Cover Photo: Daniel Adams/Tatler Malaysia
Photo: Daniel Adams/Tatler Malaysia
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The business and sustainability advisor at Maybank and chair of the 30% Club Malaysia draws on more than 30 years of experience to reflect on the changing face of leadership
In June 2023, Malaysia became one of just four emerging markets globally to achieve more than 20 per cent female representation on the boards of its top 100 public-listed companies (PLCs), with women holding 30.6 per cent of board seats in the top 100 PLCs listed on Bursa Malaysia and almost 25 per cent of seats in all PLCs, according to data from the Securities Commission of Malaysia.
It’s a significant milestone, considering that in 2021, Bursa Malaysia required all PLCs to appoint at least one female board member by June 1, 2023. All this is meant to get closer to a tipping point (30 per cent, in this case) that researchers say is a necessary stepping stone towards greater inclusion in the corporate world.
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Above Photo: Daniel Adams/Tatler Malaysia
Photo: Daniel Adams/Tatler Malaysia
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“Numerous studies have shown that companies with more diverse boards tend to outperform and are ahead on achieving their climate action goals. Investors are likewise scrutinising boards for their diversity,” says Dato’ Ami Moris, chair of the 30% Club Malaysia, an organisation geared towards helping more women reach board seats and other senior leadership positions in corporate Malaysia.
“Now that we’ve achieved this milestone of what we call the 30 per cent tipping point, we’re now trying to make sure that 30 per cent female representation exists at every PLC, every boardroom and also at C-suite levels. It’s easy to just hit these numbers without having the real decision-makers at the table, but it’s a start to set us on the path to gender parity, which means 50 per cent.”
The implications, Moris says, extend beyond benefiting women and girls alone, but the nation as a whole. “Gender diversity is just part of the building blocks towards what we want to achieve, in terms of realising every single human’s potential. That’s what inclusion really is,” she adds.
A senior leader herself with 30 years’ experience in the financial services industry—over a decade of which was spent in Maybank’s management team—Moris is determined to help equip emerging leaders for the demands of a highly competitive and rapidly evolving industry.
Here, she reflects on the positive changes she’s seen in the leadership sphere and her top takeaways that future directors and board members should know.
From profit-driven leadership to purpose-driven leadership
“When I first took on a senior role at Maybank, a key difference in leadership styles then compared to now is that back then, it was almost totally driven by for-profit,” Moris says. “We were very performance-focused, our KPIs and how we were assessed used metrics of what is typically called returns on shareholder values. Fourteen years on, I’ve seen a shift ever since the bank implemented the corporate mission of ‘Humanising financial services’ in 2010. We looked at where we wanted to be over the next ten years and what we stood for, which is for the community, based on our ‘coffee shop’ beginnings in 1963. That’s where the humanity component came in, and that’s where I saw the biggest shift in my former leadership style.”
Moris adds that the debut of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 provided a much-needed framework for corporates to amplify their positive societal impact.
Above Photo: Unsplash
Photo: Unsplash
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“The SDGs were pertinent and relevant for financial perspectives because they changed the goals that have driven investors,” she says. “As a for-profit organisation, you want to do good without being unprofitable. In other words, being profitable needs to happen in order for you to generate the financial capital that enhances returns on social capital.”
Serving as Maybank Investment Banking Group’s CEO from 2018 to 2022, Moris learned to value human capital as well as financial capital. “The term ‘human capital’ isn’t meant to deem people as robotic or bionic,” she explains. “It’s more about the re-appropriation of personal agency. Before, I may not have been allowed to the table where the biggest decisions are made because I may not have had financial capital. Today, I bring to the table my own human capital, my experience, which is instrumental in elevating, enhancing, and amplifying your corporate agenda. It’s capital that is me as a person or us as a collective of individuals who shape businesses and bring success to organisations. We’ve come to realise that the human capital equation enables the kind of financial capital that produces positive societal impact.”
To me, the concept of human capital puts back my ability to decide if I want to be at this table or if I should walk out the door. This is what some people call the ‘great breakup’, where more women are realising their value and that they're not just a number or quota in the HR folder
Keeping the 'hilltop' view
Above Photo: Unsplash
Photo: Unsplash
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The highly competitive nature of the modern industry and the sheer workload to keep up with demands pose a big challenge to leaders, which is losing their ability to think like a leader.
“In business leadership, the challenge at a professional level is that you are so ingrained in this world–so focused on doing business and seeing to operational issues, client-facing issues, investments to upscale or rescale–that you lose that ability to be strategic. You lose that position at the hilltop, the vantage point where you, as a leader, must lead,” says Moris. “I was from the generation that was tasked with coming up with answers. Now, my leadership journey has evolved from that to asking the right questions, being strategic, and having that 360-view that guides other men and women forward.”
The trap of trying to be perfect
Having set a high bar for herself professionally with the added pressure from the highly competitive financial services sector, Moris admits that she had to endure a lot, including grappling with fear of inadequacy and feeling like she didn’t belong. Acknowledging that these struggles made her the leader she is today, she notes that there were other pressures that, in hindsight, were not as pivotal.
“My biggest challenge, I think, was that I was very much caught up in the stereotypes of what a successful woman needed to look like, sound like, or talk like. As a woman, you should enjoy being fashionable when you go to work and enjoy looking how you want to look rather than dressing to fit a certain look or expectation. Dressing professionally doesn’t just mean wearing a boring black suit. As a woman and an overachiever, I had this overarching sense of responsibility that said you must look a certain way and do really well at everything–at school, at work, at home. It’s like asking a person to juggle 20 balls all at once and not drop a single one. It’s an impossible ask.”
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The courage quotient and creating new norms
Above Jason Sudeikis and Hannah Waddingham in Apple TV's 'Ted Lasso' (Photo: Apple TV+)
Jason Sudeikis and Hannah Waddingham in Apple TV's 'Ted Lasso' (Photo: Apple TV+)
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Traits like IQ and EQ are highly valued and essential in successful leaders today. But there’s an additional element that Moris says is just as important.
“My dad used to tell me, ‘You can have your opinions, but you don’t have to walk as if you know where you’re going all the time’. But I think it’s important for us to have courage and be bold as leaders. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. This is much more acceptable today than it was before. Be your own true north, and you will find that courage within you.”
Referencing the Emmy award-winning Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso, Moris applauds the idea of creating new norms and breaking stereotypes in the workplace. “To me, Ted Lasso is about breaking norms and powering up new norms. It’s about a woman who becomes the owner of an English Premier League football club. She’s not your typical club owner, she appreciates fashion and is stylish herself, and she brings in an American football coach to take charge of this EPL football team. It’s a phenomenal show about how norms are broken, and it tells me that the new woman of today needn’t be afraid but be courageous because there’s a proliferation of new norms out there.”
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Previously contributing to Esquire Malaysia, Expat Lifestyle and Newsweek, Tania oversees digital stories across Tatler’s key content pillars, also leading the Front & Female platform exploring issues and topics affecting women today.
