Journey into DE&I | Up for Discussion with Ted Khoo

In this episode of CB Up for Discussion, we are joined by Ted Khoo, who leads Group People Sustainability at AIA. Originally from Malaysia and now based in Hong Kong, Ted shares his inspiring journey as a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community and his commitment to advocating for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) in the workplace.  

Throughout the episode, we explore several key areas: 

• Ted's personal experiences growing up in a conservative environment and the pivotal moments that shaped his identity. 

• The challenges of promoting DEIB in Asia and the importance of authenticity in organizational practices. 

• The critical role of respect and empathy in fostering inclusive workplaces. 

• The need for organizations to move beyond superficial diversity efforts and truly engage with their employees' diverse backgrounds. 

• Ted's insights on training and enablement, emphasizing the importance of ongoing support for employees navigating their identities. 

Join us for an enlightening conversation about the power of inclusivity and how we can all contribute to meaningful change in our workplaces and communities! Tune in now! 

 [Bijita Thapa] (0:16 - 1:02) 

Hello, my name is Bijita Thapa and I'm the Programme Manager at the Diversity and Inclusion in Asia Network at Community Business and I go by the pronouns of she, her and hers and I'll be a podcast host for today's episode. Today we are up for discussion with Ted Fu, the Associate Director of Group People Sustainability at AIA. Ted has been a vibrant part of the network since 2022 and although we've crossed paths before, today presents a special opportunity for us to dive deeper into his journey and insights. 

  

Ted, you've had quite a remarkable journey, so originally from Malaysia, you've made Hong Kong your home for over a decade now. You're also proudly representing the LGBTQ plus community and have been in a loving relationship for 17 years, so congratulations for that. 

  

[Ted Khoo] (1:02 - 1:03) 

Thank you. 

  

[Bijita Thapa] (1:03 - 1:14) 

Professionally, you've dedicated yourself to driving a meaningful change and advocating for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in the workplace. So Ted, thank you so much for joining us today. 

  

[Ted Khoo] (1:14 - 1:18) 

Thank you, Bijita, for having me. I'm really excited to be part of this podcast. 

  

[Bijita Thapa] (1:19 - 1:29) 

Awesome, so let's dive right in into your journey. So what initially motivated you to focus on your efforts in this area of diversity, equity and inclusion? 

  

[Ted Khoo] (1:30 - 5:53) 

It started when I was a kid and like you said, in the introduction, I'm from Malaysia. So growing up in Malaysia, for those who are not familiar with Malaysia, it is quite a conservative country. Even in last year, 2023, Swatch created an LGBT pride Swatch watches collection. 

  

It was banned in Malaysia and there were even talks about creating a conversion therapy for gays in Malaysia. That is the context that I lived in. So when I was young, I knew I was very different. 

  

As young as 8 years old, I think, I knew I was different. I was like playing Barbie dolls with my girl cousins and just not doing the normal things that a boy would do. And growing up in a Christian home, we go to the church every Sunday and we hear things like homosexuality is wrong. 

  

And then you sort of figure out things about, you know, maybe there's something wrong with me. I grew up in a cocoon and in year 2001, there was a pivotal change in my life where I went to the UK to study psychology. It was when I started to realise that, hey, I am who I am. 

  

This is who I am meant to be. Took me some time to accept myself and then sort of got the courage to keep up to my university friends. And that was a game changer. 

  

People were so accepting of your sexuality and your identity. And then after graduation, I went back to Malaysia. I was sort of like, do I really want to go back to Malaysia? 

  

But good thing is I was able to join a global consulting company. You know, being a global firm, you know, they do have a more accepting and welcoming work culture. Although within Malaysia still, there's certain things that are still being more conservative, but I have a very supportive manager and mentor. 

  

I came out to him and he understood it. And what was really inclusive about him was that he said, Ted, this is new to me. I don't know what is LGBT, but I am here to support you, to be on this journey with you. 

