Registration & Welcoming Refreshments

CWI Opening Remarks

The Future-Ready Leader: Influence, Innovation & Visibility in a Changing World

• Understand what drives leadership visibility, influence, and progression today.
• Strengthen executive presence and strategic leadership capability.
• Develop creative thinking and problem-solving skills for evolving business challenges.
• Build adaptability, innovation, and forward-thinking leadership habits.
• Lead change and transformation while maintaining team confidence and momentum.
• Break outdated thinking patterns that limit growth and organisational agility.
• Encourage curiosity, initiative, and continuous improvement within teams.
• Position yourself for greater leadership impact in fast-changing corporate environments.

Dr. Hjh. Yatela Zainal Abidin,
Chief Executive Officer, Yayasan Sime Darby

The Broken Rung: When the Career Ladder Breaks for Women — and How They Can Succeed in Spite of It

• What the “broken rung” means and why it remains one of the biggest barriers in women’s career progression and how early promotion and advancement gaps create longer-term leadership disparities.
• Common structural and organizational barriers women face across middle and senior management and the difference between performance, visibility, and influence in leadership advancement.
• Building sponsorship, strategic networks, and leadership presence and the practical approaches women can take to strengthen visibility and influence while leading authentically.
• How evolving workforce expectations, AI, and organizational transformation are reshaping leadership demands and the importance of adaptability, resilience, and people-centered leadership.
• What organizations and leaders can do to create more equitable leadership pipelines and move from awareness to action in supporting women’s advancement.
• Perspectives drawn from Vidhya’s experience advising organizations and leadership teams across Asia and actionable takeaways for emerging and established women leaders alike.

Vidhya Ganesan,
Managing Partner, McKinsey & Company Malaysia

Decision-Making Under Pressure: Leading with Clarity When the Stakes Are Unclear

• How women leaders can make confident, defensible decisions in fast-moving, high-pressure environments where information is incomplete and expectations are high. 
• Replaces over-analysis and hesitation with structured thinking, prioritisation frameworks and leadership accountability. 
• How to lead decisively without waiting for perfect clarity and how to stand behind decisions with authority.

Ros Aziah Mohd Yusoff,
Group Chief Technology Officer, CIMB Group

Coffee Break

Legacy and Succession: Building Leaders, Not Just Climbing Ladders

• True leadership impact is not measured by title, but by the leaders developed along the way. 
• Reframes ambition through the lens of legacy and explores how women leaders can build strong succession pipelines that sustain organisational growth beyond their own tenure. 
• Gain practical insight into identifying potential, developing talent, and embedding leadership growth into everyday leadership practice.

Veronika Utami,
Managing Director, Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad

Communicate To Influence: The Audience Journey

• You need to influence the thinking and the actions of your team, your leaders, your clients. When you deliver a message, you want to hold their attention from start to finish. You want to leave them transformed by your words. 
• Discover how you can use the mindset of movie directors to change the way your more important audiences think, feel and act. 
• Prepare for success in your next presentation or conversation. 
• Learn influence techniques from film directors. 
• Inspire audiences to change views or direction. 
• Use Marianna’s simple 4-step process for greater influence when you speak.
• Become a strategic storyteller. 
• Increase enjoyment of preparing presentations.

Marianna Pascal,
Top 10 TEDx Woman Speaker & Leadership Communication Specialist

Lunch Break 

Panel Session 1
Inside the CEO Seat: What It Really Takes to Rise, Lead, and Stay There

This panel goes beyond the polished narratives of leadership and into the realities of becoming and remaining a CEO. It explores the critical inflection points that shaped each leader’s journey from early career behaviours and defining opportunities to the moments where visibility, risk-taking, and decision-making accelerated their path to the top. Panellists will unpack what truly differentiates high-potential executives from those who are ultimately chosen for the CEO role including leadership signals, mindset shifts, and the often unspoken expectations at the highest level. The discussion will also examine what CEOs look for when identifying future leaders: the qualities, behaviours, and strategic thinking that signal readiness for enterprise leadership. From navigating internal politics to leading under pressure, this is an opportunity to understand how leadership is evaluated at the highest level of decision-making.

Moderator:

TBC,
TBC

Panelists:

Azizah Mohd Yatim,
INED, Franklin Templeton GSC Asset Management Sdn Bhd (FTGSC) and Timberwell Berhad (Public Listed company)

Dafinah Ahmed Hilmi,
Chief Executive Officer, Hong Leong Islamic Bank Berhad

Dr. Mazatul 'Aini Shahar,
Group Chief Executive Officer, MSM Malaysia Holdings Berhad

Emotional Intelligence: Leading with Clarity, Awareness, and Impact

• How emotional intelligence serves as a critical strategic tool to navigate complex, high-stakes corporate realities.
• Focuses on how leaders can read the room accurately without absorbing its emotional tax, deliver hard truths usefully, and command high-pressure conversations with absolute clarity and composure.
• Learn how to translate self-awareness into executive presence, choose the honest answer over superficial harmony, and build the structural nerve required to back your people and drive lasting impact.

Emeliana Rice-Oxley,
Independent Non-Executive Director (various companies), Coach, Indelible Me, Former VP Exploration Upstream, PETRONAS

Peak Performance & The High-Performing Mindset: Sustaining Excellence at Scale

• Learn how to strengthen mental resilience and discipline to drive consistent impact while navigating constant change and competing priorities.
• Develop practical strategies to strengthen execution and sustain high performance over time without losing momentum or leadership effectiveness.
• Gain tools to maintain focus and clarity when managing complex decisions and high expectations in demanding roles.
• Learn to optimize decision-making processes to ensure consistent results and long-term leadership impact.
• Explore techniques to sustain internal motivation and maintain a sharp focus on organizational goals despite high-pressure environments.

Shahrin Oli Mohamed,
Group Chief Technology Officer, Pos Malaysia and Independent Non Executive Director, Theta Edge Bhd

Coffee Break

The Influence Gap in Asian Leadership: How Women Leaders Navigate Visibility, Relationships, and Career Progression

• How leadership progression for women leaders in Asian corporate environments is shaped by a combination of performance, visibility, trust, and influence within organisational networks. 
• Highlights how leadership growth is increasingly supported by strong relationships, strategic presence, and the ability to navigate complex organisational dynamics.
• Gain insight into how influence is built and recognised.
• How women leaders can strengthen relationships, enhance visibility, and position themselves for advancement with confidence, authenticity, and leadership credibility.

Anna Yip,
Investor, Advisor and Board Director

Leading Across Generations: How to Change Everything Without Losing Everyone

• As organisations evolve, leaders are increasingly challenged to bring together people with different experiences, perspectives and expectations while navigating constant change. 
• This session explores how leaders can build trust, create cohesion and bring people along through transformation without losing the people, values and relationships that matter most.

Norhafizah Md Shariff,
Chief Financial Officer, Bank Simpanan Nasional

Closing Remarks - End of Day 1