 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, great to have you here on the last day of our summer doubles here in Tianjin, but certainly a very important topic that's likely to have a great impact on our society for days, months, and years to come. My name is Tian Wei, great to be the moderator for this specific panel on gender advantage. I remember one of those most successful businessmen in the world once said, the ability to learn and be able to quickly translate it into actions means the advantage of one individual. And many would wonder whether there's any differences when it comes to gender advantage. Is there any difference between men and women among genders? What are some of the issues that we are looking at when we talk about gender advantage, particularly in emerging markets and here in Asia? For example, are they really helping us with the gender parity becoming more and more popular in the world with diversifying decision making? Is it really helping us to expand the talent base? And is it really helping us to tap into increasing demand? To answer all of those questions, I'm here being joined by a panel equally, two ladies and two gentlemen. Certainly reflect the idea of gender parity. And it's my great honor now to introduce to you all of them. First of all, let's go with the ladies. Claudia Center Ramirez, he is the CEO of Tem Airline from Brazil. Welcome, Claudia. Meanwhile, we have Gili Wong, who is the chief executive with Hong Kong Consumer Council. Welcome as well. And then the two gentlemen. Coming from afar, not really, coming from Hong Kong SAR. Mr. Michael Thornman, he is the managing partner with Greater China Bank and Company. And meanwhile, last but certainly not least, Mr. Jiang Xipei, who is the chairman of the Far East Holding Group here in China. Welcome. So welcome to all of you. Let me just begin by asking a very general question. And we do want you to come in both from an emerging markets perspective and also from a business perspective. Is there really gender advantage such thing existing in the world? We do understand there is a sex difference, but is there really gender advantage? Claudia. I do believe there are important differences that may become advantages in certain moments or certain times in an industry or a business or even in a political environment. So a lot of research and from my personal experience, I think it holds true, shows that men in general have an advantage in emotional control and also in taking individual decisions. On the other hand, female leadership styles are much more prone to teamwork and participative decision making and also creating a sense of purpose. So when we look at markets where we're looking at a full employment like Brazil, for example, in general, people are not just willing to work for their paycheck in the end of the month. They want to work for a bigger cause. They want to feel like they belong to something. And the female leadership style in these moments can become a big advantage because we are better in creating the sense of purpose and creating the sense of belonging and being role models for a cause. So I do think that there's an advantage there. Well, we're going to have the other speakers to respond to that, whether they agree or not. But for the moment, one very important note that I really need to mention to all of you because you also want to participate in this discussion. That is, we do have messages coming in to all our speakers and to me while the discussion is going on. So if you want to write to us, you can always email at gendergapatweff.ch. And also the hashtag is gender advantage if you want to jump in to discuss further. Thank you very much. Well, now, Michael, your time. Do you agree with what Claudia just said? Is what's described, she's describing just stereotypes, in fact, that has been instilled in our mind about the differences between men and women. Are there really such things existing? I largely do agree, actually, with what you were saying, but I may disagree later on. You never know. I think there are not only clear distinctions, but also some advantages that men have currently. And if we just step back and look at where are we when it comes to gender parity. And the gap is actually reasonably large. If I just take one data point from the China market where Bain and Company recently did a study on gender parity, particularly among professionals. It is interesting to see that about 70% of women in China have an aspiration to take on more senior positions. Yeah, when you look at the data, there's a big distinction between the aspirations and reality, where today only about 17% of women are in senior positions, 6% are in CEO positions, 8% are in board positions. And it's really the three barriers that have surfaced that really preventing women from advancing in their career. And one is the priorities between particularly family and work. Secondly is the fact that female have different leadership styles compared to men. And then thirdly, you have the organizational bias. That is what's preventing women from taking on more senior positions. And I think men have, at least perception wise, some advantages in those areas. And that's the key thing that needs to change, I think, going forward. Among the three points that you talked about, particularly the middle one, you said women have a different leadership style. It's hard for me to understand why is that preventing women from having what you call professional success. Can you further explain? Sure, so leadership style is, I think the biggest difference is what I would call the confidence gap. So women and men feel that what makes a great leader, the attributes are very similar. But when it comes to how women perceive their sort of performance on those attributes versus how men rate themselves on those attributes, there's a big difference. And that's the confidence gap, whether you're talking about problem solving or team building, inspiring others. So not having sufficient confidence is actually one of the big barriers right now. And that's a perception that exists right now in many companies. So what you're saying, sir, it seems to me is that there's not at all yet gender parity, not to mention any possibility of letting gender advantage shine at this moment. Is that your point? A lot has been improved, but we're not a gender parity. All right. Jelly, do you agree with that? You both are now based in Hong Kong. And I wonder what is your perspective? Is gender parity existing or not? Because we are now questioning the very foundations of our topic. Has gender parity really improved or not to