  

And that really created such a strong impression, lasting impression on me. But the big change came was in 2012, I believe. I had a surgery. 

  

I went into ICU. During my stay in ICU, my partner could not see me in the hospital simply because he's not part of the family. And that was when I started to realize that, hey, life is too short, you know, that's more, we need to change. 

  

Hence, I spoke to my manager and then sort of, he was very supportive of a transfer to Melbourne office. Going to Melbourne, that was a best, one of the best thing in life. You know, you come to a country where they are accepting of you as an LGBT. 

  

Even for my partner, he was offered a visa dependent partner without any marriage certificate. However, you know, like I said, I came to Hong Kong 10 years ago. So during the transfer, coming back to Hong Kong, it was like, yeah, Hong Kong is a vibrant location, you know, a bit more accepting, more welcoming than Malaysia. 

  

But then it sort of like, it still felt like a few steps back. You know, even for my partner, I wasn't given a visa partner. And although we had a domestic, I think in Melbourne, Victoria State, they call it the domestic relationship declaration or registration. 

  

But the medical benefit wasn't offered to my partner simply because I don't have a marriage certificate. So through all these personal experiences, I feel that there is something that we can change, especially in Asia. You know, certain markets are much more accepting, much more advanced, but being in Hong Kong, we can do more than that. 

  

That's how I started my journey. 

  

[Bijita Thapa] (5:54 - 6:32) 

Thank you for sharing that, Ted. And that is a remarkable journey that you've just mentioned. I'm glad you're okay now after the ICU injury. 

  

Happy to have you here. Okay, moving along. I think you also sort of mentioned what motivated you to be in this field. 

  

So moving along, so transitioning to a specialized field like the D&I space, can it have its own challenges? You mentioned like, coming back to Hong Kong, it felt like a few steps backwards. So could you share what resources have been particularly helpful to during this transition? 

  

[Ted Khoo] (6:33 - 9:50) 

Yeah, so in my career, I was focusing on organizational change management. So I was really doing psychology, studied psychology and organizational psychology, made me have this a little bit more understanding around the individual differences and about the human behavior itself. However, I only touched into the D&I space about a couple of years ago in this current role. 

  

There are abundance of resources available out there. You know, you just Google search, you see a lot of articles and research from McKinsey, from BCG. But then when you look into details as you read into it, it's like, they are so Western-centric. 

  

What does DIV mean in Asia? Asia is different. We are more of a collective culture. 

  

Whilst you talk about Western, it's more individualistic. How do I apply those frameworks to Asia? Like what you have mentioned, Dianne. 

  

Dianne was one of the best things that happened for me to build this capability and to really understand what D&I means. You have a lot of research and a lot of articles. For example, I think one of the most impactful research that I've read was the LGBT and mental health research that you launched a couple of years ago. 

  

Through that report, you were able to explain how each of the different countries in Asia and their perspective to LGBT and the challenges that they may face, even with the mental health situation. The other research that I've read was, not the research, but this up-close and personal discussion podcast that we will have. It was with, if I remember correctly, Professor Edmund Choi. 

  

More on the home run, really talking about the healthcare services for LGBT. Those are the things that really helped me personally to understand what it means within a DIB in Asia. What are the challenges that each of these diversity groups faces and also what are the practical advices that we can do, whether it's individual or for the organisation. 

  

I think the other thing that really helped me connect with a lot of the professionals outside is this DIB professional network. It's a WhatsApp group. The lead is Alicia from Bloomberg. 

  

We do have quarterly roundtable discussions on key topics, whether it's on people with disability or on social mobility. I think those were really able to have a table, candid, honest conversation and you can get to learn from other professionals around the things that they're doing in their company that can inspire and maybe we can apply at work. I think those were some of the key resources that have helped me to understand what DIB is. 

