Social Mobility and Career Success | Up for Discussion with Elizabeth Thomson

In continuation with our Social Mobility campaign, today, we are thrilled to have Elizabeth Thompson on Up for discussion. She is a pioneering force in the NGO sector and the founder of the Amber Foundation. With a wealth of experience in empowering ethnically diverse young women in Hong Kong, Elizabeth is dedicated to enhancing their visibility and career success through her impactful program, EMPOWER. In this episode, we delve into: 

• Elizabeth's journey in establishing the Amber Foundation and the EMPOWER program. 

• The critical importance of social mobility for young women from low-income ethnic minority families. 

• How financial independence can uplift entire families and communities. 

• The structure of the EMPOWER program, including workshops and networking opportunities with major corporations. 

• Inspiring success stories from participants who have secured internships and jobs at prestigious organisations. 

Join us as we explore Elizabeth's insights on creating pathways to success for young women and the vital role of community support in fostering social change. Tune in now!

[Janet Ledger] (0:17 - 1:35) 

Hi and welcome to the latest episode of Up for Discussion. So today we're absolutely delighted to be Up for Discussion with Elizabeth Thompson. Elizabeth is an experienced director and advisor with a demonstrated history of working in an NGO management industry with women entrepreneurs and companies doing business internationally, especially in Hong Kong and Asia. 

She is the founder of the Amber Foundation, the charitable arm of a Hong Kong-based Canadian families whose mission is to provide support for a variety of underserved communities in Hong Kong and across South Asia. One of their key programs in power has a mission to ensure career success for the young ethnically diverse women in the program by enhancing their visibility to corporates, financial institutions, schools, and professional corporations. So welcome Elizabeth, we're so thrilled to have you here today and we'll get right into the questions if that's okay. 

Absolutely. Okay, so the first question at CB, we're currently engaging in a campaign around social mobility. We're doing some research with Ernst & Young and we'll be putting a lot of reports out on that next year. 

  

So how do you define social mobility and why is it particularly important for ethnically diverse young women in Hong Kong? 

  

[Elizabeth Thomson] (1:37 - 3:33) 

Social mobility is not a term that I'm actually very familiar with but in having googled it, I think what we're doing is actually a social mobility program. So thanks for introducing me to the words. I think for the girls that are in our program, which are now about 180 girls, it is career success. 

  

These girls are all in university. They're in year three, year four in Hong Kong universities. They are Hong Kong people. 

  

The majority were born and brought up here and I think that there is no point in them going to university unless we can find them career success. So I think the other thing that leads on from career success is their financial independence. The majority, vast majority of these girls come from very low income ethnic minority families. 

  

In fact, this year several of the girls when I was interviewing them for the program mentioned that their families were on CSSA. We try not to ask about their financial situations. So I think social mobility for them means a career that will lead to financial independence and possibly personal independence for them. 

  

And the financial independence is not just for them, it's for their family. And I think what that really means in terms of Hong Kong is that it could possibly take some families out of poverty because we know that the ethnic minority population ranks unfortunately very highly on the poverty scales in Hong Kong. 

  

[Janet Ledger] (3:34 - 3:59) 

Thank you. And I mean, one of the reasons why we're making the link with, it's very clear to us in what we're already discovering through the research that programs like the Amber Foundation are running, but also Empower, very, very much aligns with what we're already finding around social mobility and where some people are more challenged. So so why did you establish Empower and the AMBER Foundation? 

  

[Elizabeth Thomson] (4:01 - 7:07) 

Well, the Amber Foundation came first and we started that in 2011. We actually set it up and registered as an NGO. And at that point we were giving money, we were giving scholarships in Hong Kong, India and Canada to young women. 

And we are doing this in Hong Kong through UNISON, a marvelous charity that was really the first to work with ethnic minorities and is still doing it. And I was interviewing a young woman one day for the scholarships because, of course, we get far more applications than we can include. And it was the most amazing Hong Kong experience because it was in a very small room, sort of like this space. 

