With only one woman in leadership positions for every four men across Asia Pacific, it’s essential that women engage men in their career journeys
When Jingjin Liu was working in the automotive industry in Germany, she realised that it was not a mentor that she needed for true career advancement but rather a champion. She needed “someone who had a seat at the table, and was willing to speak up for me when relevant career decisions were being made behind closed doors,” says Liu.
Her chosen champion was the newly appointed chief marketing officer, who also happened to be the first person in the firm’s C-suite history who was not white. “I was convinced that once he got to know me and my work, he would be willing to sponsor me,” says Liu. “And as two people of colour working in a heavily white male-dominated industry, we would surely have some shared experiences.”
Liu reached out to him and asked to contribute to one of his cross-functional projects. “I did not ask for his advice or help at any time. Instead, I supported his agenda and thereby generated lots of visibility for myself with him,” she says. Two years later, when the global marketing director role opened up, despite many male candidates with more leadership experience, her champion convinced the decision-makers that Liu was the only choice.
When Uma Thana Balasingam interviewed for her first vice president role in 2016, her mentor, tech leader Bill Padfield, put in a word to the hiring manager to vouch for her. “This was unknown to me and was the reason why there was higher interest in securing me for the role,” says Thana. “Bill was widely known in the technology industry by many as a multiple-time CEO and his words carry weight.”
Balasingam, who is founder of Lean In Singapore, a non-profit organisation that focuses on empowering girls and progressing women in the workplace, was fortunate to have sought out a mentor who would go on to act as her sponsor, too. And sponsors can be some of the most important relationships in a person’s professional life, changing the course of a career.
Balasingam, along with Liu, who is now CEO and founder of ZaZaZu, a corporate education platform with a mission to help women conquer self-limiting beliefs and fulfill their potential, teamed up with Jana Marlé-Zizková, co-founder of She Loves Data, a non-profit organisation with a goal of bringing more women into the worlds of data and tech, for International Women’s Day to encourage more women to seek out male sponsors. With only one woman in leadership positions for every four men across Asia Pacific, according to McKinsey, it is essential that women engage men in their career journeys.