the extent that gender advantage, if there is such thing, that can shine? I think God is fair. That definitely there's a gender difference on that. And hardware-wise and also software-wise, we are very different. So we think differently and we structure differently. So there are definitely jobs that are more prone to men, for example, more heavy-duty work, or maybe some other mechanical things is more men-oriented. But there are areas, definitely, women have the advantage in terms of leadership. I used to work in many industries, for example, credit cards and financial services, energy, many, many industries. But in Asia, what I can strongly observe, it may be different from the developed countries, that there are specific industries that are male dominant. There are specific works that are female dominant. Just to give a few examples, if you're talking about engineering, architect, or doctors, it's very male dominant yet. But if you're talking about public relations, customer service, retail, you need women. Women is a better interface with the customers. But there are industries that have a good mix, like hospitality, insurance, or financial services. That could be men or women, you know, can do really well together. But really, before you go further, I want to question you about that, because it's interesting. What you're saying, the profession areas that both men or women are good at, is it more of a reflection of the cultural stereotypes that we have about men and women, or is it a real reflection of their abilities? Because these two things are very different. Gender stereotypes are different from gender advantage that we're talking about here, Jilly. I want you to respond to that. Sure. It is related to the industry nature, and also the demand in the market. That's also the difference of men and women that creates the phenomenon. So if you're talking about engaging people, if you're talking about embracing people, there are jobs that probably women have more advantage. But on the other hand, if you're talking about something involving more technical aspect, it's men having a stronger advantage. That's how I see it in the developing countries. Claudia was smiling. I could see that. Claudia, you want to jump in? Well, at that specific point, I actually disagree. I think I'm a chemical engineer by training. I work in a very masculine, dominant environment. And I do think that depending on the moment of the organization and the culture around it, sometimes even in more masculine where men dominate or have a historical better performance, I think women can bring very different abilities to the table and bring the team in. So the moment that I was brought into aviation, we were going through a merger, where bringing people together and making different geographies, cultures, and backgrounds work together was the most important thing to happen to make this merger successful. And I think to your point where you were saying women are better to embracing people and taking the best out of them, I think this is still in a very male-dominated environment, this was one of the attributes that really helped me do my job. May I supplement? Sure, please. Yeah. This is the phenomenon that I observed in the past 20, 30 years. But what I want to add one point is getting change in the developing countries, especially when you're looking into the education sector. If you talk to the universities, talk to the education institutions, you will find something very interesting. Because of the intake of female into universities in many developing countries, actually it's increasing. Even in Hong Kong, for some of the faculties, there are even more ladies than gentlemen to enroll. For example, we have a growing increasing number of intakes for engineering, increasing number of intakes for doctors, increasing number of intakes for computer science, which is very unusual as compared with 20, 30 years ago. I remember two years ago when I had a lunch with some ministers from education, they have a conference in Hong Kong and we talk about the education aspect. Middle East country, they raise very interesting points, which is fascinating. They said the intake for female is also growing rapidly, but that creates another problem for them. Because of the social value, the woman come to a certain stage, they need to deliver the baby, to be a good mom, so they quit their job. So no matter how many good doctors, female doctors they trained, they running into a talent problem. Because the gap, the social demand for them to be a mom creates that kind of gap, and that is very hard to compensate. And that costs a quite high cost for society in terms of education, and also generating a sustainable talent pool. Interesting you talk about the differences, because I was reading some numbers, doing some research before coming into our panel, and in China, China's mainland, for example, now the number of women in science, scientific and technological research has at this moment outnumbered those of men. So that's very different, a stereotype, I guess. We are having, and we are breaking at this moment. Talking about China's mainland, Mr. Jiang, I need to go to you. Mr. Jiang is a very interesting man. He has a feature. Well, he has a characteristic. Whenever he goes on a trip, he always goes with his wife. Is she here? Well, because I'm good friends with his wife. So this actually makes a lot of the wives very jealous. Well, this is a personal thing about Mr. Jiang after that. Well, from your own personal perspective, in the context of the 2000 years of civilization, in terms of the potential of genders and gender disparity, what is current status in China, especially in the business world? Well, actually, very valid points raised by our speakers previously. Actually, in terms of abilities, they're kind of equal, but it's really difficult in reality to achieve a real disparity because both genders have their own disadvantages, and men need to do the men-oriented things, and women need to do the women-oriented things. Some of the industries women or men have advantages over the other sex, and in the family, female, of course, actually would cut the shots, especially in Shanghai area, and the Shanghai husbands really listen to their wives, and the wives are the leaders, are the boss in the families. Well, you don't want to offend the Chinese women outside the Shanghai area. Well, actually, you know, they have different positionings in terms of the leadership. Well, it's really difficult for everybody to win in the business world, especially for women. One-third, probably, in terms of the success rate for