Women on Boards NZ CEO, Lesley Whyte says the WOBNZ Women in Governance Award dinner on 17th July at Villa Maria Estate will play host to four young Korean women from Handong University in Pohang, Korea. These young women are entrants in the LG Global Challenger competition; the first and oldest overseas expedition program for Korean undergraduates.
Whyte was approached by the team leader So-youn Jang, who along with fellow team members Dasom Yoo, Won-hee Jang and Seoyoung Cho showed great interest in meeting and interviewing her. We have gone one step further and invited them to meet our establishment board, attend the awards dinner and be hosted by the Massey University gender diversity studies team as part of their two-week visit.
This well-knit team has called themselves “stick” (a stick to shatter the glass ceiling of Korea). So-youn Jang says “the reason why we have named ourselves ‘stick’ is because we have gathered to investigate about our country’s women power and the existing glass ceiling: whether it is breakable or not. A stick may not seem to be strong enough to break the glass ceiling but if you keep hitting hard, eventually the glass would crack and shatter.
Korea's new elected Prime Minister is a woman and strengthening gender equality has been an ongoing process for many years, however the statistics show that we are still facing inequality. Hence, we believe that we must learn abroad from New Zealand, a country already passed through all the processes and stands bold in gender equality.
Korea and NZ are the only countries in the whole world that have a Ministry for Women. They are the countries with most interest in women’s rights, however the OECD glass-ceiling index differs significantly, with NZ first and Korea last according to 2012 research.”
This evening is being heralded as a success, not only with these young women attending the awards dinner but also our sponsors; major sponsor NEXT Magazine, and award sponsors Altris Limited, Trelise Cooper Boardroom and Sport New Zealand. Our research partner Colmar Brunton CEO Jacqueline Ireland is our guest speaker and will discuss recent findings in the area of gender diversity and Professor Brigid Heywood returns as our MC for the evening.
Whyte says she is extremely pleased that the nominations being received are of a high caliber and encourage more women to place nominations before the closing date of June 3rd. Nomination form and eligibility can be found at
http://wob.org.nz/events/the-women-in-governance-awards.html