 We'd like to invite on stage Ms. Kiyoko Matsushita, I hope I pronounce that correctly. She's the CEO APEC for Essence and she'll be talking to us about diversity and inclusion fast-track for the next decade of growth in organizations. Just to tell you a little about Kiyoko, she serves as the CEO for APEC and she's also one of the company's first executive covering the regions where she oversees Essence's rapid expansion in Delhi, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. In October 2005, she was named as one of the 30 most powerful women in the mobile advertising fraternity by Business Insider in the UK. In 2016, she was named as one of the women to watch by campaign Asia. She's also one of the sought-after speakers in the APEC region and she's here with us today. Please put your hands together for Ms. Matsushita. Welcome in. Can you hear me okay? Great. Hello everyone. The podium is quite high and I'm not that tall so I think you can only see my face but it's really great to be here. It's an honor to be here today to talk about a topic on diversity. I'm Kiyoko Matsushita as I was introduced. I am heading up Essence in APEC. It's a data and measurement driven global media agency and it's part of Group M and WPP. Just a few weeks ago, I normally very much talk about a lot of the topics that I think it has been on agenda around brand innovation and I talked recently about the tech trend by 2030 with Google which was pretty interesting. But on the topic of diversity, I think it's really important and we talk about business growth. So today I'm dedicating my time to talk about diversity topic. And it will be in three parts. One, I'll be talking about the context of diversity, what it means in a marketing and cultural context. And secondly, we'll talk about why actually it's important. A lot of people talk about diversity but how does that relate to business growth? I think it's the most interesting part and where executives would want to actually discuss about. And lastly, what are the things that we can actually do? How can we support diversity in organizations? So, I really would like to start talking about what does diversity mean? And depending on the markets and culture it varies. In a world of western world diversity really means around gender and culture. But in a country where I'm right now living for example in Japan there's no clear definition of diversity. When I speak to a lot of my Indian colleagues, Essence was founded just a year, over a year ago. The topic on diversity is not widely covered. And I think it is seen and almost seen as imported from more of a western context. And that might be true. But really important thing is that organizations, if you support diversity it's going to actually impact on the organizational growth and business growth. So that's what I would want to be talking about today. But I just want to start sharing why diversity, I think for everyone, diversity topic has some sort of a personal attachment and triggered to it. And I just want to start out by talking a little bit about how I became a supporter and passionate about supporting diversity in organization. So, I'm born in Japan but I moved to the US when I was age of nine and some of you might have been to Japan but it's a super homogenous country and I couldn't speak English at all. They didn't teach English in Japan until 12 years old. So my father told me on the plane literally to go to the US how to speak English and the only thing he taught me was I don't speak English and please speak slowly. So that was my beginning of my journey of cultural exposure and diversity. And when I entered a school in America, I literally saw people who looked nothing like me and my friends back home in Japan. And one of the first words I had to look up in the dictionary going to the US was minority. I didn't even know what minority was and I looked it up in a dictionary and I still didn't understand what minority meant because I was never a minority. And I remember looking at everything, every form I had to fill out in the US, even like a standardized test some of you might know in the US like SATs, they ask you to tick a box which ethnicity you are from. And I used to, as an 11 year old, I used to ask my parents why is it so important that I have to tick one of these boxes when it has nothing to do with my ability to perform. So that was my first encounter of being in a very different culture environment and my quick learning was that everyone is different, cultures can be different, but it all starts by appreciating the differences in the marketplace. Then fast forward, I was in the US, I learned English, luckily, but then I realized that that's part of the world so I went on to actually explore Europe and I didn't have the funding to study in Europe at that time so I actually started working for an ad agency which was the beginning of my career in marketing and advertising and there I was literally just a translator between English, German and Japanese but what went on in that kind of organizational context was really interesting and the CEO there really inspired me. He was an immigrant from Turkey, being in Germany and actually creating an environment that was really like no other. He really hired people from around the world for reason to create an environment for people to learn and appreciate each other. So since my teenage age to college time I was put into an environment where I had to face the differences. I had to reflect on my background and it actually gave me the right ground to think about what kind of organizations I wanted to work for but also what kind of organizations I wanted to create. That gender diversity part is of course very much talked about but it never came to me until very much later in my career and when I was working, I started working at an ad agency but I went to the brand side. I worked for Sony Electronic Arts company and I headed up marketing and product development team and game studios but I had female colleagues around me until I was like 32 and then I went to grad school and came back and suddenly I realized that I was the only female VP. I was surprised but I wasn't really thinking what might be the trigger but I realized is that there must be ways to keep female leadership on the ground because they've got so much to add and they can be kind of rolling up to becoming the management members. So that's kind of a background