ASB Thought Leadership – Page 3 – Asia School of Business

The growing mandate of central banks

The complexity of the world has changed the role of central banks. In many countries, central bank mandates have evolved from simply keeping prices stable and limiting inflation – to far-reaching dictates, such as economic growth, job creation, and even influencing climate change.

“As the role of the central bank has grown in importance, central banking practitioners need to quickly and effectively assimilate best practices and current thinking to deliver the best possible policies and outcomes,” said Dr. Zeti Akhtar Aziz, former governor for Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and current Group Chairman of Permodalan Nasional Berhad.

Transforming central banking education

Historically, central banking education combined on-the-job training and short courses with a solid university (and possibly post-graduate) education. For employees, courses were delivered internally by central banks or through partnerships with academic institutions on central banking-related topics. Learning on the job and through disparate modules meant it took years to accumulate the requisite knowledge to develop a command of the issues facing central banks.

Furthermore, the needed knowledge has been constantly evolving, seemingly at an increasing rate. To provide an accelerated option to bring central bankers to the frontier, Asia School of Business (ASB), in collaboration with MIT Sloan School of Management, is launching in June 2021, a one-year, intensive Master of Central Banking program.

“The design of our curriculum is integrative,” said Prof Eli Remolona, Director of Central Banking at ASB. Subjects are woven together to give a holistic view, from the latest techniques in data analysis to emerging issues, such as digital currencies.” “This program will equip leaders to create impact, faster,” added Prof Remolona, who spent over three decades in central banking including at the Fed and the BIS, after completing his PhD at Stanford.

A dedicated knowledge hub for central banking

ASB has also established the Central Banking Research Center to serve as a research and knowledge hub for central banks globally. “Because ASB is located strategically in Malaysia, with proximity to some of the world’s fastest-growing economies, we have ready access to research opportunities and case studies relevant to Asia and the emerging economies,” said Prof Charles Fine, CEO, President, and Dean of ASB.

Underscoring the relevance of Asia to the world, Prof Hans Genberg, Senior Director of Central Banking and Finance Programs at ASB, who has been a university professor as well as having served in leadership roles at the IMF, SEACEN, and the HKMA, said: “It’s crucial for the world to understand Asia, its nuances, and challenges. In my 30 years as an academic in central banking and economics, these topics were always focused on advanced countries.

During my time in Hong Kong, I became convinced that we need to teach the developed and developing world how to consider the needs of emerging markets when formulating policies.” ASB’s Prof. Anella Munro, an MIT graduate who spent nearly two decades at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand after completing her PhD at Oxford, asserted, “The curriculum we’ve designed really addresses the training needs of central banks, a lot of which is not covered in mainstream economics and finance programs.”

Prof. Triwit Ariyathugun, added, “After finishing my PhD at Chicago, I thought I would have to pick between academia and policy. The opportunity to join ASB, with its MIT affiliation, gave me the best of both worlds.”

Building a global network of central bankers

The immersive 12-month master’s program includes six weeks of courses at MIT, and is designed as a residential program so students can build a strong international network with junior. and senior central bankers lasting beyond the program.

In addition, each MCB participant will be part of a team that makes an extended visit to one of several participating APAC-region central banks, working on an “action learning” project to deepen the immersive exposure to policy issues and policy makers in the region.

“It’s essential that central banks not only understand and communicate within the borders but coordinate and work with central banks elsewhere,” emphasized Robert C. Merton, Professor of Finance at MIT, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, and co-chair of the Advisory Council for the Master of Central Banking. The Council includes nine former governors from across four continents

For the founding class comprised of students from over a dozen countries, the network they are about to build in this first-of-its-kind program might define not only their individual trajectories, but the future of central banking in the region and beyond.

Read the full article here.
This article was originally published on South China Morning Post.

In the last of three articles, Professor Loredana Padurean, Asia School of Business, lists the smart and sharp skills for successful digital transformation.

Smart skills are the skills required to work with people, sharp skills are required to work with machines. And one might ask, don’t we already call these skills ‘soft’ and ‘hard’? Yes, we do. But do you know why? The soft and hard skill terminology was coined in 1972 by a research team in the U.S. Army to differentiate people who were good at machine operations, coining these skills ‘hard’, from those who did well in people-related, supervision roles, coining them as ‘soft’ skills.

And since 1972, this ubiquitous terminology has served us well. But just like all other fields of study which get to constantly revise critical concepts, we believe that this terminology needs a fresh, new approach to reflect the current environment and in light of the roles that each play in our day-to-day lives. But you ask, is this just semantics? I know what you mean. Does it matter how we name the skills, as long as we have them?

But let’s think about this. Narratives are created over time; a few years back, ‘catfish’ was only a fish but in today’s vocabulary, it has a whole new meaning. I love this quote from UC San Diego Professor Lera Boroditsky, a leading cognitive scientist in the fields of language and cognition and former faculty at MIT: “By choosing how you frame and talk about something, you are causing others to think about it in a specific way.

We can drastically change someone’s perspective by how we choose to talk about and frame something.” For example, speaking of the word ‘soft’. Dictionaries define it as mild, gentle, and weak. But what’s soft about navigating competing perspectives and cultures, pitching high-stakes projects, and dealing with office politics?

How do smart and sharp skills link to digital transformation?

I believe that digital transformation is built on three pillars: strategic, operational and cultural and part of the cultural pillar which I address more extensively in this article is also bringing a new approach to training and upskilling. Many of the companies I work with ask: What skills do we need to develop in our organizations? And while the answer is a lot more complex than this interview allows, here are the top 10 smart and sharp skills I think are essential for starting the digital transformation journey.

