Q&A with Community and D&I Committee Lead, Upma Arora

Hi Upma, welcome to the WOMAG Executive Board as Community and D&I Lead! What encouraged  you to apply for this role in particular?  

I am personally very passionate about women entrepreneurship and creating a safe space for women  founders to come together to discuss their challenges and explore opportunities. There are some fantastic  organisations which are doing amazing work around this, and WOMAG is one of the leaders that I happen  to know. I got a taste of what they were doing and especially enjoyed the work being done to develop future  women leaders, giving confidence and practical training for women to explore bigger opportunities. We as  women definitely have a very long way to go before we can see equal representation across the board.  

My interest in the position is driven from my personal passion and also having worked with WOMAG in the  past year. I strongly believe we need such communities to drive change and, in my eyes, WOMAG is the  right organisation to drive that change. 

Were you involved with WOMAG in the past? What encouraged you to apply as a Board member as  opposed to a volunteer? 

Yes, I first came to know about WOMAG through Erin Sweeney and Sarah Kerringan – both of which were  on the WOMAG Board last year - because of my work at LEVEL3. I have been working with Sarah to build  LEVEL3’s Sustainability Pillar - where we organize various events with Deloitte, where Sarah works - and  had an opportunity to bring WOMAG as an ecosystem partner at LEVEL3. It was a great experience to be  involved with WOMAG’s 'Where are the Women: Exploring Agripreneurship in Southeast Asia' campaign  last year and to meet other WOMAG volunteers.  

So when the Board member role came up I was excited and saw an opportunity to build a targeted  community of interest with various engagement activities. It offered an opportunity to work and learn with  some of the most experienced women in the region’s food and agritech space. It also complimented my  day job well. 

Speaking of which, what is your "day job" and how do you think it will help you in your role as  Community Lead with WOMAG? 

I am the General Manager at LEVEL3, Padang & Co where we build communities of interest through our  innovation hubs. LEVEL3 is a partnership with Unilever Foundry where we bring together startups,  corporates, and ecosystem partners to drive innovation and create new partnerships that deliver meaningful  business impact. At these hubs my team and I have been creating engagement programmes and events  that facilitate building a community where open and honest conversations can happen and where  opportunities are created helping companies create better businesses. 

I think my experience in working with Padang & Co has helped me understand how to create impactful  communities and build relationships, which is what I would like to bring to WOMAG. Not being afraid to  challenge the grassroot challenges for the women in agritech and pull together right ecosystem partners  who address these issues and provide right support is very important to me. 

According to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap 2020 report, at the current pace the  average time it will take for the gender gap to close in East Asia and the Pacific is a staggering 163  years. What change do you hope to see in the shorter term - let's say, within 10 years? 

Keep the door open! I once read that there are two types of women leaders: one who gets to a board  position and closes the door behind her, and one who keeps the door open to pull as many other women  in as possible... We need to keep the door open and open more doors.

We need to challenge the gender classification associated with roles – it’s not our gender but our skills that  define what we can do and can’t do. We need to talk about this in our organisations, among friends and  family and especially teach our children about gender neutral roles. 

We have to be more aware of our own conscious bias of how we define roles for the women and men we  work with. We have to think of cognitive diversity overall in workplaces, we need to create safe spaces at  work to be able to give feedback and raise hard without the fear of adverse consequence. Every small step  contributes to changing attitudes and we are trying to change centuries old systems. It will take time, but  we need to take steps everyday towards a more equal world. 

Want to learn more about or connect with Upma? You can find her LinkedIn profile here.