What I Learnt from The New Savvy’s First Conference in Hong Kong

WE DID IT!

Wrap-up of The New Savvy’s first The Future is Female conference in Hong Kong

Original article: https://thenewsavvy.com/countries/hong-kong/the-future-is-female-hongkong/

“It’s great to see an event like The New Savvy really take off in Hong Kong. We need more education and open honest conversation around financial literacy among women, and it was incredible to be in such a safe and welcoming space at the conference for women from all professional backgrounds and experience levels.” Surmayee Tetarbe – Partnerships Manager – Sassy Media Group

Q3 was an exciting quarter at The New Savvy. On 14 Sep, we held our very first international edition of The Future is Female conference. As some of you may know, our conference is Asia’s largest female-only financial, investment and career conference, and we were proud that we have taken our first step in bringing this to an international audience.

Why Hong Kong?

Singapore and Hong Kong share many similarities, including:

• Ease of conducting business
• Access to capital
• Modernity, in terms of mindset towards gender equality

We believe that women in Hong Kong are ready to have conversations about financial matters and how they can further boost their careers. This is why we decided to bring our expertise – gained from our experience running female-focused events – to Hong Kong in September.

Before we knew it, the team and I found ourselves at the Campfire Collective Spaces! Special shout-out to our event sponsors for making this possible.

Through our event, we gathered a total of 160 women and 50 speakers. Our impact on younger women is large, as 71% of our attendees were within the ages of 25 to 44. Most of them are professionals and entrepreneurs, who benefited from over 12 hours of valuable content and networking.

“What an empowering event that is a true game-changer in further inspiring the strength of being female”.

– Natalie, Little Steps Asia

In case you missed our event, we collected three key learnings from our participants.

Key Learnings

1. Investing is personal

There is no one-size-fits-all formula for investing. Each individual would have different priorities and risk appetites, and this, in turn, would shape their investment strategy.

To kick-start your investment journey, here are some questions you can ask:

• How much capital am I prepared to invest?
• What are my investment goals?
• When do I want to achieve these goals by?

With these three guiding questions in mind, start reading up and talking to people well-versed in personal finance. Start by investing a smaller sum of money, and once you’re comfortable, you can adjust your investment amount accordingly!

• The importance of personal brand in the digital world

In a society like Hong Kong or Singapore, nearly everyone would own a smartphone and have accounts on platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Your digital presence can give you an edge over others as you work towards your career goals, be it to get that coveted promotion or a job at your dream company.

Here are some tips to bear in mind as you grow your digital presence:

• Be consistent: this means showing your consistent enthusiasm is certain industries, maintaining a professional tone and even being consistent in your posting schedule!
• Be positive: while it is alright to discuss setbacks online, do avoid negative comments towards stakeholders in the matter
• Be helpful: the online community is powerful because we can connect with people whom we’ve not met before! As far as possible, do try to answer comments especially if they are seeking help based on what you’ve written
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• Make it big as a young adult (yes, it’s possible!)

In today’s context, it is possible for young adults to achieve their career and personal goals at a young age.

Here are some tips to get started:

• Be true to who you are: acknowledge your interests (or lack of interest!) in certain industries, recognise your strengths and weaknesses before diving head-first into your new role or project
• Be realistic about the resources you have on hand: take a step-by-step approach towards achieving your career goals, and be cautiously ambitious every step of the way. Dreaming big without the right resources would not give you the best results
• Ask for help: it is okay to ask for help from more experienced professionals. This is why networking is important, you will never know who you meet and how they can help you along the way!

If you found this useful, do keep an eye out for more events by The New Savvy in 2019!

Pssst….. For our first Hong Kong conference, we worked with over 30 partners (such as Sassy Media, St James Place, etc…) to ensure that we could reach out to more women. 50 social media posts and at least 100,000 views later, we consider our event-coverage an achievement!

“Financial feminism is a topic that’s rarely addressed in the male-dominated world of finance and investment management, so naturally The New Savvy’s “The Future is Female” conference was a breath of fresh air! The panel sessions were engaging, empowering and informative, exactly what the women of Hong Kong need.”

Mridula Narayan | Marketing Manager – Infinity Financial Solutions Ltd

Leave a comment below if you have any questions or suggestions!