Read the full article here.
This article was originally published on Business Chief APAC, a ‘Digital Community’ that connects the world’s largest brands and their most senior executives with the latest trends pivoting towards technology and digital transformation.

In the second of three articles, Professor Padurean at Asia School of Business explains why digital transformation is easy, people transformation is not

Simply put, much about digital transformation is primarily about people. Unfortunately, more than 70% of enterprises fail to create any value from their digital transformation efforts, but what is interesting is that 62% of organisations cite culture as the number one hurdle to digital transformation.

And while this may come as a surprise, the reality is that at its heart, digital transformation is a people transformation. Many companies tend to focus on selecting and implementing the right digital technologies, however this strategy is not likely to lead to success.

In my first feature for Business Chief, I talk about the three pillars of digital transformation: strategic, cultural and operational, however today I want to shine a spotlight on the cultural pillar and the importance of cultural transformation. When I work with companies embarking on a digital transformation journey, I always ask them to consider if they have the right culture to adopt change?

So, what is the right culture for transformation?

Successful digital transformation requires a culture that accepts risk and tolerates failure, that supports new ways of doing things, the encouragement of innovation, and very importantly, a reverence for failing forward. The digital culture is one that is aware that digital transformation requires different thinking, it’s a culture where employees are empowered to take on new challenges, they are compensated for learning new expertise and they are incentivised to break new ground and build new models.

I think by now we all know that the best way to respond to digital disruption is by changing or adjusting the company culture to be more agile, risk-tolerant, and experimental but more than anything, it demands that we realise that digital transformation will require a change in the leadership approach and changes to organisational dynamics, which is in many ways a more complex task than technology deployment.

In today’s world, every business has the potential to be a global business. But do leaders know enough about the legal and regulatory complexities of operating in the global marketplace? How can they guard against international legal risk? And how can they unlock untapped international potential?

We speak with Kevin Crow, Assistant Professor of International Law and Ethics at Asia School of Business, about these topics and more, which he teaches about in the International Law & Global Business Strategy course offered by the Iclif Executive Education Center at ASB.

What led you to become interested in International Law?

I was interested in ethical questions long before I developed an interest in law. There’s one particular event that triggered it – an incident with an American in Singapore, Michael Fay, who had been caught vandalizing Mercedes Benz automobiles along with a friend who came from China. There were both given the same sentence; a certain amount of money they had to pay and, as is the Singaporean criminal custom, six strokes of the cane, a sort of corporal punishment for crime.

Now, because an American was involved, it came to the attention of then-president Clinton, who intervened and got Fay’s sentence reduced to 4 strokes of the cane. So now, two people guilty of almost the same crime were to receive two different punishments. This set off a debate on different approaches to punishment, the state’s role in enforcing law, what the purpose for the punishment was.

And this was where I began to be interested in the ethical aspects of those questions. There wasn’t actually a right answer. It wasn’t a question of truth, it was a question of values and what one cares about, whether as individuals or as societies.

Later, I became interested in law because, at least in theory, law is society’s expression of what its ethics are. Later this expanded into Public International Law because that deals with the biggest questions, with incommensurable values, and like in the Michael Fay example, with clashes of ethical norms, like those in Singapore and the United States.

You have practiced both International Criminal Law AND International Economic Law. What motivated you to pursue both?

I started out studying law to become a criminal defense lawyer – my initial goal was to become a public defender in the United States. During my third semester I took a course in international criminal law, and I thought “Whoa, this is so much more, this is the biggest fish I can go for in this criminal law game.” In international criminal law, as you can imagine, the defendants are political or rebel organizations, usually with charismatic leaders.

There is a theory of liability called joint criminal enterprise, driven by the notion of command responsibility. The idea is that it’s not necessarily the people committing crimes on the ground – we’re talking massive genocide-level crimes – that hold the legal and moral responsibility for a crime when it occurs. Instead, the responsibility lies with the people who organize the enterprise and command mass crimes through the enterprise.

So, you go after the heads of such organizations. The joint criminal enterprise in international criminal law bears a striking resemblance to the multinational enterprise in international economic law. They’re zygotic twins. But there is a strong disconnect between liability for “joint criminal enterprises” and the liability that can attach to corporations given legal definitions of corporate purpose.

The thing that kept bugging me was that the legal purpose of an organization is quite often profit; meanwhile, criminal law doctrines for enterprise liability require criminal purpose, which means that a corporation’s role in an international crime almost always escapes liability within those doctrines.

This means that in international criminal law, even though you could have an enterprise intimately intertwined with broad international crimes, because the organization’s purpose is to pursue economic gain rather than to commit a crime, they incur no liability whatsoever! That’s why I got interested in connecting my criminal law work to international economic law, to the business world, and linking it all together, by pursuing an intellectual marriage of these fields.

What are some big challenges that business leaders face when it comes to International Law?

The answer to that depends on what perspective you’re taking. They are generally three buckets of challenges.

One challenge is the liability challenges that corporations are subjected to. This is from the perspective of a person that runs a business and wants to expand internationally. They might want to expand their contract network, for instance; this is a common scenario because something like 80% of goods produced around the world are non-primary goods. They don’t come out of the factory fully made functional things – instead, there are little parts produced everywhere and they get assembled somewhere else.

So if you’re doing this, you may be asking questions like what are you liable for across these different jurisdictions? What is the international law governing the agreements across these different states you’re operating in? How do you protect an investment in a foreign state if, for instance, the government suddenly goes rogue and decides to nationalize all factories? These are pertinent questions that have become even more relevant in these COVID times.

