SNEF Conference Panel Speaker

On the 27th July 2010, my boss, Amit Oberoi, and I shared stage as panel members to discuss, share views and answer questions on "CEO & HR partnership towards producitivity, innovation and growth" at a conference organized by Singapore National Employers Federation. This function was attended by more than 1000 CEOs of Singapore companies, ministers and professionals. It was officiated by the Prime Minister and the guest of honor was MM Lee Kuan Yew.

When SNEF approached us / Coke a few months before this conference on this speaking opportunity, I declined it due to work commitments. However, my boss felt that participation in such forums is good opportunity to build our brand image in Singapore. Though I was relunctant, I have full trust in his wisdom and started to work towards the preparation work. Anu, our OD/Learning Manager, was tasked to compile the information for Amit's presentation. From close to 100 power point slides, we bring this down to 30+ slides for the final presentation. This work took about 2+ months, multiple meetings with line managers / corporate office / marketing division to verify data / information, as well as reviews by Amit to align the flow of message delivery.

During the same period, I was extremely busy with several key projects ie Union Agreement negotiation, HR Meeting in Atlanta, HR Assessment in London as well as guiding new HR managers both in Malaysia and Singapore. Nevertheless, Anu's commitment in following up and Amit's wisdom is seeing big-picture (instead of finding gaps in our prep work or jumping into the details), made this a successful and satisfying effort.

Yes... Coke's participation in the conference was a great success... and, thanks goes to Amit (and Anu, who was working behind the scene).   

(Below photo - A scene during the panel discussion. Photo taken by Grace Lai, one of my strong Human Capital team member.)