Director and Executive Officer, CMA CGM Group
Tanya Saadé Zeenny at the Women's Forum 2022 - Skills and education in the race for humanity
Leading a family business with responsibilities – towards the environment, peace and solidarity. On November 29, 2022, Tanya ...
Transcript (20 segments)
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Host0:14
Thank you. Well, it gives me great pleasure now to introduce to all of you Juliana Chan, CEO of Wild Type Media, and the panelists for this session: Skills and Education in the Race for Humanity. Please welcome Juliana Chan.
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Juliana Chan1:01
Thank you.
Welcome, take a seat. I'm looking for Lily in the screen — is she going to appear? Ah, there she is. Good morning everyone, welcome to the conference. So how do we get more women a seat at the table? My name is Juliana Chan and I'm the CEO of Wild Type Media Group, a company I founded to promote science communication across Asia, and I will be your moderator today. As a mother of two young children, one of whom is a girl, and a former university professor, I think it is safe to say that education is the great universal leveler. Governments, universities, foundations, and corporations like those represented by our speakers have done all they can to make education affordable, accessible, and sometimes even free. But the world has changed. As change accelerates, we can no longer depend on a three- to four-year structured university degree — that is not enough because we'll be working for the next 50 years. We need skills, and that's why skills have become the next buzzword — bite-sized education for reskilling and upskilling as we move through our 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond. What are the skills and educational subjects we need to unlock positive outcomes in health, climate, and peace — the main pillars of the Women's Forum this year? How do we foster equality and close the gender gap? This is a very complex topic with no easy answers, but I have three distinguished speakers to help unpack it. I'll start with Professor Lily Kong, President of Singapore Management University, joining us from Singapore. Good morning, Professor Kong.
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Lily Kong3:47
Good morning, Juliana, and to my fellow panelists. Thank you very much for having me join virtually.
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Juliana Chan3:53
Thank you. And next we have Ms. Tanya Zeenny, Executive Officer of CMA CGM Group and President of CMA CGM Foundation. Good morning, Tanya, thank you for joining us. And of course we have Mr. Jean-Dominique Senard, CEO of Renault Group. Thank you for being a male ally. Thank you for joining us. Okay, I'd like to start by providing a little context. Maybe I'll ask Professor Kong to help us understand from the academic perspective: what do you think are the critical educational subjects and skills that we need to future-proof the youth for what is coming up next?
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Lily Kong4:46
Thank you for that question, Juliana. I have dedicated my life to education. In 2017–2018, I led a blue ribbon commission for undergraduate education at my university. The days when education provided knowledge content are gone — technology has made access to domain information so easy. When we thought about graduate learning outcomes, knowledge was only one of five areas we considered important. What's increasingly important is that students need to make connections across different domains of knowledge, integrate perspectives from different points of view. I'd like to focus on critical thinking skills and creative problem-solving skills that will stand students in good stead whatever the world throws at them. A third area is interpersonal skills — the ability to connect with people, to make your point heard in persuasive ways. A fourth area is a sense of global citizenship and intercultural skills. And finally, personal mastery — the ability to pick yourself up when you fall, resilience in the face of challenges, self-directedness. So the five areas are: domain and interdisciplinary knowledge, critical and creative thinking, interpersonal skills, global citizenship, and personal mastery.
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Juliana Chan11:31
Thank you so much, Professor Kong. That was the academic perspective. I now look to Jean-Dominique to give us the corporate perspective, representing a very large company, of course.
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Jean-Dominique Senard11:45
Thank you very much for having me. Professor Kong said so many important things. I'll give you a few hints of what I feel, especially when it comes to women. Women have very specific skills. I have always noticed that when the proportion of women increases in management teams, the atmosphere changes immediately — people are less nervous, less aggressive. Women have a very specific skill of understanding the characters of different people, which comes way above what men can do. When you have to promote somebody, the opinion of women is much more important because they get it right very often. Now, to the skills: autonomy and empowerment are the key for the future, notably in corporations. And courage — courage is the key in our world today. Courage is something missing very often. Women generally have far more courage than men in many circumstances.
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Juliana Chan15:34
When you talk about courage, Jean-Dominique, all I can think of is childbirth — you have to be courageous to undergo that, and it's pretty scary. Well, we have very interesting suggestions from Professor Kong and from yourself. I'd like to move on now to Tanya. You run CMA CGM, a very large family-owned organization with 150,000 employees worldwide providing sea, air, and land logistics solutions. CMA CGM focuses a lot on education. Why does the foundation support education around the world, and how are you doing so in particular with reference to girls? Tanya is going to speak from the podium over here — let's turn and look at her.