Secondly, there’s the internal perspective. There’s a growing area in research focusing on how large multinationals are creating “normative internal legal orders” that, while not real, hard laws, set rules that have effects in the multitude of jurisdictions in which they operate. A good example of this is the freedom of speech principles that many big social media companies are applying. T

hey set up an internal board of freedom of speech experts who are purportedly responsible for determining the standard of speech, and while those who sit on the board are known, the actual decision-making process may not be known or publicly knowable, yet the results are internationally applied.

This is quite a fascinating subject, and so for businesses, one of the things to consider is what are the best practices for setting up their own internal normative orders, or law-like orders if you will, and this is another bucket of challenges.

The third bucket is the instruments that should be considered should a business wish to expand strategically, whether into another market or region, or another category. Many of these may be soft law instruments, like the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, but to what degree should a business owner be considering them? Just because it’s a non-binding law, do you throw it out the window?

Strategically, adherence to soft laws such as these are used for signaling – for instance, if your organization wants to stand for diversity and equality, then it makes sense to adopt law instruments that pertain to such. This is an area relevant for those interested in strategic CSR; most of the world’s largest companies reference some international legal text, whether binding or not, in their CSR or ESG strategies.

What can participants expect to learn from your course to help them overcome these challenges?

I think one of the things my course brings to the table is that we look at trends and from there, we can better anticipate what’s going to happen, legally speaking. So for instance, I keep up to date on international investment law, I read every arbitral award, so I can give a heads up on where things are going, what new liabilities might be emerging – and that’s an advantage that business leaders can gain from my course.

Ethically, there’s a lot of attention that’s being paid, especially with the onset of the pandemic, to whether businesses are really serious about corporate social responsibility or ESG initiatives and that’s another area where I can provide insight. I can help identify what the biggest challenges are for a given company, what other companies are doing, how they are dealing with similar challenges, and then participants can decide for themselves whether those solutions work within their own context.

Additionally, I also incorporate a few strategic frameworks depending on what participants are aiming for. For instance, if they are looking to enter a new market or country, the Triple A Framework (Adaptation, Aggregation and Arbitrage) can help determine which strategy is best for them to adopt, based on their own organizational make-up.

Another framework I use is the CAGE framework, a way to determine what the challenges will be no matter what the strategy you adopt, just by looking at different types of distance – Cultural, Administrative, Geographic and Economic.

Turn International Law into a Powerful Tool for Your Business

Gain more insight into the intricacies – and opportunities – of international law, along with valuable tools and frameworks, at the International Law & Global Business Strategy program that Kevin will be running over four days (24th, 25th, 31st May and 1st June 2021).

Vasavah founder and CEO Matthew Roman, from the Class of 2022 for Working Professionals (MBA-WP), speaks to us about his journey of becoming an entrepreneur, the challenges he’s faced along the way, and advice he would give to people with a similar entrepreneurial path.

Scaling A Global Startup with an MBA

“At the end of the day, what force of good are you creating? What impact are you delivering to your community?” says Vasavah founder and CEO Matthew Roman during his Interview with Asia School of Business. Originally from the urban district of Pasig, Philippines, Matthew is part of the Class of 2022 currently pursuing the brand-new MBA for Working Professionals (MBA-WP) program at Asia School of Business (ASB).

With passion and determination, Matthew founded Vasavah, his second startup, in the Philippines back in 2017. Vasavah is a data sciences company that integrates, automates, and analyzes data in a way that makes the most sense to your company. Be it to address efficiencies in managing customers in all stages of the sales cycle, simplify operation processes, or promote efficiencies to lower costs, Vasavah designs the best solutions that addresses your most pressing business goals.

In a conversation with ASB MBA 18’ alumna, Crystal Cha, Matthew talks about his journey of becoming an entrepreneur, the challenges he’s faced along the way, and advice he would give to people with a similar entrepreneurial path.

Crystal: How did you first hear about ASB and why choose ASB?

Matthew: I actually ran into ASB a few years ago when I was working with my first startup. I realized that in business, there are many different perspectives involved. I really wanted to understand the different lenses to apply when I look at business. I ended up going to an MBA tour and quite interestingly, nothing really sparked much interest in me.

Then, Gulnura from the ASB Admissions Team walks in and she came across as so unconventional and different from the other people I was meeting at business schools. The way she was talking to everyone and presenting the school was completely different, and that resonated with me. And here’s ASB saying if the MBA was going to be redesigned from scratch today, what would it look like? They re-thought the MBA but used MIT’s best practices as the foundation.

When Covid-19 happened, I saw that as an opportunity to actually pursue an MBA. When it came down to it, it was John Sterman’s lectures that really nailed it for me, and I got led to John Sterman because of your article on System Dynamics at MIT Crystal. That sealed the deal for me!

Tell us more about your startup, Vasavah, and who is the audience you serve?

Vasavah in a nutshell is a data sciences company. We’re not just a team of data scientists, we’re also software developers that develop software that’s data science-aligned. We empower companies not just with automation, but with measurement control and the ability to comprehend all the information that their systems gather. We deliver that digital transformation not to the point of automation, but further with built-in real-time business intelligence and data analysis.

Who are some of the typical clients that you work with?

Our biggest clients right now are actually in the power industry. Ayala Energy is one of our biggest clients today. We also have a lot of clients in retail because we’re the official IT consultant for the Philippine Retailers Association.

How long have you been running this company?

