of whether the company is a listed one or not! Hatton National Bank Chairperson Aruni Goonetilleke The pandemic has been the typical ‘black swan’ event, unforeseen, sudden, and catastrophic, impacting people and businesses across the world. Due to the human suffering it has caused, there has been a need to ‘humanise’ leadership, focusing first and foremost on the safety and wellbeing of our people and their families through the provision of health care support and working from home facilities.  Banks were declared essential services and our frontline staff were required to come to work. With children at home instead of at school, this created specific challenges for parents, especially women. We were very conscious of these challenges and accommodated flexible working arrangements, transport, and did not resort to any pay cuts.  We also had to manage the severe economic fallout and customers’ inability to repay their loans. We came in with debt moratoriums whilst managing our own liquidity and balance sheets to ensure that the financial system remained stable.  Keeping a balance and supporting our people, customers, and other stakeholders is a challenge especially given our vulnerable economic situation. However, we will continue to focus on what we can control and ensure that whatever we do is prudent and sustainable.  It is important to keep people on track and be resolute in doing the right thing. I believe the characteristics that women leaders have such as empathy, adaptability, accountability, and a strong sense of equity emerged positively during the crisis. The practical hardships faced especially by women who have primary responsibility for child care and senior care has resulted in slowing the progress made. However acceleration in digitalisation and remote/flexible working arrangements are here to stay and would support both men and women in managing the competing responsibilities.  Corporates should ensure parity in hiring, retention and promotion. This should be done very consciously in order to get that critical mass of women to create diversity.  But most importantly, a company should ensure that they promote inclusive behaviour across the organisation and that bad behaviour is not tolerated. As you go up the corporate ladder it becomes harder due to conscious and unconscious biases and stereotyping. Ensuring diversity and inclusion with specific key performance indicators (KPIs) should be in the objectives and accountabilities of the CEO and senior management and HR should ensure that the appropriate inclusive behaviour is entrenched in the company. Initially, we had to come up with an urgent recovery plan with the forming of a central task force, meeting daily to ensure that all aspects of the health and economic fallout were managed. These risks and mitigation actions are built into our frameworks and managed regularly keeping in mind the extremely volatile global and local environment.  Rapid digitalisation brought in fraud, cyber, and data security risks which need to be managed. We supported businesses through moratoriums and are happy to see repayments commencing, indicating recovery of businesses.  The foreign exchange shortage in the country is causing significant challenges for customers and banks. We have had to ensure that the bank is in a position to meet all its foreign currency obligations and maintain credibility whilst supporting customers. All this is being done through close monitoring and continuous communication with customers and all our stakeholders. Getting women into the productive areas of the workforce is an economic necessity. The Government has to put this at the forefront of their agenda. Women don’t want to enter Parliament or other leadership positions in the Government due to the non-inclusive behaviour and backlash. There should be zero tolerance for bad behaviour and the Government needs to enforce this.  The Government should also have policies and frameworks to be adopted by the government and private sector such as child care facilities which are safe and affordable, safe transportation, pay equity, parity in hiring, and quotas if required. It should be made mandatory that all children are sent to school and training girls in certain skills where there is a labour shortage and in higher paid jobs such as IT and maths/engineering.   Hayleys PLC Executive Director and Hayleys Agriculture Holdings Ltd. Managing Director Jayanthi Dharmasena Regardless of gender, everyone has been negatively impacted in some way. Over the last year we also faced the challenge of an overnight import ban on fertiliser and agrichemicals. We have never seen a 100% switch to organic agriculture in any country, and we have never seen a pandemic that hit every country in the world so swiftly. It’s difficult to say which has been more disruptive.   Such moments require business leaders to step forward and protect the interests of not just their company, but all stakeholders. In a crisis, there is a natural tendency for many to get overly defensive and despondent. If we allow that to happen, business gets disrupted even further.  So as a leader it is essential to help everyone to stay calm. We had to reassure our people, drawing from our own experiences to find solutions to help them safely continue working.  The main issue that most women face in their careers is striking a balance between their personal and professional lives. There is nothing wrong with choosing to focus only on your personal commitments, or solely on your careers. But especially with the emergence of virtual platforms, it is also more possible than ever before to do both.  Sometimes it may take a little longer but it doesn’t matter. It’s not a race to the top; it’s a marathon. Ultimately, what matters is how well you have lived, how well you have enjoyed your life, and your time with your loved ones. Everyone in the organisation must take the purpose of the business to heart. For us, at Hayleys Agriculture our purpose is to ensure food security for the nation and to uplift rural livelihoods. To be effective, that purpose has to cascade through the organisation so that everyone understands the importance of what they are working towards. With that purpose clearly defined our teams know what is required from them so they can act without reservations to do whatever it takes, however hard the task is during a crisis, to deliver the purpose with agility.  