Putting social impact at the core
Social sustainability is a cross departmental agenda from HR and CSR to ESG and Marketing, plus a big conversation in the boardroom. This requires a lot of resources, but is it strategic and improving your bottom line? This panel will dig deeper into the complexities of social impact in day-to-day business and help provide solutions on how your organisation can work smarter to achieve profit and purpose.
About the speakers
Benita Chick is the CEO and Founder of Encompass HK. A strong believer in community outreach, Benita works and advocates in professional as well as personal capacity for social causes with many different organizations. She has many citable experiences on collaboration with businesses, government, non-profits and youth on a wide range of advocacy projects.
Benita is educated with a B.A. from Cornell University and M.A. from Boston University. Her scholastic knowledge and practical skills in research, psychology, education and experiential-learning gave her a unique competence in corporate and organisational training. She is passionate in diversity and inclusion, having coached differently-abled individuals at Outward Bound Hong Kong, curated the city's first LGBTQ+ tour, organized HK's first Green Women Festival, a mentor for RESOLVE Foundation, to name just a few.
Benita founded Encompass HK in 2018 to realize her vocation for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through education and consultancy.
Benita's other community commitments include serving as a Board Member of Youth Arch Foundation and KELY Group, Education Director of Pink Alliance, mentor for HKUST HeadStart Fellows and Admission Interviewer for Li Po Chun United World College. She is also a part-time Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong on sustainability.
Catherine Dannaoui is a nonprofit leader with a communications and events background spanning over 15 years. As Executive Director of HandsOn Hong Kong, Catherine leads the team that empowers everyone in Hong Kong to volunteer—providing vital behind-the-scenes assistance to over 100 charities each year through more than 3,000 programs. Catherine has a passion for creating impactful community initiatives, empowering teams to reach their potential and moving people to take action. Since joining HandsOn in 2016, she has delivered talks to thousands of the city’s employees, families and students on the power of volunteering to address our social needs. Prior to joining the non-profit sector, Catherine led teams and ran flagship events at both OgilvyOne and The Economist Group. She holds a B.A. (Honours) in Communications from the University of Technology in Sydney.
Helen Amos, Sustainability Consulting Lead for Asia Pacific and Head of Sustainability Hong Kong has 20 years’ experience in the sustainability sector. She specialises in the development and implementation of decarbonisation targets and strategies for both operational and embodied carbon. She has a wealth of knowledge on how to face challenges in achieving carbon reduction in the real estate sector. She has also worked on a number of Social Return on Investment studies in Hong Kong and the UK, valuing the non-economic elements of projects to demonstrate the wider value projects have. Helen leverages her international expertise from delivering projects in Asia, Africa and the UK in commercial real estate, retail and industrial assets to drive measurable outcomes, working with both investors and occupiers.
Mark Saunders, after some 35 years in executive leadership positions in financial services, with 30-plus of those in Asia, and most recently 9 years as a Group Executive Committee member of AIA Group Ltd, the world’s largest life insurer, has now retired, … but not from contribution, now acting as a Senior Advisor to Blackstone, the leading global investment business, and to Teneo, a Global CEO Advisory firm, to help them both build their Asian businesses.
He also serves on the Executive Councils of the International Insurance Society and of the Actuarial Society of Hong Kong. He has been recently honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 26th Asia Insurance Industry Awards being described as “…a visionary leader who has contributed to the growth and development of the insurance industry across Asia”.
His previous roles were as Principal and Senior Managing Director for Towers Watson with overall responsibility for the firm’s Hong Kong business and Practice Leader for the Asia Pacific Insurance Sector serving on the Tillinghast Leadership Council. And prior to that he was Chief Executive Officer of Clerical Medical Investment Group in Hong Kong with responsibility for the Asian business.
About the moderator
Chris Brown has 20+ years of experience working on large-scale business events. Originally from the UK, Chris has lived and worked in Hong Kong since 2015.
The challenges of living sustainably while developing a greater understanding, and concern, for the threats of the climate emergency compelled Chris to “rethink” his own personal contribution and how he could best make a positive impact on Hong Kong.
Chris launched ReThink HK in 2019 – a new event concept for uniting the business and sustainability ecosystems, championing collective action and shared responsibility.
Chris’ experience in hosting healthcare events in the UK, where partnerships and collaboration were crucial to success, has provided the foundation to engage an extensive network of stakeholders to help scale ReThink HK. Now widely recognised as Hong Kong’s best attended event for the business of sustainability, +6,000 attendees expected this October, Chris has maintained the event’s impact pledge; with over HK$700,000 of delegate fees donated to projects with local charities, and has an ambition for event operations to be carbon neutral.
Chris received a BA in International Business and Italian from the University of Plymouth (UK), is a member of the BritCham’s Social Sustainability Committee, and sits on the ExCom and Sustainability sub-committee of the Hong Kong Exhibition & Convention Industry Association.
Return to home page
Register