Vasavah is the second startup I founded. When I saw that the service industry might not be the future of IT, I exited my first startup and I started Vasavah. I put this up in 2017, so we’re running into our fourth year now.

What were some of the biggest challenges keeping you up at night – that you hoped this MBA could address?

Well, the scariest parts are also the most exciting things. I could see that our products and what we’re doing is something that would be a very high scale, high growth thing. It would be a global thing and not specific to our own country. With Vasavah, we might have a few thousand customers today then tomorrow we have ten thousand and then we have a hundred thousand.

There is no reason for us to be constrained within the Philippines, our products would function just as well in Malaysia or Thailand. How do you design it so that you don’t become the very problem that you’re trying to fix? We don’t want to create variances within our organization that drowns us in complexity.

That was the biggest fear for me, because we fix these kinds of problems for other people and we know how bad they can get. The biggest things that keep me up at night were – What are we not thinking about? What are we not anticipating? That’s actually why system dynamics resonated with me because system dynamics is the study of the complexity as a whole.

You’ve completed several semesters at ASB now. Has ASB delivered?

What you should understand about ASB is that there are a lot of tools you can use, but these are just a handful of the cherry-picked tools that the professors had the time to discuss with you. These tools are not all you can learn. What is critical is the perspective these tools give you, the lenses that they teach you to have, like how do you approach or look at this and what are the questions you’re supposed to ask.

How have you changed as a person by being part of this program?

If you think about it – the entire world is a business transaction, even if you’re buying groceries or even the economics of choosing whether to buy a big box of detergent or the small one. At the end of the day, the way I’ve learned how to look at things really has an impact. I think the biggest impact that ASB can give to an MBA graduate is not really just about business skills, it is actually about gaining principled leadership.

It’s easy to just focus on maximizing profits or marginalize your staff or have a good financial statement at the end of the year, but at the end of the day, what force of good are you creating? What impact are you delivering to your community? I think that is one of the bigger responsibilities a business school should have that often gets forgotten.

I really love that about ASB – they instill the mentality that you’re not just here to be good businesspeople, you’re here to be principled businesspeople. When I look at things now, such as the vendors that I use or the products that I use, I think to myself, is this the right product to buy? It’s the cheapest – but at what cost? So, it does impact everything that you do and I think that it’s an important perspective that ASB has given me.

What advice would you give to fellow entrepreneurs who might be considering an MBA, and are unsure whether it is the right move?

I think every entrepreneurial journey is different. It really is a journey and there isn’t a set destination that you should be targeting. You should really be considering what kind of journey you want to have. At the end of the day, entrepreneurship is one of the hardest things you’ll have to do in your life, so you better pick the journey you really want and have a clear understanding of what it is you want to create.

Always listen to good advice, and at the same time, listen to good critiques – but you have to make your own decisions. I wouldn’t tell anybody that ASB is the best school because you have to figure out what the best school is for you based on who you are. For me, ASB is the best school because I think that it is the best fit for me.

It’s no small feat for any woman to hold a position in a competitive, corporate environment. Even as workplaces continue to incorporate more gender diversity in their hiring – women still face down glaring odds when it comes to securing leadership or management roles. The Fortune 500 list of companies see only 8% of women as CEOs.

But with the help of a heightened emotional capacity and perceptiveness – Gillian Ng, Senior Director of Corporate Governance at the ASB Iclif Executive Education Center (Iclif) believes that any woman can rise to top positions. Gillian sat down with South China Morning Post (SCMP) for the Women of Our Time conference to discuss how women can continue to leverage their existing skill sets in order to be more recognized in the workplace.

Leading with preparation and emotional intelligence

“I was once invited to sit on an international panel once in Bangladesh, and I did all my research,” Gillian starts. “I was sitting on a panel with 4 other men. And when I was asked questions, I would provide a lot of supporting facts and figures. At the end of the panel, the chairman, who was a man, made a remark – he said, ‘You can trust a woman to come prepared with all this information.’”

This illustrates just one of the many situations where she had an upper hand because of her willingness to come prepared with hard statistics and proper reasoning before a meeting. In her experience, Gillian understands that women are wired very differently than men. This doesn’t put them at a disadvantage – rather, it provides a unique opportunity to provide a fresh perspective to challenges.

In a very different way, women can make their mark. As an example, Gillian shares a story from firsthand experience of a construction company facing a recurring challenge for many years. “They had senior project managers leaving every two years, and changing project managers so often is actually quite detrimental to the projects.” “When they had only men on the board, they could not find out what the key issue was with the project managers.

This changed when a woman joined the board.” According to Gillian, it was this woman who had the idea of taking a different perspective. She explains: “She started to probe into the ‘softer’ issues,” or what at Asia School of Business is called SMART skills.

Learn about the Smart and Sharp skills of the future

“Why was it that these project managers want to leave? Were they spending enough time at home? Did they have enough time with their children?” It was through this woman’s fresh outlook on things that she realized these project managers were giving up their jobs as they felt they lacked time with their family. Through working directly with the project managers on addressing these issues, the firm was able to improve retention rates, which had repercussions throughout the business.

Stories like these aren’t isolated incidents. Research by Korn Ferry – a leading human resources and organizational advisory firm – shows that women score higher compared to men on nearly all emotional intelligence competencies. These social competencies are directly correlated with leadership skills; paving the way for women to be leaders in their own right.

Women’s strengths in corporate governance

As the Senior Director of Corporate Governance at Iclif Executive Education Center, Gillian is no stranger to the intense demands of the business world. Underpinning the successful management of companies is good governance. It sets the guideline for how businesses, boards, and their respective chairpersons should be managed – according to moral values and principles of the company and its stakeholders.