  

[Bijita Thapa] (9:50 - 10:03) 

Thank you for sharing all the resources you mentioned. I'm sure although we have the resources, you might have had some challenges relating back to your organisation, promoting D&I at your organisation. So could you share more about that? 

  

[Ted Khoo] (10:04 - 12:51) 

When it comes to DIB in Asia, one of the key challenges that I face or something that I'm really trying to focus on is authenticity. What I mean by authenticity is around being true to yourself, being true to your employees around what DIB means. When I talk about diversity, which is all about the representation, but then what does equity and fair from a people practices that we can give and offer and ensure that it is applied to our employees. 

  

Then around inclusion, are we creating inclusive policies and practices that are inclusive for our employees irrespective of their diversity attributes so much so that they feel part of the organisation or part of the community. So being that authenticity means that looking inwards as an organiser for the organisation before we even start talking about promoting externally. So a lot of the cases where we are very mindful around saying oh we change our logo with a pride flag to demonstrate that we support LGBT or we sponsor certain communities because we want to demonstrate and to show to the world to attract candidates from the diversity group. 

  

But then the question that I always ask myself, are we being authentic about it or are we just going into the environment of the I'm watching, creating the false pretense that we are an inclusive environment. So before we do that, I think that is a key challenge and to build that authenticity it's not an overnight thing. It is a journey that we have to go through because when you talk about diversity, the other complexity that you're going to put it in will be the intersectionality. 

  

When you talk about LGBT, what if I intersect with people with disability and even for women or one of the other things that we are looking at is social mobility as well. If you all look into it, companies may have a broad-based policy to say that we do not discriminate based on certain diversity attributes but if you then zoom down to a specific intersectionality group, are we supporting them enough? So I think that that is one of the key challenges that I think especially in Asia. 

  

[Bijita Thapa] (12:52 - 13:40) 

Thank you for sharing that because I have heard of such cases where let's say a company promotes themselves as an inclusive company and does all the things to let's say hit the quota but when they hire someone from the community, any diversity community, they realize that they don't have the resources to keep them in the company and promote them and all that so definitely authenticity. Authenticity is definitely one of the challenges. I agree with that. 

  

So Ted, how has your work in D&I influenced your personal values and perspective on leadership and organizational culture? 

  

[Ted Khoo] (13:41 - 18:13) 

I think two words that stand out for me. First would be respect and the second is empathy. If I want to talk about creating an inclusive work environment, first and foremost, we have to respect the person for who they are. 

  

I want to quote this quote from Howard Schultz. And what he said was the most important thing to be is to have an authentic self and when you are being authentic yourself, you'll be able to respect the other person. And like we mentioned around the various life moments that one person could go through, whether you are going through whichever life moments that you may be going through, that is a very difficult but you just have to have that respecting that person as an individual and showing the empathy that understanding from their perspective. 

  

All right, even Simon Sinek also mentioned this quote. We are not in a team because we are together. We are in a team because we respect and we care for each other. 

  

So I think those two are the key values that I see that it's very important if you want to drive the DIP agenda forward. Okay, the other thing that I also want to talk about is around training. A lot of companies will actually go and launch and deliver a lot of training on mandatory learning on unconscious bias or microaggression. 

  

Some even go down to creating a two-hour workshop on inclusive behaviours. But I think we need to look beyond just the workshop. What I would challenge the companies or everyone who are listening is around looking at the enablement part. 

  

So if I look back, if I sort of link back to the examples that I gave to myself, that my manager had when I told him that I was gay. I said, Ted, I do not know anything about it. I will learn, I will be on this journey together with you. 

  

So if I were to put it in today's situation, imagine your managers in a company. If someone were to walk up to that manager even after completing the inclusive two hours workshop and the employee walks up to you and says, manager, I am transitioning. Does the manager know what to say? 

  

Does the manager know what they should not say? Does the manager know what are the support structures available in the organisation that is available to support the employee through transition? So I think it's that enablement model and framework that companies need to also look at beyond training. 