When we knew that lockdowns were imminent, we were quick to prepare our back end functions and establish secure data connections. This enabled our teams to maintain extension services by keeping them directly linked with farmers, thereby ensuring thousands of farmers’ livelihoods were sustained.  We also had to maintain prompt collection of short-term crops as they were harvested, moved quickly to our processing centres and then exported to countries like Japan and across the EU – all within a strict timeline. These are all ways in which we are continuing to live our purpose. More than entering the corporate sector, we have to solve the question of retaining those women who do join. We see a lot of highly educated women with incredible potential. But for young mothers, there is usually insufficient support when it comes to child care, and eventually, this becomes a pain point.  There is a healthy debate about pushing men to also take greater responsibility in the home. While such measures can certainly help, I feel the main focus should be in establishing systematic support for women – and one solution that would make an incredible difference is to establish crèches where parents can confidently leave their children in the care of responsible professionals while they are at work.  Softlogic Life Vice President/Head of Marketing Kavindra Rajapaksha The pandemic brought about a direct impact to the life insurance business both positively and negatively. Whilst people were searching for life insurance with a greater need, many found it difficult to afford the purchase or to upkeep the premium payments, resulting in less revenue coming in versus the higher amount of cash flowing out in the form of Covid claims. An equally bigger threat was team spirit declining due to working from home for months, learning and development taking a back seat and also the threat to the health of the brand due to obvious budgetary constraints everyone had to face.  I have continued to find different means of bringing my teams together, whilst finding ways to innovate in-house productions during the pandemic to battle the budget constraints as well as to especially enable learning and development via those in-house projects. I sincerely believe the nurturing nature of female leaders and grit, which keeps us always looking ahead towards that end of the tunnel deeply contributed to our respective organisations during the pandemic. If there’s one thing I believe, it is that the female leaders who are already up there have to really make their organisations empathetic towards the positives of having more female leaders. First we need to empower, appreciate, and groom those who are coming up the ladder. Then, we need to go one step forward and make them understand that the organisation will understand and empathise with them when they have to face certain junctures in life and the challenges that arise with them. Appreciated women are the most motivated and will give their all once they know the organisation has their back. Basically, the key is to adapt fast. The challenges we have today change drastically when tomorrow dawns and there’s no time to fret and discuss our disappointments. You need to keep looking ahead and solving one problem at a time but most importantly not losing sight of what’s important. Chaos is a great canvas to really develop your talent and I have been nothing but amazed at how my team and my company has not just managed but thrived during the pandemic. There’s a lot the Government can do on creating awareness about female education, enforcement of paternity leave, childbirth associated mental wellness etc. but most importantly there’s a huge role to play in terms of safety. We can’t manage higher order needs and wants without managing the basics. Safety is paramount and a woman should be able to travel for her work or education at whatever time in the day, wearing whatever she desires. Once we get that right a lot will fall into place and we will see more and more women stepping up for jobs that are now deemed ‘unsuitable for women’. MAS Holdings Director – Corporate Affairs Rajitha Jayasuriya More than any other crisis, the pandemic has challenged conventional ways of working. It has increased our agility and forced us to rethink how we operate at the corporate level. It has also constantly required us to adjust to a new normal. As a company, we implemented a hybrid work arrangement (accommodating both work from home and reporting to work as needed) while encouraging flexible work hours if necessary. Maintaining safe working conditions was critical, not only by way of health and safety guidelines, but also vital aspects such as access to counselling and mental health support at all our facilities. These measures are essential for the wellbeing of our employees, especially considering the unprecedented and unpredictable circumstances of the pandemic. At all times, we maintained transparency in our actions, creating awareness and circulating the right information to mitigate social paranoia that could disrupt both the business and the livelihood of our employees, a majority of whom are women. According to a recent Grant Thornton report the pandemic does not seem to have slowed down women in senior leadership positions, which they claim has passed the critical 30% mark. In Sri Lanka, 40% of all females in industrial employment are from the apparel industry and it is inspiring to be in a sector that contributes in such a large way to female employment. This also gives us the opportunity to nurture and empower our female workforce, whose growth and success in both their work and personal lives can inspire others. Women’s empowerment is something we take very seriously at MAS, right from the factory floor to our management level. Our Women Go Beyond programme