the women to win in the business world, in reality, in China now. So it is a difficult thing to achieve. Well, society actually embraces or respects or worships as success and heroism in order to win the recognition you really need to fight, and because this is rules of jungle, and women actually have their own characteristics, and they need to work for success, but they can find success in the family, you know, raising the child. Well, I can hear very obvious difference between you two. Well, Mr. Thorman, and I like to come to you because we have heard different views now. What kind of advantages specifically for the two genders? So maybe the professions already have this presumed advantages for men and women. How can women to find the right position in the society to gentlemen here? And actually, Michael is very smart in not stating his own views. And as for his opinion, you see it seems interesting phenomenon on the two sides. Both of you apparently trying to suggest even though there are gender advantages of either the male and female, but when it comes to jobs, certainly both genders would have equal opportunities in every position. But on this side, coming from the Chinese culture, apparently both of you are having different opinions. They seem to have a very clear description as to what should be the professional path for men and what can be the role for women. This is Thorman, your opinion. Your vote is very important here. We got only four people. So I think the, and I've, I see this in my own organization here in China that the abilities, the hard core abilities between a man and a woman are not distinctly different. What happens is that as a woman goes up through her career, is stumbles into these three barriers that I mentioned before. And that's what's preventing her. What is on top of that is this confidence gap. And this is the, when you look at the data, when I look at my own personal experience day to day, that's what I see. A man tends to be generally more confident, sometimes overly confident, versus what a woman is, generally speaking. And this is what I experience. This is also what all the data in our research suggests is that there is that confidence gap. And that's very important now to try to bridge because that is a key lever for ensuring we have more gender parity and get more women into more senior positions. Claudia, are you feeling lonely here already on the stage? Two of them suggest very differently from you, presumed as the advantages of different genders and therefore should have equal opportunity. One is talking about lack of confidence and therefore of course the level of gender parity is not yet at all to the satisfying level. And it seems that you are the lonely fighter here. I'm sure I will find some friends among the audience. Are there friends of Claudia? Yes, raise your hand, okay. I'm sure I'll find support there, but I absolutely agree on the confidence gap and I do think if we look historically and if we follow the easy path, we will still have women in certain industries and men in other industries. I think there's one, on top of what we were saying here, there's one big thing that sometimes stops women from growing, which is the top leadership. In Brazil, only 4% of the CEOs are women and it's more or less the same number across Latin America. I don't think it would be dramatically different anywhere in the developing countries, 6% here in China, so I don't think that changes a lot. So when we think about people making decisions about who to hire, who to promote, who to give a new opportunity, these people are 90%, 85 to 90% of the time men and they have the masculine type of decision making and if they don't challenge their own beliefs, they will keep up bringing up the same type of people because you, in general, you work with people who are easy to work with, right? So I think there's also what we call the confirmation bias, right? You tend to believe or you tend to be more attentive and you tend to give more opportunity to people who think like you, who people who act like you and with people who look like you. So if we don't change that mindset and that type of thinking and I've been very lucky to work with men who gave me the opportunity to show that I could be different and I could have an effective leadership style, I don't think we're gonna move the needle. So I think there's a lot of work that has to be done by us women but there's a lot of challenging in the thinking of men that also has to be done. And let me just jump in before you go further. This challenge of thinking of men to Mr. Jiang, Xi Pei. Now Mr. Jiang, Xi Pei, I've come to you. Just Claudia just said that men need to change their way of thinking but in the traditional mindset in China, very clearly we have this predefined definition between the genders. For example, in and yin between men and women. Women are stereotyped as this and that. Adjectives and men have adjectives and women are described as very gentle, like water, very supportive and men like mountains always provide support. So my question to you is in this cultural and traditional stereotypes of men and women, what kind of impact on the development of men and women in a business organization. Take your business organization example or other private sector, private businesses. Well, just as you said, China actually has thousands of years of heritage of tradition and history. So this definitely has an impact on us because you cannot deny the impact of the tradition on culture. There's definitely a difference between men and women. Of course, the difference is being narrowed. The data also shows the difference in some of the industries are actually more suitable for men. And also for the governors or administrators, women accounts for less than one third or even less than 20 seconds. It doesn't mean that women doesn't have leadership. As the previous speaker mentioned that women need to have children, maybe one or three or five and have a lot of burden from the family side. So they sometimes sacrifices a lot of things they want to do originally. So there is also a job assignment inside the family. We have about 9,000 employees in our company. It's also top 500 in China. And we're an advanced company in smart energy. And our company is actually a group where employees have very happy families. In past 24 years, only 18 families got divorced. I have this number. So maybe we have the lowest divorce ratio in our city as well, only 5%. And our city, Yixing, is also have the longest life longevity. It's 88 years. So people in our city love life and they are very peaceful in mind. And we have a good sunshine and water resource. So it's a very nice human habitat. We need to figure out what's the most important thing in this world. Isn't it health, safety and happiness? So if we have figured this out, what we really want, what we can compensate for each other or complement each other and find a partner, in this way, we'll make a good business and make good families. 