  

And if you look at the various diversity segments, for gender, you talk about caregiving. We talk motherhood, it's very common. But caregivers, what if I need to care for an ageing parent? 

  

And then if you're looking at the generations, what if someone were to talk about retirement? And me being a young manager, if someone were to ask me about retirement, I seriously do not know what to say. And I seriously do not know what are the support structures available in our organisation for them. 

  

So I think it's that enablement piece that needs to be really looked at in detail, in-depth by the organisation. Because if I would look at it at the key life moment, that is going to be the make or break conversation that is going to make that employee feel whether they are included as part of the company, they feel included in the community, or they are just being excluded. 

  

[Bijita Thapa] (18:16 - 18:37) 

That's so true, the training, the post-training, like what's next after the training? So in your pivoting to the success, so in experience, what key factors have enabled your success in implementing D&I initiatives in organisations? 

  

[Ted Khoo] (18:39 - 22:39) 

Key success factors, I also call it the key considerations that the companies would need to put in place when you want to look at D&I. If I go broad, let's look at the markets of the country that you're in. What are the cultural nuances of that current society or the current location? 

  

What are the regulations that are supporting it? If I use Malaysia for example, talk about LGBT, well, it's a no-no in Malaysia. It's not something that you can go out and loud and being proud. 

  

There is no regulation to protect the LGBT. There's no discrimination law for it. The examples that I showed to you that I explained earlier on was around the conversion therapy as well. 

  

I do remember there was a university who wanted to do a LGBT pride march in 2017 and it was just shut down, because we have to be sensitive towards that. Then the other key consideration that we have to put in is the organisation. Let's put it one level lower. 

  

From the key success factor, I think even in the previous podcast that I heard and a lot of research that we have read is around having a policy. Policy is good. Standard is good, because having that clear commitment that you put out to say that you do not discriminate based on any of the diversity attributes, which is good. 

  

But what companies need to do as well is to look at the next layer down, like what you have mentioned around the hiring, around the promotion, reviewing every single standard or standard operating procedures. Are we treating our employees in a fair manner? Are we promoting people or our employees based on merit? 

  

Are we hiring people based on merit or are we just meeting a specific diversity target? I think those are the things that companies need to be very mindful of as they drive the DIB agenda across. Then if we look at a company, if we zoom in a little bit smaller to the community community itself, so for example, whether it's gender or people with disability or LGBT, we need to have a platform or an opportunity for this affinity group to be together and see whether I think people call it employee resource group, business resource group or employee networks. 

  

I think that is also very important because you want to create a safe space for this group of people to come together, to support each other, to learn from each other and to network with each other. I think that is one of the key things that would help drive this inclusion agenda in the organisation. And then if I zoom even further down, it's the leaders, especially in the context of Asia. 

  

The leaders, I don't know about you, but if you ask me I would always look up to my leader as the role model. I think maybe it's applied and common across the organisation, but especially in Asia, the leaders do set the tone for the organisation. So we need to have the leaders to be advocating, to change, championing DIB, being present, being able to just be in the events, to be able to say, hey, I support you and I do appreciate you and I respect you as an individual. 

  

I think that is some of the key success factors. 

  

[Bijita Thapa] (22:40 - 23:11) 

It's really interesting how you mentioned leader because when we go back to the first question of how you started your journey, it's also because a leader motivated you to be true to yourself at the workplace and outside. So that's really inspiring. And of course, in this realm, we will talk about the ROIs, the metrics. 

  

So my next question is, how do you measure the effectiveness of your D&I initiatives in the organisation? Are there any metrics or indicators that you find the most useful? 

  

[Ted Khoo] (23:13 - 26:31) 

I think for companies, typically there are a few or two key ways that you want to measure the DIB in a sense. Firstly, I would say is what is needed by the regulators or the investors. You know, every public company, you will have to release an annual report, you will have to release an ESG report and within that, you will have specific diversity metrics that we have to disclose, whether it's a representative of representation of gender and also by levels and stuff. 