of where I come from but it shows that diversity whether it's culture or gender brings better understanding and appreciation that individuals are unique and different but why is it important? Why is it important for business and organizations and there's scientific research but I have also done a research in my master's program actually around diversity and innovation and there is a research shown the correlation between diversity and business results and also higher correlation between diversity and innovation and I think it's really important for people who are leading marketing and I think a lot of the topics probably talked about and I was listening to the presenter of Airbnb where they're continuing to innovate. You need to innovate by hiring people of diverse backgrounds who bring different knowledges and skill sets and values and how can they work together and drive innovation so it's proven in India I have actually look at some data working with my team here that there are already 20 to 30% of Indian companies who are actually initiating diversity program which I think is actually great in Asia by the way that's a pretty high stats I have to say and they're women that said to be constituting 20% of the organization in India so I think by looking at those numbers it's on the right trajectory I think in India but what's really important is that we nurture the executives who are going to be leaders to lead that next growth through diversity and in markets like India it's one of the most important market for many companies, Essence here for a reason WPP and Group M are also investing in expanding our businesses in India. A lot of global companies are bringing a lot of the services to India but that means also a lot of global talents are moving to India literally at Essence too. I have a lot of people moving from the US from London to India the way they grew up in the work environment in their countries and how they're going to be engaging for example in India in Delhi is actually different and it's okay that it's different but the people in the leadership positions need to really learn and immerse themselves in how to lead and influence that kind of a diverse team because it is not easy and it takes a lot of trials and errors to lead a team to deliver results. I'm really fortunate to be leading at this time of constant unprecedented change with a fast-growing company like Essence but I really feel like I have a lot of work still to do and we need to keep improving and WPP is really leading a lot of these initiatives and participated in an initiative called Common Ground which is to support the United Nations sustainable development goals I think it's really important that at company levels we continue to lead this kind of an initiative and I'm glad that it's a priority for WPP and all the agencies including Essence so we know that it is proven that diversity impacts business and impacts innovation and how can you actually bring diversity in a market that is homogeneous or it's still about to get more people to come into your country and when we talk about diversity of course there are gender diversity topics as well. I think one of the places to start is really start mentoring and that's not just about female gender diversity mentoring women but mentoring people who come as expats for example into India. When I went to America, when I went to London, I worked in different environments I was lucky enough to find that kind of mentor. It didn't matter if it was men or women it was about the value, it was about the way of looking at things that connected me with those mentors. So at all levels mentorship is going to be very, very critical and in the area of female leadership half of it really it's proven is that they are looking for role models and again those role models if ideally women it's great but there are not many women in senior leadership roles so those role models can be men and I think it's okay if it's men or women but that mentorship and guidance is very critical to all of us. So at each company that I worked for there are certain types of initiatives that would actually help and guide women and also onboarding people to different cultures so that kind of initiative in organization will be very critical. At essence that has been my passion point so I have been very proactively working on it and at the moment I'm very proud that we have about 53% female so more than half of our organization is female and we have 36% multicultural environment and 4 out of 13 global executive team are consisted of female leadership. We have more than 45 languages literally being spoken across offices. It can be a chaotic environment but at the same time especially in an organization like essence which leads with digital. Really location doesn't matter so I'm actually expanding a team here in India and actually bringing a lot of people for not from India to live in India. I think when we talk about India and growth of India you cannot say you worked on Indian market without living in India. So I'm promoting people to move across geographical places to learn about culture and the ways of working with people. And our retention rate as a company is at 15% which is actually half of the industry's average which I think where diversity has contributed. Where people continue to learn and get stimulated and excited by meeting different kind of people. So I have been really conscious about fostering cultural diversity for the reason I just mentioned about being raised outside of Japan all of a sudden my life changed completely so I had my own learning through that. But gender diversity is something that came very recently actually when I took a role of management in my mid 30s. I'm not in my 30s anymore but relatively recent. And yeah I urge you to be more conscious and aware of diversity issue. It does impact your business. It really does. And it will make a difference in the way your company and people will innovate. And it is something that I have seen through my own experiences. So it's extremely important that this becomes not only at one of the tick points like how it was in my ethnicity form back in the US but it becomes something that we do. And that will influence your internal culture. And the way you interact with business partners with your own employees and the level of innovation and at the end of the day it's going to impact your bottom line. Thank you.