55% of our employees are males and in management level, 30% are women. In some positions, women even have more advantage than men. For example, a male sometimes find a female secretary. I once want to recruit a female secretary, but my wife doesn't allow that. And I have now a male secretary. He's a PhD candidate and he worked very well. But still, because of this gender difference, he has some advantage in certain line of work, but some are not. But usually, I would also choose female to assume important positions in board and in the management level, both. Our group is a very harmonious company. So you don't need to advertise for your company anymore, it's a fact. Running the company, but also probably the next mayor of the city. He's doing so much promotion wherever he's own city. If you have any problems, the couples don't have to go anywhere but to go to his city for counseling. But having said that though, I really want to go back to you. Because what Mr. Jiang is describing seems to be a reality here on the mainland. And I would assume also similar in Hong Kong. The question is, once again, we really need to understand what is the scientific recognition of the gender advantage and what is the so-called traditional belief of what our gender advantages are. And whether these two are same or similar or actually very different. I think that is the key question we really need to ask here, your thought. Well, as I said, we are different. Okay, it seems you are saying we are different. Let me just read out some adjectives. I was looking at the Yin and Yang theories in China. This is very much a Taoism, Confucianism kind of theory. About Yin and Yang, Yin is being in a way to describe women and the adjectives for Yin is soft, yielding, receptive, passive, reflective and tranquil. The adjectives for Yang is hard, active, assertive and dominating. And we were being educated if we go back to a Chinese history, if we were 200 years ago. Everybody is being educated with this kind of ideas. So what I'm saying here, I want to ask this very important and fundamental question. Are we really that different? Or are we told that we are really different? And as a result, will we be able to exercise our real gender advantage? Or actually our real gender advantage to some extent is being suppressed as a result of education. Not only in our society, but also in the business world. To answer your questions, I want to use a Chinese philosophy to answer that. All right. Because if you practice Tai Chi, because I want you to practice, so you know inside human being, there's the Yin and also the Yang. But by nature, when you get born, it may be imbalanced. But at the end of the day, why you're practicing, why you're working so hard to improve every day is to try to balance the Yin and Yang so that you can be more versatile, you can be more capable, you can handle different things in a different way. So even when you talk about women as water, water can erode rocks, it kills mountains as well, right? So it's always different aspects to look at one thing. That said, let me just ask you specifically, how is that going to change the diversification of decision-making, for example, in your business? We understand you're coming from providing support for the consumers. But are women's voices only being heard because we have money in our pockets? Are we only relevant because we are the purchasing power? Is that the only reason why women are important to you and to your industry? Well, maybe I go back to answer one more point first. Yes, go ahead. It's about whether a woman can be more capable or to take up the role of man. As I said, we are different. But on the other hand, when women get the opportunity to get promoted or have a much bigger impact on the top level of maybe a society, it's just a factor of a few things. It's a factor of education. It's a factor of exposure. It's a factor of success and also the reinforcement and also the fundamental empowerment of the society that give them the opportunity to advance upwards. So from my point of view, it's just a matter of time to close this gap at the end of the day. Going back to your questions about women, the purchasing power, I'm sure because of the closing of the gaps of the gender parity, women informally and informally, the purchasing power are increasing dramatically. Fundamentally, the personal wealth is much stronger than before. Look at how many industries there are only for women. Look at the department store, the ground floor, what's that? Cosmetics always, anywhere in the world. The first four, always fashion. Men's, maybe a separate building or maybe at the lower level, all right? So it's the personal wealth can create a huge big market worldwide, not even the developing countries. Informally, if you're a higher education for women, fundamentally what we can observe is they're much smarter, they're much more informed, they plan ahead in making their consuming choice. And from a consumer protection perspective, one very important aspect that we feel very happy about for this closing of gender parity is the ability to protect themselves, to defend themselves, to understand their rights. And also when there's a problem occurs, they know how to redress and they can have a much stronger cohesive force to fight for the righteous for women. So I think this is a very tremendous improvement in the developing countries on consumer protection because of the gender parity, the closing of the gap. Gender difference I did hear, but the closing of the gap, I did not, except the fact that they're becoming more and more powerful consumers. Is the gender gap really closing? Of course, your numbers seem to suggest not necessarily so there's still a lot of space to work on. So I think our question really is, first of all, there has to be gender parity in the world, improved ones, so that gender advantage can shine. But of course throughout the panel, it seems there are different questions being raised but wonder whether the gender parity really is there, whether the traditional thoughts, whether they are right or wrong, are actually still with us. So I want to have your perspective, Mr. Florent. So there are a couple of good topics and themes coming out here. First