In the midst of a turbulent economy, good governance also helps with mitigating new risks and obstacles. “We’ve had climate change, racial tensions, sustainability issues, issues with welfare standards for foreign workers and more,” explains Gillian. “At Iclif, we go back to the basics to build and inculcate ethical standards, which include good moral standards and integrity.”

Learn more about Iclif’s Corporate Governance programs: Discover courses tailored specifically for directors or individuals looking to effectively fulfil their fiduciary roles in a company. Find out about Iclif’s programs for equipping your top leaders today. Gillian explains that women, specifically, can play to their strengths in a Corporate Governance role.

“Women are very meticulous,” she says, drawing from her personal experience. According to Gillian, women have a tendency to go above and beyond reports and numbers – curious to know the real reason behind why certain things happen and why obstacles arise. Never taking anything at face value and asking the right questions to get to the bottom of issues are why women prosper in roles that rely on curiosity and emotional depth.

To normalize more women spearheading more projects or taking stronger stances in the boardroom, Gillian emphasizes the support needed by other women too. These include pushing other women to greatness albeit their insecurities, or even speaking up on behalf of a woman when she’s belittled or discriminated against.

“I’ve had deputy governors, assistant governors who were women. All of them were really good role models who told us that we’re not just filling up a ‘quota’ but because we can do the job well,” Gillian says, drawing from her own experiences.

Building a better future for all

At its very core, Gillian says that Corporate Governance is really about empowering the next generation of forward-thinking leaders; be those men or women. I tell my children: It’s hard to say what’s going to be important in the future. What we can do, however, is to inculcate good values in them so that they can navigate it,” Gillian says. “In that same way, our programs are focused on helping companies cultivate good ethical cultures and moral standards – which is the essence of good governance.”

“Knowing about leadership and actually leading are two different things,” says Muhammad Sabri Rawi, whose battle-tested experience in the corporate world with a global energy company eventually led him to hone in on his passion for developing people. Today, he teaches a range of leadership courses with the Iclif Executive Education Center at Asia School of Business (ASB-Iclif).

“I’ve seen that the most damaging thing that a company can do is to take a person who is severely lacking in leadership skills, and give him or her a senior position in the company, adds Sabri. Even under normal circumstances, leadership is already a complex and challenging undertaking. Over the years, best practices and toolkits forming conventional leadership wisdom have been developed to suit the contexts of their time.

However, as our world has become more interconnected than ever and we grapple with the unprecedented crisis of Covid-19, leaders need to come to terms with the fact that there is no playbook for the future. Digital transformation, agility, and resilience are the new buzzwords of the day.

And in an era that demands quick and decisive movement to address situations that rapidly evolve, the most effective leadership skills are what ASB calls SMART Skills, such as emotional maturity, adaptability, cultural and ethical literacy, strategic and critical thinking, and more.

Click here to learn about the Smart and Sharp skills of the future

These SMART skills are all criteria that are also used by investing experts to rate stocks that have been outperforming the S&P 500 – some growing by up to 20% – during the crisis. But in addition to the new skills leaders have to develop to face these massive disruptions, it is a leader’s integrity and deeply held principles that serve as an anchor for decision-making in unpredictable times.

“Leaders need to be proactive about shifting the world, or at least their environment,” says Dr Thun Thamrongnawasawat, Professor of Practice at ASB-Iclif and International Faculty Fellow at MIT. This drive is drawn from the core of an individual; their values and purpose.

Time and again, it has been proven that leaders and organizations are only as strong as their clarity of purpose. To help leaders equip themselves for the future, Sabri and Dr Thun will be running the flagship Emerging Leaders course from 9th to 12th May 2023 for leaders throughout all levels of the organization.

Helping Leaders Emerge and Harness Their Leadership Energy

“What the name of this course, Emerging Leaders, really suggests is that we have created an environment that allows the leader in you to emerge. We help people discover what is really meaningful to them, and by doing that, discover their unique leadership path,” Sabri says. “Leadership is the art of harnessing human energy to create a better future,” says Dr. Thun.

“Everything in the universe is energy – it is the smallest common denominator that ties all things together.” So it follows that a leader’s job is to “use this energy to bring their vision of a better tomorrow to life.” In the same vein, great leaders are also adept at empowering others to do this, by allowing them the freedom to do so, using a concept that Dr. Thun also teaches at ASB-Iclif: Freedom within the Framework.

When Freedom Gives Rise to New Opportunities

Working from home is one of the more significant changes to have occurred as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Conventionally, this newfound sense of freedom is in complete opposition to the comfortable structure that many leaders are used to. Dr. Thun, however, feels that this is an opportunity for leaders to experiment with levels of autonomy, and how this can contribute to long-term benefits.

Using Freedom within the Framework, Dr. Thun believes that a balance between providing employees with the flexibility to take control of how, where and when they work, and maintaining a high level of productivity, is possible. The key? It all ties back to the alignment of values and purpose, more specifically, finding the “sweet spot” between what drives individuals and what leaders are looking to achieve.

This requires mapping out said values and purpose and identifying those that overlap, while also avoiding stepping on “landmines”, “something another person values, but not something that you value”. When there is alignment, leaders can let go of micromanaging their teams, and trust that their teams understand the purpose and values of the team and organization. This frees up precious time and bandwidth for leaders, while also giving their teams the autonomy they crave.