which started in 2003, is testimony to how much organisations can do to support women and in effect promote female representation in the corporate sector. We have also recently seen more women come into leadership positions in listed companies, banks, and the shipping sector in Sri Lanka, and this is proof that conventional biases seem to be slowly shifting, creating more opportunities for women to enter and thrive in the workforce. Three key areas under my purview are legal, compliance, and corporate communications. From a legal and compliance perspective, we ensure that our operations maintain absolute compliance with the relevant national and international standards and regulations, despite economic challenges and operational changes introduced to deal with the pandemic. This helps us maintain organisational value with our stakeholders and has established the company as a reliable partner in times of volatility and crisis. Our commitment to ethical manufacturing in this respect has helped us build a trusting and strong workforce, whose commitment has helped immensely in continuing our operations smoothly in such difficult times.  From a communications point of view, we ensure to maintain complete transparency in our operations. We openly communicate with our customers and stakeholders, clearing doubts and responding to queries about disruptions or changes that may take place due to economic challenges as well as our operational strategies in dealing with them. The challenges faced by women in the workforce are diverse. They range from larger social biases such as stigma associated with working women, the pressure of being a homemaker or the sole care giver for children, to very basic safety issues such as sexual harassment.  The Government can support on one hand by ensuring organisations implement fair policies such as maternity and paternity leave or sexual harassment policies, to more specific efforts such as enabling safe public transportation for women. Companies must work together with the Government to ensure such changes are systemic and holistic, not temporary and insincere. Softlogic Invest Chief Executive Officer/Director Niloo Jayatilake Strong, resilient corporates take up challenges, becoming stronger in the process. We launched Softlogic Invest Unit Trust funds during the pandemic. The leadership of the Group was visionary enough to encourage and support the initiative during a period of absolute social and economic upheaval. Capital markets were in turbulence globally with much uncertainty. Stock markets were crashing worldwide. So too were the conditions in Sri Lanka, but we saw the valuations as attractive and an opportunity. We strongly believed in ourselves and the value creation we could bring to our investors. The key was ‘adaptability’ and to be bold in both decision making and execution. In my opinion, we have exercised that with innovation. On the contrary, this pandemic has afforded many opportunities to women to be self-sufficient, albeit in the macro scale, which could translate into mature businesses with leadership roles in the future. It is worth noting that the global culture in finance and business generally, has learnt to downsize manpower and maximise productivity and profits, which leads to women having an opportunity to expand their horizons in terms of private business ventures while working from home. Although managing teams with work from home was tough going initially, I believe it presented a golden opportunity to engage the family environment with work, creating a sense of security and comfort. It is imperative, however, that this work arrangement is adopted and implemented responsibly to deliver expected results, in the belief that the wholesomeness of family and work is equally balanced. Traditional businesses have changed the way they operate. New technology now enables multitasking and this is bound to create more and more opportunities for females in a balanced work-family environment. It’s a great opportunity for the female gender!   The contribution of women in the private sector is very encouraging. However, it is of concern that only a very few females rise to the board or top management level. This is due to many reasons. A female as opposed to a male wears many hats. Being a mother, wife, daughter, has its own duties and responsibilities especially in our culture where it is expected of females.  Although the traditional duties expected from females are changing, I believe we have a long way to go. Performing the expected outcome at a senior level can be challenging when you need to balance all these roles simultaneously. When a choice has to be made whether to continue your profession or to prioritise the other roles, inevitably, many women opt to sacrifice their profession. There is also a lack of awareness of available opportunities for females in other industries apart from the traditional professions. In addition, there is an inherent inability to accept women in higher positions, which remains a cultural stigma. The Government can play a pivotal role in this matter by possibly improving IT based infrastructure and expanding accessibility and advanced technology, providing subsidies to women who can work from home, encouraging and educating women to engage not only in the corporate sector but also on entrepreneurship and international opportunities at higher levels through Government involvement with exchange programmes. In addition, they need to create more awareness and career guidance sessions from school level and university level to both parents and young girls so that they are aware of the available opportunities. The Government also needs to create national level programmes and awareness sessions to recognise women who have risen up the corporate ladder so that it would entice females to join the sector.   