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Caroline Wang from Standard Chartered Bank
November 2009:
On September 1st 2009, for the kickoff of the Personal Development certification program in Shanghai in partnership with Euromed Marseille and Antai Business School at Jiaotong, a special guest speaker talked about how China is changing the field of talent development.
Caroline Wang, Learning and Development Head of Standard Chartered Bank (China) Ltd. is considered one of the leading talent professionals in China. A recent Harvard Business Review article (January 2009, article “Winning the Race for Talent in Emerging Markets” by Douglas A. Ready, Linda A. Hill, and Jay A. Conger) studied companies that are successful in developing talent in fast growing economies. At the top, the company’s CEO, Peter Sands, explains, “We are serious about being a force for good in the world. It’s not an add-on for us. We are leaders in microfinance, supporting fledgling entrepreneurs in some of the world’s poorest regions. We seek out, as a part of our strategic intent, opportunities to support renewable-energy businesses. By design we are among the world’s most diverse organizations, so top talents from all walks of life are attracted to us because they know they will be embraced as central to our mission, not peripheral.”
Caroline Wang took this strategy a step further in China by arguing that personal development, the core of talent development, should extend to everyone since a lot of effort was made in hiring talent into the company. When the company discussed increasing investment in talent for high potentials, she asked: “Why limit development to an elite”? After several conference calls with head office, her argument convinced her managers and global talent policy, for all employees, was adopted as policy. This strategy allowed Standard Chartered to get through the 2008 recession with higher motivation of its workforce than competing banks and in 2009 there.
Caroline shared her experience with the students about how to deliver on the message that “every employee is a talent and deserves personal development”. She explained that it is not enough to have training programs, tools and a strong message in the media. Sustainable development requires excellent execution of personal development for each category of employee, from the newly hired fresh graduates to long-term career professionals and even to under-achievers.
[Caroline was sharing the unique talent development practice in SCB with the students.]
[Caroline was surrounded by the passionate students after the speech.]
[William Wang, AEMBA China Area Manager, was presenting a beautiful painting of Euromed theme to Caroline as a thanks gift.]
The speech lasted over an hour, with active interactions between Caroline and the students all along. After the speech, the students responded to us that they were very much inspired by the strong stand of Caroline as a personal development practioner inside the corporate world; moreover, from this vivid and powerful live case, they have truly learned why more and more companies attach so much importance to the personal development of their talents in the current global workplace.