  

I think that is, I would say, the bare minimum that you have to disclose. But what is even more challenging and even more important for organisations to measure the success is the equity and the inclusive part. So for example, if I talk about the employee networks that I mentioned, a lot of the companies will probably want to measure things like, oh, how many members are growing? 

  

Are we getting more members? How many events are we delivering per year? What is the participation rate of it? 

  

Are we seeing an increase? Those are very good, but those are just numbers. But how do you shift and change the way you measure the success of the employee group? 

  

I mentioned that the objective of the employee group is around learning, supporting and networking. How do you measure all these things? If I just zoom into the LGBT, even within that, it's a little bit quite complex, the way we have to measure. 

  

First, if you measure the people who are members, who are LGBT members of the network, you need to measure, do they feel that it is a safe space that they can connect, that they can share, that they can learn from other seniors who are LGBT as a role model for themselves? And then for LGBT, especially in Hong Kong, what about those who are not out, who may also want to be part of the community? How do you measure that they too feel that they are part of the community, that they have that sense of belonging? 

  

And then, even for us, we always believe that even if I have an LGBT network, it's not only for LGBT, it's for the wider population or everyone in the organisation. And how do you measure those people? Did they learn something from the network that they have joined, the events that they have joined? 

  

Do they understand what it means to be LGBT? Are they able to change their behaviour to be more supportive and inclusive of the community, whether it's LGBT or gender, or other diversity attributes for that matter? So I think that is the different level of success measures that you have to look at. 

  

One is from a regulatory perspective, the other part is moving away from just representation data and participation rate into something more deeper, the inclusion and belonging measurements. I think that's how you can measure the success of your DID initiatives. 

  

[Bijita Thapa] (26:31 - 26:33) 

And that's definitely the harder part. 

  

[Ted Khoo] (26:34 - 26:36) 

Very difficult, but it is not impossible. 

  

[Bijita Thapa] (26:38 - 27:03) 

Love the energy. I think for some organisations who are just beginning, I think even the bare minimum, you mentioned the gender, that is also a challenge for them. So are there any tips on getting at least the bare minimum, like at least you have the number of, let's say, a certain gender ratios? 

  

I think the fortunate part is that I work in HR. 

  

[Ted Khoo] (27:05 - 29:31) 

There are many sort of checkpoints or touchpoints where data can be collected, right? Even in any company at all, when you join a firm with your offer letter, where they have to create your employee benefits, your gender data is there. Start from there, right? 

  

And then even from the gender, you may have that, and then you have your date of birth, can you split it and do a little bit of analysis to look at what are your generations of that particular group. Those are easier to collect, but what is even more difficult to collect would be things that needs to consider local regulations as well, and the sensitivity of it, and whether the individual be comfortable of disclosing those type of data. What I meant is people with disability, and also your sexual orientation. 

  

The other thing is around your pronouns, like you mentioned around your pronouns, I go by he, him, you go by she, her. Does your HR system allow this flexibility for people to even disclose them, even if it's a date. So I think those are some of the, I would say, the hygiene data that companies can collect, you know, the gender and the generations, but for the others, you would need to really look into it on how you want to collect it, whether it's allowable, and maybe the regulation. 

  

And I think the key thing that I always ask myself before I go into the more non-hygiene advanced type of data is the question, what are you going to do with that data? So what if you get 10 people disclosing that they are gay, what are you going to do with the data? If you don't have a good reason for doing it, then I think you need to ask yourself again, not before starting to collect those data. 

  

[Bijita Thapa] (29:31 - 29:52) 

Thank you for sharing that. Moving back to your own reflection, like your own achievements, personal achievements, what would you consider your greatest achievement in the realm of D&IB so far, and what impact did it have on organization or in the community? 

  

[Ted Khoo] (29:55 - 29:59) 

On a personal note, I think one of the 

  

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