Sunshine Holdings Group Head of Human Resources Michelle Senanayake   Navigating through a pandemic and dealing with uncertainty is a gender-neutral leadership challenge. Women have contributed to managing this through their inherent empathetic leadership style by mobilising the workforce and supporting employees to navigate through uncertain times, work-life challenges, sustaining workforce productivity, and providing emotional support. The leadership styles of women leaders in the Covid-19 response have been more collective, collaborative, and more coaching and enabling than commanding.  Women leaders were viewed as role models since they were faced with the increased challenge of delivering on the organisational responsibilities as well as the family responsibilities with limited support. Women leaders in my organisation have contributed immensely to business continuity by effectively managing the impact of Covid by creating safe work environments.   The pandemic has adversely impacted female participation in the workforce. Scholars call it the ‘Great Resignation, a result of the Great Realisation,’ meaning that employees’ priorities have changed and there is a demand for flexibility and project based work. Corporates need to respond by swiftly migrating to flexible/alternate work arrangements.  Supporting females through childcare options, maternity leave extensions on part-time basis and the universal introduction of policies such as paternity leave will encourage shared parenting, thereby building pipelines for female talent.  Gender diversity requires the participation of key stakeholders, from appointing female directors, to producing strong and confident females to rise to those positions. Leadership commitment is critical to promote gender neutrality, equal opportunities, and work environments conducive for females.   Every crisis is an opportunity to reinvent ourselves, an urgency to evaluate everything, not only in the corporate environment but also in our personal lives. It is important to be pragmatic, practical, and face the challenges with courage, due preparation and after evaluating the situation, risks, and the many alternatives.   Women bring a unique point of view and I believe government sponsorship is required to change policies and laws to encourage females in the workforce. It also requires all stakeholders to participate, for example the primary and secondary education systems need to look at the creation of employable, confident women, and open-minded supportive men who believe in joint responsibilities and partnership.  However, women may not all want to enter the corporate sector and should be empowered to take an entrepreneurial route. What is important is the right to make the choice. Personally, I feel that every woman should be given the opportunity of becoming an independent productive member of society. 99x Chief Operating Officer Shehani Seneviratne It falls on a leader to prepare your organisation for any eventuality – even one as dire as the pandemic. It’s all about being prepared as a company, ensuring and inspiring resilience among your people, taking the correct contingency measures and taking the correct decisions at the right time. It requires leaders to always be several steps ahead. One example of how we managed this, after the Easter Sunday attacks in 2019; we understood that circumstances might arise that require staff to work from home. We equipped our 300+ employees (at the time) with laptops, internet connections, and other facilities required to work from home, and trialled it through some test runs. When the pandemic hit, this meant that our people were seamlessly able to switch to work from home (WFH), which we did even before the Government declared the lockdown. We also took certain contingency measures on time (which were later reversed) to ensure that we save the jobs of the entire 99x family. While the pandemic may have temporarily slowed down women entering the corporate hierarchy, there are positives that have emerged. Work from home and part time work was formalised and became the norm practically overnight, in Sri Lanka and globally. Without the pandemic – the rapid digitisation and changes that it has driven – this would have taken years. This has opened up the job market to women who previously could not even consider re-entering the job market due to personal commitments, as it gives them the opportunity to work while balancing children and other obligations. We have seen women leveraging this in the IT industry and these changes are here to stay. When other sectors start to pick up, women will have ample opportunity to re-enter the workforce through means that would have not been possible pre-pandemic. The need for digital transformation has grown during the pandemic and hence, business has grown 15% YoY during 2020 and 2021. We have been able to maintain a high level of customer service with 100% of our staff working from home and our customer satisfaction index remains at an all-time high. We continued to grow in staff strength as well, virtually onboarding 200 employees over the last two years.  External factors continue to pose challenges, such as labour volatility and talent migration driven by the current economic situation, and most recently, the power crisis, which is affecting our services to customers. We continue to implement solutions to these challenges by working closely with our people, who have shown great dedication and resilience, to mitigate the impact of these crises. A key priority is the setting up of day care facilities and the creation of an ecosystem that facilitates women freeing up enough time to enter the corporate sector, since for women to enter the workforce, the changes need to start in the home. This needs to be supported by an equal pay policy and a system of equal opportunities that encourages career-driven women to ascend the corporate ladder. Strict policies to deal with harassment need to be introduced and practised, bringing about a trickle down approach across both State and private institutions. Most important is the attitude change. Women in the workforce – corporate or in other sectors – needs to become the norm and this must be driven by the Government, as well as increased female participation at a regulatory level to bring about these much-needed changes.


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