of all, on the yin and yang, I practice yoga. There's a certain type of yoga that's called yin and yang yoga, the soft and the powerful. And I do that in a class with a lot of women and a lot of men. And for part of the yoga session, you do soft yoga, for part of the session you do very powerful yoga. And women and men can actually do that and prevail in that very well. So I think there's a balance in each and every one of us, whether we're a man or a woman, we can be yin and yang and it depends on the situation quite frankly. On the topic of this whole consumerism, there's definitely more reasons why women are important and should be a bigger part of an organization and companies. And that will actually lead to increased competitiveness. One is the economic argument that was brought about here. But more importantly, I think there's a talent shortage in all emerging markets. Revenue is growing faster than talent. So just from a pure numbers point of view, we want to have more women in senior positions. Secondly, women bring a lot of insights on how consumers and customers think. And that balances the decision making in a company that increases the competitiveness. And then thirdly, I think just from a leadership point of view, what we talked about before, very important alternative views and alternative leadership styles, whether it is how to influence, how to inspire, how to build teams that women bring to the table. So I think it's all of these attributes that actually are very strong arguments for having more of them in and bringing up the competitiveness of organizations and companies. Are these things being done already, you think? Some are being done, yes. Like what? So the gender parity is, I mean, we are on a good track. Most companies are actually doing a reasonably good job. About two thirds of companies have something in place. What we're still lacking is... These companies you're referring to are mainland companies or multinationals, private, state-owned... All of the above. Yeah, all of the above. Generally speaking, private Chinese companies and MNCs in China tend to do better in terms of gender parity and the programs and actions they're taking. The intent is there, even with government agencies and SOEs, but the implementation and the execution of it is quite far behind MNCs and private companies. Having more women working in the company is very different of involving them into the decision-making process and having them in a higher management level. Claudia, in your country and in your culture, what is the current stage of it? And secondly, what do you think from a women executive perspective still really need to be done so that gender parity can really be with us? I think, as I mentioned before, the numbers are very similar to what we see in developing countries. In Brazil, only 4% of CEO positions are filled by women and only 3% of board positions are filled by men. And I also think that there are a lot of companies that are implementing different programs to increase the participation of women in top management positions. I think, however, this is not enough. When you look at the growth, the speed of growth of women in top management positions or in boards, we will have to wait at least 100 years to get somewhere close to parity or at least double the number of women in these positions. And in Brazil, that will mean we will have 8% CEOs and 6% board members, which I think is not enough. And in the end of the day, diversity of any type, but gender diversity especially, is really good. We are good at what we do. But did you hear what the other two gentlemen were saying? Mr. Jordan was saying that the reality is women are lack of confidence when it comes to leadership that contributes a lot to the current stage of women in the higher authorities in the company. And Mr. Jiang was saying, well, women are men are just different. So they probably want to go back to their families, not necessarily want to develop to a higher professional level. So probably women have to just accept what is going on right now. I absolutely disagree. I couldn't disagree more, I'm sorry. If you look at the financial results of company who have women either in top management, C-level positions or in board levels positions, the EBIT margins are 50% higher than companies that only have men. So we do bring a lot to the table and I do not think we have to accept that. I think we need to understand what does it take from a society level and from a private enterprise level to help these women move forward in their careers. I think there are a lot of things that we don't know and we tend to generalize and we tend to think that women want to go back home and back to work and we tend to think also that men don't want to take this role. And if you look at more developed countries like in the Nordic countries where you have an opportunity to take either a maternity or a paternity leave and women can take the first month to breastfeed and then men goes home. Men takes care of the family. I have a lot of men who report to me who tell me by the end of the day I have to take my kids to the doctor. Can I leave earlier today? Are they really going back to their kids or going to the bars? Well, I believe in the honesty of people. So I tend to think that they're going back to their families but the thing is there is also a society movement in developing countries where men also want to have a more balanced lifestyle. We were talking last night about that. Men who are excited about spending time with their kids and want to have a different role than their parents had, right? Because my father worked all the time. I saw my father very little when I was young and when I look at my husband he takes time off to be with the kids because it's important for him. It's important for him to be part of their lives and their development. So I also think that we cannot be naive thinking that this will be easy and thinking that just whatever is in place today will serve the gap. I think companies have seen, companies are not doing this movement because they're nice and they want to have us on board. They're doing this because it's financially good and they're doing this because they have no other option because there's a talent shortage and I think it's time for us to take advantage of this and speed up the movement because if we just sit back and relax it's going to take at least 500 more years for us to be a parody. The goal and the determination for things to change with speed, Mr. Jiang, let me go back to you. A lot of inspirations you have provided with your own personal stories and you and your