Important Shifts for Leading in a Changed World

The change of mindset when it comes to autonomy and control is just one of the many shifts that leaders need to embrace today. The disruptions the pandemic has brought about are forcing many to rethink conventional leadership wisdom. For instance, the current climate favors speed over structure; agility and the ability to quickly pivot are more crucial to companies than strong hierarchy, protocol and multiple levels of deliberation.

Overcentralizing decision-making could slow down an organization’s ability to respond to a rapidly shifting environment, whereas empowering individuals to make the best decisions they can within given parameters would allow for more timely decision making. Effective leadership built on authenticity rather than authority, as well, is a shift that has become increasingly necessary.

In uncertain times, people crave connections to real human beings, not a commanding figure. Leaders who show up as themselves, a fellow human being facing the same uncertainties as they are, are more likely to earn the trust and loyalty of their people. Switching competition with collaboration, favoring clear and simple communications over complex directives, and the simple act of listening more, and talking less, are all essential shifts that can help leaders navigate the challenges of our current global crisis.

Gain the Skills You Need to Lead Effectively in Times of Change

There are no hard and fast rules in these times of hard and fast changes. Sustainable, inspiring and powerful leadership really boils down to solid, unwavering fundamentals anchored in: a purpose that continuously energizes you, a belief in the power of people, and personal values that act as both a beacon for others, and a source of strength for oneself.

A great way to discover, define and develop these elements is through ASB’s signature Emerging Leaders program. Running from 9th until 12th May 2023, this highly-experiential workshop equips leaders with actionable tools, strategies and insights to lead in the here and now – and beyond.

Recently, students at the ASB MBA program had the privilege to have a virtual coffee chat with Tomohiro Hamakawa (or Tomo, in short), Co-Founder of two social enterprises – Mana Earthly Paradise and Earth Company – to talk about what inspired him to pursue a path in sustainability. Eng Vin Shern, from the MBA for Working Professionals (MBA-WP) Class of 2022, shares a few of his takeways from the coffee chat.

Having traveled around the global, from the Tibetan plateau to the Indian drylands, Tomo had a job and lifestyle that many would envy, working with international NGOs like UNICEF, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and Kopernik, after graduating with a Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. But he decided to give all that up over a decade ago, and since 2008, he has been living with his wife and children in Bali and running his own social enterprises.

In 2014, Tomo was awarded the Dalai Lama’s Unsung Heroes of Compassion Award for his charitable efforts. Despite his accomplishments, he still has the passion and drive to pursue an entrepreneurial lifestyle. Throw in a loving family in that equation and you have a most enviable life, desired by many. By the time he had finished sharing about his life journey, I took away some valuable lessons we can all learn from.

Takeaway #1 – Happiness and contentment can be found in simplicity

One of the major turning points of Tomo’s life is when he took time off his busy mid-20s lifestyle in New York and moved to Fiji for a period of time. This brief interlude shaped his values from then on and set him on a path of social service that eventually led him to where he is today. He observed that despite the stark contrast of lifestyles in Fiji and New York, Fijians are clearly the happier, warmer, and more welcoming bunch.

This experience led him to reconsider his priorities in life. Status, wealth, and a high standard of living eventually became secondary to well-being, happiness, and a sense of community. This led him away from the path of a corporate, capitalistic lifestyle and towards the fulfilling life he leads today.

Takeaway #2 – Resistance and roadblocks are part of the journey

Finding a life of purpose and meaning requires facing challenges along the way. Sometimes, those challenges are closer to home than we would imagine. In an anecdote that many Asian children can resonate with, Tomo shared about how his father, a veteran commercial banker, had a hard time comprehending with his unconventional pursuits at first. This was part and parcel of the journey to clarify his path and his own priorities, even while facing discouragement.

Takeaway #3 – An energizing purpose is one that goes beyond self

Throughout his talk, I was struck by how much of an impact Tomo and his wife has made on their community, through their social enterprise. One of programs they run is called “Impact Heroes”, and it identifies, coaches, provides consultation and even fundraises to provide generous support to individuals who strive to make changes for the betterment of their communities.

I was impressed by the account of how well the company has worked with Ms. Bella Galhos, one of the Impact Heroes from Timor-Leste, to improve the social conditions for the people of her country. The program has been ongoing for five years, and with many other Impact Heroes selected, I can only imagine the positive ripple effect it will cause around the world.

Takeaway #4 – Sustainability involves practical considerations that must be embedded in design

A big question that many of us MBA students had for Tomo was about Mana Earthly Paradise, an eco-conscious hospitality experience for travelers to Ubud, Bali. Can a green resort really be profitable? While images of the sustainably-sourced furniture Tomo shared was beautiful to look at and the growth-dispose-growth food cycle of the meals prepared in the hotel provides a great story to share with resort guests, many of us wondered how profitable such an operation is, from an economic standpoint.

In response to that, Mr. Hamakawa shared that businesses who embrace green design are able to manage costs and expenses very effectively by embedding the concept as early as possible. Retrofitting an existing operation will not only be more expensive, it is also disruptive. In terms of demand, Tomo found that by taking an eco-friendly approach, demand for his resort was higher compared to more conventional competitors.

Takeaway #5 – Being an entrepreneur is Invention + Commercialization

The “cult of the entrepreneur” and “hustle culture” of our generation makes it all too easy to get caught up with trends or perhaps peer pressure to “follow your dream”. I myself am guilty of that, having started a recycling operation early in my career only to realize having the guts to drive around in a 5-tonne truck doesn’t make you an entrepreneur.

Bill Aulet, Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and Professor of the Practice at MIT Sloan, recently highlighted the importance of commercialization in our MBA entrepreneurship class.

