Women’s Forum Asia

Taking the lead for inclusion:

Accelerating through diversity

Singapore, 18-20 September 2019

Asia’s young, increasingly educated workforce and its growing middle class are a wellspring of dynamism. Indeed, in Asia and other emerging markets, millennials and women are poised to comprise a new generation of leaders and engage in entrepreneurship at rates that outstrip established markets. Nineteen of twenty of the world’s most dynamic cities are in Asia, making the region attractive to investment, trade, and talent.

Yet across Asia, gaps remain in women’s political empowerment, educational attainment and other measures of gender parity. At current rates of change, the gender gap in East Asia and the Pacific will take 171 years to be closed. Women’s full participation and leadership in its economies and societies are needed to sustain Asia’s draw, grow its influence globally, and build a brighter future for its people from the ground up. Women’s leadership can help unlock the power of Asia’s rich diversity - of culture, age, orientation, class, and religion, among others - to ensure that solutions to those challenges are inclusive and lasting. Diverse viewpoints and experiences must be included and put towards a common good, whether the creation of inclusive communities, built environments and public spaces; making organisations future-ready; or fairly sharing the rewards of trade, growth and technological change.

Drawing from our insights and contributions to Women’s Forum meetings across the year, as well as the G7 summit in August and other global conversations, the very first edition of Women’s Forum Asia meeting will take place from 18-20 September 2019 in Singapore, under the theme of Taking the lead for inclusion: Accelerating through diversity. It will gather 1,500 leaders and trailblazers from across the region and the world to connect on how women’s leadership can accelerate revolutionary and inclusive changes in our communities, organisations and economies for better the future for all.

Women’s Forum Asia is supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), the government agency responsible for strategies that enhance Singapore’s position as a global centre for business, innovation, and talent.

Highlights will include:

• Influential business, institutional and political leaders from the ASIA countries and beyond, gathering to engage in high-level debates and move towards concrete solutions
• Plenary and roundtable sessions, debates and workshops
• Networking opportunities over the three days of the Forum (Wednesday 18, Thursday 19 and Friday 20)
• Access to the Women’s Forum Global Network of 5000 active members for a year; from the Women’s Forum past events – Women’s Forum Canada, Women’s Forum Singapore, and Global Meeting 2018, as well as the upcoming Women’s Forum Asia and Global Meeting 2019 in Paris.