Ajay Manissery Konchery
Group Head of Diversity and Inclusion
Swire Group

Ajay MK is the Group Head of Diversity and Inclusion at the Swire Group. Prior to joining Swire, he was the HR Director for the Asia Pacific division at Colgate Palmolive, based in Hong Kong. In that role, he was responsible for leading all aspects of HR for a diverse workforce across twenty countries, including management of labour and employee relations in fifteen factories and overseeing implementation of all labour standards. His previous leadership roles in Colgate Palmolive include Executive Vice President – HR for South Asia and member of the Risk Management Committee in the Board of Directors (based in Mumbai), HR Director – Global IT & Business Services (based in New York City) and HR Director – South ASEAN region (based in Kuala Lumpur). He holds master’s degrees in Psychology and HR Management, and is a published poet and fiction writer.

Alisha Fernando
Head of Diversity and Inclusion, APAC
Bloomberg

Alisha Fernando is the Head of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) across Asia Pacific at Bloomberg. Alisha is responsible for overseeing the diversity and inclusion strategy with a strong focus on delivering programs and initiatives that support enterprise-wide D&I goals and regional priorities to drive change across the organisation.

Alisha and her team provide coaching and guidance to senior executives and leaders, and collaborate across teams at Bloomberg to deliver solutions that promote an inclusive and equitable workplace and engage employees in 24 offices across 17 countries.

Alisha has also been recognised as a top D&I strategy, programs, and initiatives at the University of Melbourne. She previously spent most of her career at the Australian and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), where she served as the firm's Inclusion Program Manager.

Alisha earned a Bachelor of Business, Banking, and Finance at Monash University. 

Betty Chan, FCIPD
Director of Human Resources (Group Organisation Development & Talent)
CLP

Betty currently works as the Group Head of Organisational Development and Talent Management at the CLP Group. She designs and executes effective strategies and programs to build talent, culture and capabilities to achieve sustained profitable growth.  She partners with the executive teams and the Board to progress CLP’s long-term organisational development in line with our Climate Vision 2050.

Prior to CLP, Betty has worked in a similar capacity with other global blue-chip companies enabling high growth high stake situations such as M&A, business model disruption, right-sizing, digitalisation.  A trained psychologist, Betty brings with over 20 years of cross sector experience from banking, biopharma and engineering at group and regional levels. Based out of Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK, she has deep experiences in leading change across regions in AsiaPac (& China), Europe and the Americas.

Betty is a passionate advocate in social mobility and the wider DEI and ESG agenda.  Since 2022, she has volunteered as a SteerCo member in the ‘Girls Go Tech’ program at The Women Foundation, promoting access and inclusion in STEM across the communities.

Helen Colquhoun
Partner
Head of Employment, Asia
DLA Piper 

Helen Colquhoun is triple qualified in New York, England and Wales, and Hong Kong. She advises employers across a range of industries on both contentious and non-contentious employment issues such as investigations, restrictive covenants, risk management, acquisitions, restructuring, managing employee hiring and terminations, design of incentive schemes, and drafting contracts and handbooks. Helen frequently advises overseas employers on their operations in Hong Kong, including in relation to sensitive and/or C-suite terminations, secondments, dual contracts, enforcement of restrictive covenants, investigations and general HR matters. Helen also routinely oversees regional APAC projects that require advice on local law nuances, trends and approaches on a range of issues, including restructurings, policy roll outs and outsourcing arrangements.

Kirti Lad
Founder & Executive Director
Meraki Executive Search & Consulting Limited

Kirti Lad is Founder and Executive Director of Meraki Executive Search & Consulting Limited. Meraki has a very clear strategy and purpose: to increase and improve female participation in the workforce at the most senior levels.

Kirti's expertise is in leadership hiring and development of both non-executives and executives across this Asia Pacific region. Kirti is a Physics & Chemistry graduate from University College London (UCL) and has worked in executive search and leadership consulting for over 20 years.

Kirti is the pioneer behind the Women's Directorship Programme, a joint-venture with The University of Hong Kong Business School.Kirti also leads the Meraki Network, an Executive Women's network in the region, is a regular speaker and contributor to conferences and media relating to gender diversity in Asia and is an active member of the Women in Business Committee at the British Chamber in Hong Kong.

Kirti was named as one of the Global Top 50 Diversity Professionals in Industry by the Economist Magazine over multiple years.

Kirti is the mother to two amazing children who have also found their purpose at such a young age by representing HK at the Children’s General Assembly in Billund.