  

And there was a gentleman from Hong Kong and he was interviewing in Cantonese and I was interviewing in English. And this girl was switching back and forth and it kind of felt like we were in Quebec or Switzerland. You know, you just don't see that in Hong Kong. 

And I was looking at this girl and I was asking a bit about her family, where did she come from, etc. And it just hit me totally that money wasn't enough. That she needed money, she needed more than we were giving. 

  

But the fact of the matter was that she needed a network and she needed visibility. She'd had to work very hard to get to university, to have the permission from the family, to not be discouraged by their cultural implications of this. And she had to work part-time on weekends and evenings to make enough money. 

And all I could think about was my own children and how much our own network was important to them in terms of launching them and in terms of moving them forward. And I just looked at her and I thought, this is ridiculous. We can do more than just give money. 

  

And that's why we started the Empower program. And it's a business program. It's a business and professional program. 

  

And the whole idea is that we felt that these girls, and probably boys in the community too, are invisible to the employers. That if you go into the large companies, the medium-sized companies, the small companies, if you see people who are ethnic, from an ethnic minority, so to speak, and you ask them where they're from, they're from India, they're from Bangladesh, they're from Sri Lanka. But what about these girls that are about to graduate, year three, year four? 

  

And that's really why we started the program. We felt that it would be quite simple to pull in women in particular, create a network for these girls, and really give them a launching pad into career success with all the things that would follow from that. 

  

[Janet Ledger] (7:08 - 7:39) 

And I've seen the initial results from the surveying we did, where we sort of look at people in different socioeconomic groups, and the lack of network is called out really strongly for those who are in lower socioeconomic circumstances. So yeah, it's as opposed to if you're not, how much, you know, it's really available. And the same with internships, that's the other piece as well, that are readily available for those who are in higher socioeconomic circumstances, not so much at the opposite end. 

  

[Elizabeth Thomson] (7:39 - 8:07) 

Because a lot of it comes from the old boys club. I mean, we have to be honest about that. And so making these inroads, and doing the matching, and really trying to teach these girls some of the skills that you and I might take for granted, going into a business or a professional setting, I think was just a natural, it just came naturally. 

  

[Janet Ledger] (8:11 - 8:18) 

So when they're in the program, what do they actually do? So can you elaborate a little bit more on the details of the program itself? 

  

[Elizabeth Thomson] (8:18 - 10:41) 

Sure. Every year now, we take 40 girls. We started with nine scholarship recipients, but now we're at 40. 

  

And 40s are max. We've decided 40s are max. So every one of our EXCO members, we have nine EXCO members, takes a small group of these girls as a support group. 

  

Because when you get to 40, you don't know who's who. When you're at nine, you know everything about them, their sisters, brothers, their problems, etc. And then we run seven workshops a year. 

  

So we ask the large companies who have space and resources to host us. So we started this year at Mayor Brown, who's been a very strong supporter. Then we went to Morgan Stanley. 

  

This month, we're going to HSBC. And each workshop that we do, which starts at 6 and ends about 9, 9.30 at night, has a theme. So the one for HSBC is actually one on Zoom, which is about CVs, because their CVs are absolutely appalling. 

  

And the second one is a couple of days later, and it's mock interviews in the HSBC main building. And they get an incredible turnout. In fact, last year, we had two HSBC people to one of our girls. 

  

They were so keen on it. And, you know, the interesting thing, Janet, is that I remember the first year we went to HSBC, and we've been there quite a few years. And these girls were all looking around. 

  

And I said, What are you looking at? And they said, We've never been in this building. And I thought, If nothing else happens, we've achieved this. 

  

How could they possibly go and work for HSBC if they didn't even know how to get into the building? So that's an example of what the workshops are all about. And then the small groups kind of support and meet with them. 

  

So for instance, tonight, I'm meeting with a group of six girls, and we talk through what they want to do, what their goals are, and what's holding them back, what are the barriers, etc. 