husband. So let me ask with your styles, go back to Mr. Jiang. Xi Pei. Well, Mr. Jiang, can you imagine that your wife as a CEO and brings you on every single trip of hers? She doesn't have such luxury of opportunity yet. Just as Claudia said, the division of labor in her family because she is a professional woman and her husband more about family and raising the kids. So in China today, her model is this possible for this model to exist in China. Definitely possible because in China's business world as CEO or board, actually a lot of women are taking such positions as long as you have the capability and your husband also supports you and assists you. That would be a good thing, but we do not want to waste resources. It needs to be appropriately allocated. And in the old days, of course, the women were not really allowed to go out of the door but today is totally different. Everybody is very open about new ideas in terms of innovation, creativity, leadership and division and passion. Women are no less good than men in the business world and in the government public sector and more and more women are taking leadership positions but in order to, well, if you want to change the mindset with the thousands of years of a civilization in the basis, it's really difficult and it's not really realistic. And people think it's not really equal. That's why from the media, there's media pressure and there's the legal basis to try to cultivate a more gender parity. We want to respect the women because respect for women is also a self-respect for men and I understand that 30% of the leadership are women but now one thing very important. Very important here. Claudia has been talking about there needs to be more space for women to develop. There needs to be more assistance for women to develop because they have the potential and that is going to contribute to the economy greatly. On the other hand, as we heard from the others, people are suggesting well maybe women's advantage is not a word. People are suggesting well maybe women for the current confidence level they're not necessarily should be the one occupying the majority of the management team. Do you agree? I disagree. Do you think women ourselves have already told ourselves what can be done and what can now be done? I disagree because it's just an individual choice on that. As long as you're cautious about what are the choices in front of you, either career development or you want to stay home is your individual choice. It's less about gender parity or the gender difference is not that. It's a choice in your family whether you want to be a housewife or you want to demand focus on the CEO of the home and let the woman to advance in the career. In the past, it may not be like that. In the past, it's a very traditional way of thinking the school of thoughts is always the woman be the one to take care of the home. But nowadays, with all the globalization, with all the belief and philosophy and value system has been converging together, it's different. Different countries may be a different stage of development but I think at the end of the day, as things get advanced, it's the difference no longer exists. It's always a choice. It's extremely interesting because a lot of you are using the words eventually at the end of the day, finally, eventually. It's being repeated and repeatedly used and that puts me to an interesting position of asking exactly when is the eventually? How far do we need to go from here? What about the speed that Claudia was talking about earlier? In order to make sure there is a speed what need to be done? Because we can just wait here and say eventually things gonna be fine. And actually, it's not gonna be fine if we just wait here and say eventually things gonna be fine. So I'm trying to take her position because she's the only one seem to argue for a very direct argument. So I want to put that question to you briefly. Well, I think... What about the urgency the question is? Well, in Hong Kong, we are very fortunate because we are already, our equal opportunity development is already at a very mature stage. So we don't have that problem that much but the number of executives at the top level is still, man is more dominant than woman is mainly because of the time. Over time, I'm sure probably in Hong Kong we have more women executives than men or maybe 50-50, that's a possibility. But there are a few factors. I think it's a factor of education. It's a factor of the value of that society whether it can evolve quickly or they turn to be, want to stay to be more traditional that make a big difference. But whether you want to change the value system of a society is not an individual choice it's the collective choice of the society. Do you think it should though? Every individual can have their own opinion. Well, to me, it's inevitable because everywhere we'll change on this value system. It's very Chinese, you're gonna say eventually it's gonna come anyway because everybody else is doing it. Mr. Thornman. Yeah, I mean I think the urgency is high. And I think we also have to be realistic that even if we implement the number of actions it's gonna take decades before we actually... Probably more than that. Absolutely. I mean you're talking generation, the newer generation that's coming now is already showing very different sort of behaviors and signs and so forth compared to the previous generation. What I do think is very important is that, and this is based on our experience in China is to take a number of actions to close this and to improve things. And that's actions on three levels. So we talked a little bit about the society and what government can do. But I'd like to focus on three. One is sort of what the individual can do which is really take a greater leadership in shaping her own future. Career plans, networking, being more self-aware about the confidence issues. There's more that the family can do in terms of providing the spouse, providing support for that work-life balance. And then at the company level, and this is very important, there are things that companies need to do. And the most important things are one is putting in the appropriate gender parity programs as well as providing the real support from the talk management and having role models. That's critical. It really makes a huge difference having role models. So whatever can be done to sort of move the dial in that direction through these actions will make a big difference. Xipei, do you have a plan? Do you have any plans in your business, in your hometown, the town known for the high sense of happiness and is there any specific plan to