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Tanya Zeenny16:31
Thank you, thank you, Juliana. It's my very first time today at the Women's Forum, and I'm very proud and impressed by this audience. Women's empowerment is not only a matter of public policy — the business world has a very major role to play. At CMA CGM, we work in shipping and logistics, a traditionally male-dominated industry. We have to do something to improve the situation and lead our sector into more sustainable development. Our story is a human and family story. My father, Jacques Saadé, founded the company 45 years ago after escaping the war in Lebanon. The family business means we have responsibility for the environment, for peace, and for solidarity. Beyond economic performance, we have the responsibility to be useful to society. Women play a central role in all our societies, and our foundation uses our logistics expertise to provide humanitarian aid — we have transported more than 20,000 tons to countries like Yemen, India, Lebanon, and Ukraine. Eight out of ten leaders in local associations and NGOs are women. We also believe progress depends on skills and education. In Lebanon, we installed solar panels on roofs of 10 schools so children can attend without worrying about power cuts. In Côte d'Ivoire, we partnered with Magic System and recycled shipping containers to build our first school, welcoming 200 kids. And in Marseille, we created a social incubator supporting startups with social impact on education — half led and founded by women, including 'Meet My Mama,' which facilitates the reintegration of young women into society through cooking.
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Juliana Chan25:22
Thank you, Tanya, well done. [Applause] Please join us back at the seats. That has been wonderful — we've heard a lot about the good work done by CMA CGM outside the organization. I'd like to take our panelists back to within their organizations and ask: what have you been doing to promote upskilling and reskilling of your workforce in particular to support gender parity? Maybe we can begin with Professor Lily Kong.
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Lily Kong26:05
Very happy to speak to that. Universities traditionally work with 18-to-24-year-old students, and we've been very deliberate about ensuring scholarships and bursaries are available for women students with financial need, including from India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. We've set up a Student Success Center to support them, particularly first-generation college-goers. But I want to turn attention to adult workers — the half-life of knowledge has shrunk. When you graduate at 24 and work until 64 or 74, your learning needs to be refreshed. In Singapore, the government has invested heavily — every adult Singaporean is allocated 500 Singapore dollars to upskill. We offer courses in a blended way, with asynchronous online components so women can access material in their own time and space. The most important thing is that even while many policies are gender-neutral, the impact is not, and we need additional measures to make things accessible to women.
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Juliana Chan31:58
Thank you so much, Professor Kong. The SkillsFuture credit she's referring to — about 300 euros a year — is indeed for everyone. I think you can learn all sorts of things; my own mom took a course on how to sell things on Facebook Marketplace. Jean-Dominique, maybe you can share with us what you do at Renault.
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Jean-Dominique Senard32:23
I'm happy to share that. We are doing tremendous progress within the group. When you just count people, there are only 25 percent of women in Renault Group worldwide — but in the automotive industry, that's one of the highest performances. We should be proud. The 25 percent includes top management: 25 in the global board, 25 in the first 4,000 executives, and 25 in the first 11,000 people. The problem starts at the root — in engineering schools, there are very few women. The automotive industry is becoming much more attractive — our plants are totally digital, totally software-driven. We're running toward a different world where the assembly line is becoming secondary, and everything is software, digital, data, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence. We have specific training programs for middle management women. Networks within the company are open to women. At the very top, women training and promoting is at the first level of all our policies. The target of 30 to 35 percent of women at the top level over the next five to seven years is what we're working toward.
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Juliana Chan37:40
Thank you, Jean-Dominique. Very happy to hear that you are personally sponsoring the progress of women in your organization. We have only time for one last question, and that's to Tanya: how are you within your organization supporting the progress of women?
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Tanya Zeenny38:02
Thank you. In shipping and logistics, it's not very glamorous, so we have difficulties too. For our 150,000 staff members, training and learning are really essential to help evolve and imagine tomorrow's sustainable shipping and logistics. We have decided to create an innovative center of training and innovation, opening next year in Marseille, welcoming staff from around the world. Women are 43 percent of our workforce, but only 15 percent of our top 200 are women. The objective is to double that by 2025. Only 4 percent of our sailors are women — this has to change. We are doing a lot of training for female sailors and communicating to break gender stereotypes. At the head of our 11,000 sailors is a woman named Christine. We have one vessel captain today out of 11,000, but we are working hard to have many more. We have specific leadership programs for women, individual mentoring programs, and I personally follow 50 women in our group. I'm very happy to have some of them here today.
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Juliana Chan41:49
Thank you, Tanya. Well, we've run out of time, and I don't mean just our panel — we've run out of time to act. The time to act is now. If you have any suggestions for my speakers, they will be available at lunchtime, so please come up and talk to Tanya and Jean-Dominique. Of course, Lily's in Singapore. At this point, I'd like to thank my speakers for joining us this morning. Thank you, Lily, all the way from Singapore. Thank you, Tanya, and Jean-Dominique.
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Jean-Dominique Senard42:09
I have something to say, please. I have a special message for all of you in the audience, for all the women: if you are attracted by a family business driven by passion with very strong values, and this resonates for you — please, there is certainly a place for you in our company. So do not hesitate to come see me at the lunchroom.
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Juliana Chan42:43
Well done! Thank you very much. Thank you to our speakers.
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Host42:49
Thank you so much, Juliana, and to our wonderful panel. Thank you so much. Thank you, Lily, all the way from Singapore. Thank you so much. Thank you, Tanya. Thank you, Juliana. That was wonderful. Thank you so much.