I think that was what I was lacking in my entrepreneurial stint, while Earth Company is thriving because they understand this. Earth Company has a wholesome commercialization plan to allow this social enterprise to sustainably carry out its mission of creating change for a better future for communities.

In conclusion…

While there is certainly no universal definition of success, for many of us, our guest speaker Tomohiro Hamakawa is successful on multiple levels, from work, to family, to personal fulfilment. In retrospect, it seems like his Fiji experience was a key turning point for him, personally and professionally. For those of us enrolled in this transformative and life-changing MBA program, many of us, I think, are hoping to encounter that one moment that will become the turning point for our lives.

The late Steve Jobs famously said that “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” In the case of my future, I trust that the DOT that I chose to place in ASB will be an inspiring and life-changing one.

While it was the accounting scandals of 2001 to 2002 that gave prominence to corporate governance, the function remains as important as ever. In light of Covid-19 and the uncertainties it created for companies globally, new themes have emerged for corporate governance. From determining how to best preserve cash to reviewing plans for keeping employees safe, the pandemic has upended the way boards have made routine decisions. Yet the core principles of integrity, ethical behavior, transparency, and respecting the rights of all stakeholders remain the same.

“In light of border closures and lockdowns, layered with geopolitical tensions and trade wars, boards need to think about: Preparing to face the new normal and understand the future of work; Planning for new emerging risks and stay ahead of the curve; Enforcing force majeure clauses; Understanding the cybersecurity concerns of working from home; Assisting management in addressing crisis-related issues, and other related issues,” explains Gillian Ng, Senior Director of Corporate Governance at ASB’s Iclif Executive Education Center (ASB-Iclif).

Additionally, 2020 saw growing public outcry against systemic issues, from racial discrimination, to worker welfare standards, continued environmental degradation, and others. Asian companies like Top Glove, the world’s largest natural rubber glove exporter, faced government scrutiny and public backlash over poor worker conditions while the pandemic raged. Meanwhile, global companies like the British-Swedish AstraZeneca faced public condemnation for working with a Chinese entity that has been repeatedly accused of bribery.

Even as companies fight for survival, boards are simultaneously forced to grapple with questions of public responsibility.

In Asia, growing focus on anti-corruption

Covid-19 has accelerated the importance of good governance, but this trend has already been growing in recent years, with governments across Asia taking firmer action against corruption. In Southeast Asia, Malaysia established a National Anti-Corruption Plan (NACP) 2019-2023, while in Vietnam, a new Anti-Corruption Law was enacted in 2019, with the ruling party expressing renewed pledges to fight corruption in 2021.

In China, the same trend is seen, with Shanghai’s 2021 Anti-Unfair Competition Regulations introducing an unprecedented legal requirement for companies to have a compliance program, and aligning Chinese companies with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the U.K. Bribery Act. With regulations becoming more stringent, boards across Asia are focused on ensuring they are prepared for these changes.

Equipping Asia’s business leaders to govern well

Supporting companies across Asia to meet the changing demands of corporate governance, ASB-Iclif offers programs and a certificate track to equip board members, leaders, and professionals working in the area of risk management, compliance, legal and other corporate governance areas.

The Iclif Executive Education Center is well-positioned for this task, having developed a robust curriculum focused not only on compliance, but on the role of corporate governance as part of a holistic business strategy and a source of competitive advantage. Research has shown that strong governance and low corruption engenders trust and creates an environment for investment and growth, such as that of Hong Kong and Singapore.

For instance, through examination of a data set of bilateral foreign direct investment in the early 1990s from 14 major source countries to 41 host countries, Shang-Jin Wei of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government found clear evidence that corruption in host countries discourages foreign investment (1997). This includes corruption in East Asia (which is popularly seen as an outlier when it comes to strong economic growth despite perceived levels of corruption).

Once researchers controlled for the size of East Asia (being one of the world’s fastest growing markets) and also the low wages paid in these countries (which make it more attractive to investors), they found that investors are just as averse to corruption in East Asia as elsewhere. “Our competitive edge is that we do more than just provide information in the programs we deliver.

We emphasize on changing behaviors. When you join a corporate governance course by the Iclif Executive Education Center, you leave with tangible takeaways which you can immediately start implementing,” says Ng. As an example, Ng explains, “When our FIDE program was first rolled out in the year 2008, we had bank supervisors give feedback that they were able to see changes in the way board members asked questions and addressed issues, just by reading the Board minutes.”

A big draw for attendees is the opportunity to learn from and consult with a formidable lineup of faculty who are practitioners themselves. Several faculty members also have taught at leading institutions including Harvard Business School and NUS Business School. “Although our faculty are trained internationally, they all have experience in the ASEAN region. Drawing from our local expertise, we discuss Asian- and Malaysian-focused case studies in all of the programs we offer,” says Ng.

The ASB-Iclif faculty’s accomplishments range from being involved in formulating the Singapore Code of Corporate Governance, to developing corporate governance scorecards in ASEAN, working with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, serving in board and C-level roles, and advising central banks, financial institutions, sovereign wealth funds, and multinationals, among others.

“Our participants are very experienced and educated, and enjoy learning from the war stories of our faculty,” Ng adds. Ng herself has had a track record of almost 20 years in corporate governance, branching out from auditing, risk management, forensic investigations and anti-corruption work.

Despite Covid-19 bringing new issues to the board’s attention, “The foundation of good corporate governance remains: having good ethical values inculcated clearly from the top and engrained into the culture of the entire organization.”

