People Power

WSP Asia Managing Director Ivy Kong Explains The Importance Of Providing A Conducive Environment For Developing Her Team.

- Jodie Darlington

Not every business executive would be comfortable paddling a dragon boat alongside their employees or belting out a karaoke song in front of their teams. For Ivy Kong, Managing Director of WSP Asia, these CSR events go beyond simply participation. It is an opportunity to connect and deepen relationships with her teams. “At WSP, we strongly believe in going above and beyond to support local communities by volunteering our time and skills. For example, we regularly reach out and work with people with disabilities, elderly and the local community organisations,” says Ivy.

Although Ivy loves being able to support the community, she also relishes the opportunity to connect with the younger professionals in her company. “During these activities, I meet a lot of our young professionals. They are passionate about doing voluntary work and sacrifice their free time on the weekend to do so. This is something that I don’t see in my daily work, so I treasure the chance to get to know the young people on my team,” she smiles.

Looking back on when she joined WSP at the start of this year, Ivy says she was attracted to the global engineering firm’s “people-centric” focus, both internally and externally. “I believe that people are the greatest asset in any company and for an organisation to be successful, it must involve and value its people. This belief is demonstrated here at WSP. The firm has a great people culture that I can personally relate to and it excites me to be able to work with many talented people,” she explains.