  

[Janet Ledger] (10:41 - 10:53) 

Because it's very, very hard to imagine yourself in a corporate environment if you've not even seen one. And so much of it is about what you can see, your own limitations that you see yourself. 

  

[Elizabeth Thomson] (10:53 - 11:44) 

Yeah, imagine that you can't find your way to the HSBC. You know, like many businesswomen that I've told this story to, they just don't even believe me. But these girls haven't even been in the building. 

  

And so just having them in these big buildings and meeting these women that are so successful and moving ahead in their lives, it's really a good role model for them. Because they have no role models in their life. I mean, they very often, interesting enough, have mothers who are really pushing them and who are saying, I don't want you to end up like I have. 

  

I want you to get an education. I want you to do this. But then sometimes there's a conflict where they say, Oh, you've gotten so much education, but you really need to get married. 

  

So there's a yin and yang. 

  

[Janet Ledger] (11:45 - 11:51) 

Yeah. And have you got some success stories or milestones you'd like to share about some of the participants? 

  

[Elizabeth Thomson] (11:51 - 12:24) 

Absolutely, yeah. So we have a small internship program that is growing. And last year, we had a girl at Bloomberg. 

  

We have one girl who's a graduate at Bank of America. We have another at PwC. We have another at Hong Kong U in medical research. 

  

We have a couple working in nursing and the public health system. And I could probably go on and on. 

  

[Janet Ledger] (12:28 - 12:38) 

So what advice would you give the young ethnically diverse women who are looking to navigate their careers in what's a challenging environment for them? 

  

[Elizabeth Thomson] (12:39 - 14:51) 

You know, we're now in our seventh year. And I guess every year, I've been learning and learning about what we should be doing and getting advice from different people about what they think we should be doing. And I think that the advice that I give these girls is to have courage and to take risks. 

  

You know, a lot of them, in fact, the majority of them are taught to be very wallflowerish, to hold back, to be reticent, to be quiet. And even in the beginning, when we start a new year, it takes us a while to get them to speak up. Although, interesting enough, this year, I found that there were a percentage of them that were prepared to speak up in the first workshop, whereas going back seven years, I found it was like pulling teeth or worse. 

  

You know, it was like, do they ever have their own thoughts or what? You know, I mean, very judgmental idea. I want them to be champions for themselves and champions for the ones who come after them. 

  

So now we have, in this year's cohort, we have cousins, sisters, friends. And I want them to be champions to counteract this racial discrimination which exists in Hong Kong. I want them to stand up, to face it, and start working through the problems that this means. 

  

Because until you get the message out, until you get individual people to start working on these issues, nothing's going to happen. Everybody's too busy. And I think that's really what I want to see for them. 

  

I want them to have goals. I want them to stick by their goals. You know, I want them to be brave and to be champions, so that we can move towards a Hong Kong that is much more racially inclusive than it is at present. 

  

[Janet Ledger] (14:51 - 15:04) 

So, because I know it's not the question, but just to tease out a bit more around what sort of some examples of discrimination do they actually encounter when they're out looking for it? 

  

[Elizabeth Thomson] (15:05 - 18:11) 

Well, I think the first one is in the education system. You know, I think Hong Kong's got an absolutely huge problem, especially as it has become more of a Chinese city. You know, we have so many of the girls who have not had any exposure to learning Cantonese, and it's all been luck of the draw. 

  

It's not because their parents didn't want it. It's not because they didn't want it. It's because the system plunked them in the school. 

  

And what happened was that they got stuck in a corner while the Cantonese teacher who is supposed to be teaching both the ethnic minorities and the Cantonese kids is teaching the Cantonese and leaving the others in the corner. We had a situation a couple of years ago, a very sad situation. A girl came up to me in one of our programs, and she said, I have a cousin who is in a school where there is a class of eight girls, four are Filipinas, four are Pakistanis. 

  

The teacher is a Chinese male, and he has just come into the room and said, I want you to know that the final exam this year is going to be in Cantonese. So these are young girls who are in high school. They didn't know what to do. 