make the change happen? Now about the parity between men and women. It's not really urgent. It's not about urgency. It's about permanence. It's actually gonna be a permanent question. Legally, it's actually pretty equal between men and women with the monogamy and the equal opportunity of employment. But it's more about how you think about this. You have the rights, of course, and you need to take into account the difference between men and women. Some things, men should take more responsibility. Some things, women should take more responsibilities. So this is more about harmony, balance for anything, just like anything else. For example, in my business, more women slightly, 55% of men, but we see this trend of increasing number of women, well, despite the maternity leave and other things. But it doesn't really affect women's opportunities or ability to find opportunities to get promoted in the company. So in a company, there are positions, definitely the women actually have more advantages. In my company, if you're qualified for the position, we actually have this affirmative action, sort of, for example, for people with a disability. So we are actually a leader in this. We have the policy, we have the mindset, we have the philosophy in our company. In the early days of our company, we just wanted to make our lives better. And now we actually have a stronger sense of corporate social responsibility, for example, paying more tax and creating more jobs for the society. So first, the enterprise and the education, so that all these things can interact with each other. I can see that you have a lot of jobs. After listening to this conversation, if not debate going on on the stage for about 50 minutes or so, I'm sure your questions and comments coming from the audience, there's one gentleman over there raising his hand. Briefly say where are you from, who you are and state your opinion or ask a question. Thank you. My name is Kumar K.S. Kumar. Company is called Sutherland. I just wanted to look at a different perspective and of course ask what the people on the dice are. Can you raise your voice just a little bit? Thank you very much. Can you hear me now? Yes. I just wanted to look at this from a different perspective, if you will. Something to do with society, something to do with, if you look at Japan, now you have women who go less to work if they have families and children and the ecosystem doesn't support motherhood and of course taking jobs or taking leadership positions. As a society, of course men expect that you have to cook for me and also take care of the family and children so I'm just talking about the root causes in terms of how societies think. What is in Japan or what is in Asia and rest of the world. The cultural traditions. The cultural traditions are all about women, motherhood, taking care of what you have to do and there's no expectation being set by the societies that you have to take leadership positions. So your point is? My point therefore is, the ownership of, or lies a lot with how all of us think about and how do we change that whole mindset about wanting to get women to leadership at this level of the society. At the level of men who support families, all of us also need to think about, hey, you know what, how do we support women? So my question is, what is the ownership and what are we gonna do about that level of ownership at the level of society, at the level of, everybody thinking about how women should be taking leadership. On the other hand, women also I think always want to be mothers and take care of families and I would not want to take the initiative of wanting to be leaders, right? So- Oh, you have a question about that. Let me just have Claudia to answer your question because I got two points there. Do really women want to work? Do women want to be executives? Well, I do. I cannot speak for all of the women. The women who want for me, I'm sure they want to work. In general, we're talking about the confidence gap. Men think they're entitled to a job. Women feel very grateful when they get the opportunity. They tend to be a lot more loyal. They tend to put a lot more effort and in general, they work harder because they don't trust themselves. All right. I think they want to work. But we got three ladies on the stage. I can't express an opinion, I'm the moderator. So let's go to the other lady. Do women want to work? Do we want to be in a higher position professionally? I think it's individual drive, you know, what kind of thing should make you happy? And where does the individual drive come from? Well, the individual drive is coming from your intrinsic drive and also the environment by itself because if your drive is to go up, you know, to your corporate ladder, you feel happy about it. You know, just if you have the opportunity, go for it. And if your drive is, I want to be a nice mom, you know, really raising kids, you know, that make me feel extremely satisfied, go for it. Is you want to drive you to be happy in your life? And also, you know, in the context of your society, what makes you happy? That's my point of view. Do you think, Mr. Thornman, that women have the contact right now in your society to make us happy? I mean, to make women happy? The context, that's what Mr. Gilly was talking about, that people can have or rather women can have their own choices in terms of what their life should be like. I think that women generally, particularly in emerging markets, and if I take China as an example, many want to do both. It's not one or the other. They do want to raise a family. They do want to work, typically. There are some who don't, and that's obviously perfectly fine. But generally they want to have the combination of the two. And the issue today is that there are, for those who want to and aspire to have more senior positions, and that's about 70% of the professionals women in China do, there are barriers. And that's what we need to try to address. In other words, the environment is still not necessarily 100% right. It's not. Okay, and this lady over there, introduce yourself and ask a question or do the comment. Okay, so I think you can probably hear me. My name's Carol. They're doing the video, so you probably want to still speak with the microphone. Just test it a little bit, yeah. I'm sorry, sorry. Okay. So my name is Carol, and I am a CEO. I'm also a mother, and I like to think I'm a successful mother, so I agree. I don't think it's an either or. My point is that I don't think the eventually strategy has been seen to work in the developed markets. I am very disappointed at the progress that women have made in