As a testament to ASB-Iclif’s program quality, the Central Bank of Malaysia made the ASB-Iclif Financial Institutions Directors’ Education program mandatory for all financial institution directors in the country. Additionally, ASB-Iclif runs the Mandatory Accreditation Program which is mandated for all new directors of public-listed companies in Malaysia.

For those moving into key governance roles, ASB-Iclif’s wide range of Corporate Governance programs equips them to fulfill their duties more effectively and manage the dynamics within the boardrooms, to respond to a fast-changing world.

Learn more about the Iclif Executive Education Center’s Corporate Governance programs >

Read the full article here.
This article was originally published on South China Morning Post.

ASB x Vase.ai Study on Customer Centricity in Malaysia 2021

The world has been in constant turmoil for much of this past year, the first five weeks of 2021 has been a rollercoaster full of unusual events. We’ve developed a deeper sense of empathy toward one another as many of us share similar experiences during these trying times. From a siege on the US capitol, to the dramedy of the Gamestop/Robinhood chaos, to blockchain currencies fluctuating erratically thanks to Elon Musk, more than ever, there is a large sense of unpredictability within the business world.

A few of the most critical stakeholders and allies in navigating 2021 are our customers: putting current and prospective customers first in all of the strategic decisions. And 2021 can be the year to prove the true value of Customer Centricity What does this all mean for Malaysian companies? What is customer centricity and how do we organize it? To get a deeper understanding on how firms perform, Asia School of Business (ASB) and Vase.ai have recently partnered together to run a Malaysian Customer Centricity Study.

Method: How do we measure Customer Centricity?

Together, we ran a survey based on well-cited studies conducted in the US, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, and Italy. Besides measuring the Market Orientation and Customer Centricity, the survey is also based on (1) the Influence of the Marketing Department, (2) the capabilities of the Marketing Department, (3) the connections with the Top Management Team, and (4) the degree of collaboration with other departments, such as Sales and Finance.

‘We have received 37 valid reports from 12 Conglomerates, 15 MNC subsidiaries and 10 SMEs. These companies operate in many (23) different industries, ranging from Construction (5), Property (4), and F&B (4). 60% of the companies we studied reported to have a Marketing Department.

Findings: How Malaysian brands are performing

The preliminary results of our study can be summarized into 7 main findings:

1. There is a wide variety in Customer Centricity: 57% of the companies placed Customers among their Top 3 stakeholders. The group most prioritized is Investors/Owners/Shareholders with 81.1% in the top 3.

2. The more Market Orientated firms are, the better the Business Performance: Among our respondents, we find a clear correlation between Market Orientation (as a measure of Customer Centricity) and their reported superior business performance. Among highly market-oriented firms, 52% have a superior business performance, whereas 22% of the firms with low marketing orientation perform above their peers.

3. Marketing Departments have a strong influence within the firms: Overall, we find that Marketing Departments are influential on the marketing decision domains, like advertising messages (47%), loyalty & relationship measurements (46%), Segmenting-Targeting-Positioning (37-42%), customer satisfaction & service (35-38%). All of these percentages are higher than other departments.

4. Marketing Departments have moderate Strategic Influence (at par with other departments): In more strategic and general domains (geographic expansion, new product development, corporate strategy and IT/digitization), we see that the Marketing Department is just as important as other departments. This sort of pattern is common and very similar to other international benchmark studies.

5. Influence of the Marketing Department comes down to three capabilities: 3 of the 5 capabilities make Marketing Dept. influential: (1) agility, (2) accountability, and (3) customer connectedness. Malaysian firms in our sample perform high on these Marketing Dept. capabilities compared to international benchmarks. Creativity is also scored very high, but innovative ability is (unfortunately) not, and scored under par.

6. There is Limited Access to the Top Management Team (TMT): While the CEO background (16%) and hierarchical position of the Marketing Department (2 steps away) is at par with international benchmarks, marketing is still poorly represented in the TMT. 33% of the companies do not have a marketing representative in the top management team. Only 40% of the top management teams have monthly or more frequent updates on marketing performances.

7. The collaboration and coordination with other departments can be improved: Especially, interactions with the Sales department are related with “problems” and “hindrance” to reach objectives. What is critical for developing further Customer Centricity is the collaboration with Finance, on setting CC-based KPIs, related to Customer Lifetime-Value (CLTV).

Recommendations: How can Companies become more Customer Centric?

Given the 7 preliminary findings of the study, we can provide the following advice moving forward.

1. Not everyone in the company is a marketer: Don’t assume everyone in your organization understands Customer Centricity (CC). CC often gets confused with being kind and available to clients. CC is more than just about serving clients, CC is about recognizing that all customers, along with their wants and needs, will vary. You have to determine which aspects are more valuable (“some of them appreciate our offerings more than others do”) and creating products and services targeted around those customer groups (“we can create products and services that serve those valuable groups better.”)

2. Assess the organizational readiness: Take a closer look at our “Organizing for Customer Centricity” Model, based on international benchmarks. Determine where you and your organization are in terms of Market Orientation, Marketing’s Influence, Marketing Department’s Capability, Connection with TMT, and assess how this applies to your firm and industry.

In the case of low customer centricity:

3. Start by treating customer groups as assets: Build Marketing Department strategies to determine the value of the different customer groups, based on Customer-Lifetime-Value.

4. Create an entrance into the top management team: Once you build your CLTV modeling, share your insights with a TMT member who is critical in building a “coalition” to enter CC into the corporate agenda.

5. Maintain regular TMT conversations on marketing: Marketing’s Influence is further solidified by the regular connections it has built with the TMT.