Asia Disability Country Brief for Singapore – Launch Webinar

Kate Vernon is Executive Director at Community Business. Since 2005, Kate has played an instrumental role in building Community Business as an organisation, driving its strategy forward and establishing its position as a leader in advancing responsible and inclusive business practices in Asia.

A recognised authority on diversity and inclusion in Asia, Kate has authored extensive research and developed a variety of benchmarks and tools to help companies promote more inclusive workplaces in Asia - including Asia’s first LGBT Workplace Inclusion Index. A strong advocate of ‘adopting an Asian lens’ to the discussion of D&I, Kate is passionate about the need to better understand local market dynamics in order to develop an approach that resonates with key stakeholders.

Prior to Community Business, Kate worked for 12 years in the private sector, holding senior international marketing positions for global companies such as Reed Elsevier, Aspect Telecommunications, Cable & Wireless and PeopleSoft. Kate has always had a passion for Asia and holds a first class degree in Chinese Studies from Durham University. After spending 8 years in Hong Kong, she now lives with her family in England.

Vandy Hui Ji is diversity and inclusion advisor at BP, based out of Shanghai, China. Vandy supports D&I strategic development in Asia Pacific at BP including Oceania and Asia to address common and distinctive D&I challenges under these regional contexts. Over her more than 10 years of working experience, Vandy has always been working in the human resources career including HR business partnering, reward and HR services across corporate functions, manufacturing, commodity commercials business context. She also have experience of working and living across cultures in China and Australia.

Bernd Starke joined Deutsche Bank AG in April 1990 and has since worked in Germany and Singapore at senior, leadership and management levels in credit risk, audit and corporate and institutional relationship management.
He is currently a Director of Deutsche Bank AG, Singapore Branch and responsible for corporate and institutional subsidiaries of global clients with a presence in Singapore and/or the Asia-Pacific region, in particular German, Austrian and Swiss multinational companies.
He chairs dbEnable which is part of Deutsche Bank AG, Singapore Branch’s Diversity Council advocating an increased presence, participation and contribution by persons with disabilities across the Bank’s workforce. In 2015, he founded together with 8 multinational companies and has since chaired/co-chaired the Singapore Business Network on DisAbilities (SBNoD) which comprises today more than twenty-five like-minded large corporates and financial institutions. In 2018, he was elected Head of the Inclusion Committee at the Singaporean-German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (SGC).
Bernd Starke studied at the University of Konstanz and has a Masters degree in Economics majoring in Monetary Policy and International Trade. He lives in Singapore with his wife and two sons. He enjoys road biking on the weekends.

Dr Marissa Lee Medjeral-Mills is a disability advocate and the Executive Director of the Disabled People’s Association in Singapore (DPA), an organisation for people with disabilities run by people with disabilities.
Marissa has a PhD in ethics, politics and public policy and is particularly interested in how policies can and should be informed by the social model of disability. At the DPA, she is focusing on two major initiatives. Marissa is currently working towards producing access guides for public places in Singapore and has recently completed a mapping exercise of the Central Business District with Singapore Polytechnic and BNP Paribas. She is also partnering with a team of Inclusion Ambassadors, DPA members with disabilities who have been trained to deliver professional workshops on engaging better with persons with disabilities, providing more inclusive customer service training and promoting awareness about more inclusive workforces, to grow the programme into a sustainable business.