the developed markets. But really in China, we do our own research as you do, and 93% of women between women between 18 and 30 in China work. 70%, as Michael has said, want and expect to go on into senior positions. If you're going to rely on the eventually strategy, what are you going to say to them when they become disappointed? And you want to address this question to whom? I think, sorry, to Mr. Jiang and Ms. Wang. Oh, okay, all right then. Let's have Mr. Wang to go, Ms. Wang to go first. Ladies are always being asked when to answer a question to go first. Let's go with that tradition, even with a female moderator here. Sure, sure. I think, why is eventually is not just making it naturally because the society, especially the government has a very strong role to play to support that in terms of providing the equal opportunity for women providing the right education, providing the right infrastructure to support them, and also the policies to support them. I cite Hong Kong examples. We are very lucky that women can have a very ample choice of a lot of opportunities in our city. But one thing right now the woman is complaining is we don't have enough breastfeeding facility to support them, even though they have enough domestic workers to support them at home, but they don't have enough other facilities to support. So the continuous engagement of women on their need, how to support them, to enable them to do better, to facilitate them, to advance in their career, no matter it's just you want to stay with the same job or continue to go up on the corporate hierarchy, you have to continue to engage them and develop and design the right policies and facilities to support them. It's interesting that you chose the example of breastfeeding rather than professional development, but let's go to Mr. Jiang. Your comment? Your comment? Based on Ms. Claudia's view, what's your opinion? I think to be a good mother and a successful leader for women, it's very difficult, because she should be very cosmetic. It has a strong charisma. You need to nurture the kid, but it's actually very difficult to educate children very well, especially when there are multiple children. And also if you want to lead a company to be a very successful company and recognize the company in the sector and liked by the employees, it's also very difficult. But of course there will be disappointments and unpleasant things. It's normal. But at that time, you should reach out to your husband, to your friends, you need to talk to them, specify what problems you encountered. You don't need to feel that you're losing faith by telling people you have problems. So I think communication is very important. As long as you have made efforts, as long as you feel that your objectives make you happy, you don't set too high an objective. You should weigh the resources and your capability. You should have a concrete objective. Every country has a different environment and advocated culture. For example, Japanese males are more difficult than the Chinese male. In developed markets, such as the US or the European market, there are a lot to offer for China to learn, but also China can also complement that. These gentlemen sitting here, well maybe we'll have them later to respond. But now, last question, because we're really running out of time, but this is a very heated debate obviously. Go ahead. And I want to thank you for doing it because it's been fascinating. My name is Carl Hoffman. Two quick comments and a question. The first comment is I just think we need to recognize we're all, all of us are comforted and repressed by stereotypes. That's just a reality for all of us. That's your conclusion, okay. Second is we've heard comments about 2,000 years of civilization, which means 2,000 years of tradition and culture. But often throughout those 2,000 years, tradition and culture have been excuses for men to repress women. I think we need to be conscious of that. There are institutions that do that everywhere. In the East, in the West, it's a reality. The patriarchy is strong and we would be foolish to deny it. My question is for Claudia. I think she brought up a very important point about the outperformance of companies in EBIT terms that have higher numbers of women in senior positions. And I just wonder about the effect in Brazil. I mean, it's quite fascinating. Apparently we're gonna see two presidential candidates, women in Brazil, opposing each other soon. This is, I think, unprecedented. To what extent does the political reality in Brazil affect the business reality that we're talking about here? Is that a good example? Does it matter at all? How has that impacted in corporate terms? Are you going to run for presidency later in your professional career? No, okay, okay. Now you're in the position to answer that. Well, at the point that I am right now, I'm not, who knows what the future can bring. But I think it does have an impact because you do, as Mr. Tonman was saying, you do have more clear role models. And I think for the good or for the bad, having a president who is a woman is a role model. And I think the person, we have our own biases and we do things differently. So it does have an impact. I think it is unprecedented and I think it's very good for the diversity of our country. Unfortunately, when you look at political of representation in Brazil, we have a female president, but we have very few congressmen, congresswomen and female representatives in Senate. So I would love to see these numbers growing because we've seen that the pure male political systems are broken. I would love to see more women in peace negotiations. I would love to see more women defining domestic violence law, defining the government budget and so on, so forth. We've seen a lot of success in banks that only make loans for women because women tend to be a lot more responsible and do a lot more planning, as Mr. Wong was saying. So I'd love to see more female representation also in the political sector. All right, and we are really running out of time. And I want to thank the four panelists. They've been really speaking their mind. They should be respected for that, to be able to speak their mind and be frank and also represent where they come from. And meanwhile, we want to express our appreciation for the organizer for this very specific panel because they really lead us to a lot of discussion in our society. I hope that it's not just in this society, but also societies around the world. So Zadia and Jessica, thank you so much. And of course, eventually, once again, applause to these four panelists. Thank you. Thank you very much.