  

I used some connections, got through to the education department, and the next week the teacher had to go back in and say that was a mistake. So that's an example. Another example is where, you know, a girl goes in for an interview, and she's wearing a hijab, and of course the Pakistanis are a huge part of the ethnic minority communities. 

  

And she's being interviewed by a Chinese HR person, and the person at the end, she sees her marks, her ability, whatever. At the end, she says to her, yes, we'd like to give you a job, but you would have to take your hat off if you're going to come and work here. You know, a complete insult to someone who has chosen to wear the hijab and sees it as a very religious act and very serious. 

  

I think those are some of the issues that we've seen. We've actually, you know, we've seen some very good things. We've seen people reaching out, especially people who don't come from Hong Kong, and they say, what's happening here? 

  

What's the problem? We don't have this in Australia. We don't have this in the UK. 

  

We don't have this in Canada. And they can't believe it. And so they bend over backwards to try and help. 

  

But I think those are some of the discriminatory things that we see. We don't focus on them in our program because we believe in being positive, but we're very aware that they're out there, and we're trying to ensure that these girls are ready to deal with it. 

  

[Janet Ledger] (18:12 - 18:34) 

And I guess, so programs like Empower give them the confidence to be able to present themselves and to get those first few jobs. It sounds to me that the companies would benefit in terms of looking at their DE&I practices as well, because I think you're missing out on talent if you're not looking wide up. 

  

[Elizabeth Thomson] (18:34 - 20:21) 

Absolutely. And you know, this whole talk about DE&I, I mean, the I seems to be very missing. You know, there seems to be a lot of discussion about it, a lot of money thrown at the wall about it. 

  

But where's the inclusivity? You know, I find it so completely different than what I see in Canada when I'm there. You know, if you go to a coffee shop, you see a bunch of different faces at the table. 

  

Here, it's groups. I mean, the other thing that we've seen is that, you know, the Pakistani girls are concerned about what kind of food they're going to eat, the halal food. And, you know, they are working in an environment where probably everybody's Chinese. 

  

And they will say, you know, for the Chinese, as we all know, it's extremely important to go and eat together and whatever. And this girl will say, well, I don't go because I don't know where they're going to eat. And so we're trying to deal with those kind of issues. 

  

Well, why don't you go and look for something vegetarian on the menu? Or why don't you go and just have a glass of water, but at least be with the group? So there's a lot of these issues. 

  

I think, like you said, when we go through our surveys and our evaluations, what the girls from last year said, and especially the fifth year, they said, you know, the program gave us a lot more self-confidence. And I think that's very important, you know, for them to go forward in life and find a good career, whether it's as an accountant, whether it's in banking, whatever it is. 

  

[Janet Ledger] (20:21 - 20:37) 

Yeah, absolutely. So we've got one last question that we like to ask all of our guests. So what do you personally think is the biggest way that we can make a ripple of change for society? 

  

[Elizabeth Thomson] (20:37 - 21:56) 

I think about talking about the issues. When I was thinking about this question, I was thinking about how things have changed in Hong Kong in two areas, in the recycling area and in the LGBT area. And the only way that that happened was because individuals stood up and said, this is the right thing to do. 

  

And then sometimes it would come into an NGO situation or, you know, a company situation. And I think that's really the most important thing. We haven't done a lot of that, but we're starting to think about that as being important and asking people. 

  

Our last workshop, I stood up and asked people to do that. And I asked them to look for internship possibilities and to say in their companies, why don't we have some girls from local universities? You know, that kind of thing. 

  

And I think that kind of advocacy, that kind of affirmative talk, affirmative program that we've seen in other countries, I think it's essential. 

  

[Janet Ledger] (21:56 - 22:09) 

And one common thing we're seeing emerging in a lot of conversations we have is about being an upstander and not a bystander. So speaking up. Well said. 

  

Well said. Thank you so much. 

  

[Elizabeth Thomson] (22:09 - 22:11) 

My pleasure. And thank you for having me. 

  

[Janet Ledger] (22:11 - 22:12) 

You're welcome. Thank you.