The 2015 Women in Treasury Singapore Forum was held on Thursday 12th March at the legendary Raffles Hotel, Singapore. This annual industry event was once again an outstanding success and was attended by over 120 women and men who travelled from across Asia Pacific to participate. The Women in Treasury Asia Forum is part of our global Women in Treasury initiative and provides an unrivalled platform to bring together senior industry panellists to debate some of the key challenges highlighted by our Women in Treasury Study. Women and men from a wide range of sectors and organisations joined the Forum to hear the panel discussion and share their experiences, challenges, successes and failures as an inspiration and guiding light for other women as they build their careers in treasury.
The event started at noon with a pre-lunch networking reception during which Angela Berry, Publisher of the Treasury Today organisation and Sophie Jackson, Associate Publisher of Treasury Today Asia presented the findings of our 2014 Women in Treasury Study, supported by RBS. This was followed by lunch, during which the panel discussion took place, focusing on four key issues highlighted by the study; nurturing talent, driving equality, work/life balance and how to get ahead.
Our panellists:
- Shirley Hiew, Global Cash Lead; Treasurer, Asia Pacific, DuPont
- Sonia Clifton-Bligh, Director – Regional Treasury Services Centre Asia Pacific, Johnson & Johnson
- Christine Tan, Managing Director, Regional Head of MNCs, Asia Pacific, J.P. Morgan
- Deepali Pendse, Managing Director, Head of South East Asia Corporate Sales Global Transaction Services, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Miral Fahmy of Reuters facilitatied the discussions. A lively question and answer session followed the panel discussion, with challenging questions and interesting views and experiences shared.
The event was both thought-provoking and inspiring and it was great to see so many men as well as women attending.
Photo gallery
Singapore 2015 panellists
Shirley Hiew
Global Cash Lead; Treasurer, Asia Pacific: DuPont
Adam Smith Awards Asia 2014 – Woman of the Year Winner
Shirley Hiew’s career started in Singapore as Financial Analyst at ICI, thereafter assuming Finance & IT lead for the Chemical business unit. In 1999, Shirley joined DuPont regional treasury team in Singapore before taking a regional Finance lead role in Shanghai. She now leads the treasury centre in Singapore, with accountability for Global Subsidiary Financing and Global Cash Management. Responsible for consolidating worldwide cash for a multi-billion dollar acquisition, she is leading a new banking architecture project and setting up a new liquidity structure and cash management for a proposed spinoff. Shirley holds a qualification in Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).
Sonia Clifton-Bligh
Director – Regional Treasury Services Centre Asia Pacific: Johnson & Johnson
Sonia is responsible for the cash management and investment/lending activities of the Asia Pac affiliates and provides direction for M&A transactions, funding requests, hedging solutions and capital structure. Sonia has been with J&J for 19 years, in Singapore and Australia. She is a graduate of the University of Wollongong in Australia with a degree in Commerce, a Chartered Accountant with a diploma in Applied Finance and Investment and a fellow of the Finance and Treasury Association of Australia.
Christine (Jang) Tan
Managing Director, Regional Head of MNCs, Asia Pacific: J.P. Morgan
Christine (Jang) Tan has a wealth of MNC experience in Asia across multiple key markets. Based in Singapore, she joined J.P. Morgan from Bank of America Merrill Lynch where she had responsibility for developing and executing the sales strategy for multinational clients and large corporates. Prior to this, she held a number of senior roles at Citi including as head of the Hong Kong Global Subsidiaries Group. She holds a Masters in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Kansas, USA.
Deepali Pendse
Head of Corporate Treasury Sales, Southeast Asia: Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Deepali is based in Singapore and is responsible for driving business and revenues in the South East Asia corporate segment. She joined Bank of America Merrill Lynch in November 2012. Prior to this role, Deepali was Regional Treasurer for the Tata Steel Group in Singapore. Deepali spent 14 years in banking across various functions including transaction and corporate banking roles in Singapore, New York and Mumbai. She is an advocate for Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) and is part of the D&I panel for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Asia Pacific. She is the executive sponsor for the Emerging Women in Treasury programme which supports the role of greater equality as core to the future success of the treasury space.
Miral Fahmy
Lead Writer/Editor, Asia Desk: Reuters
Facilitator
Miral, an Egyptian, joined Reuters in 1994 in Cairo, covering economic and political stories. In 1998 she moved to Beirut, reporting on Lebanese and Syrian politics. In 2001 she moved to the Gulf as senior correspondent. Miral began her first assignment in Asia in 2006, setting up the Asia chapter of Reuters’ lifestyle service. In 2009 she moved back to political news as deputy editor-in-charge. Two years later Miral joined the Commodities and Energy desk as lead writer and desk editor and in 2012 she joined the company news desk.
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