International recognition for Dr. Sulochana Segera

Dr. Sulochana Segera, the Chairperson and Founder of the Women in Management,won two internationally recognised awards for her work towards women empowerment and personal leadership achievement at the World HRD Congress which celebrated its 25th Silver Jubilee Year in 2017 and the World CSR Congress on World CSR Day held on 17h and 18 February at Taj Land Mumbai. 

She was awarded with the Woman Super Achiever of Year 2016 award and Global CSR Leadership Excellence award for her strategic leadership and contribution to the society during her 22 years’ of experience in human resource development.

The World CSR Congress brought over 130 countries under one roof to unite the best of the best and celebrate leadership in building a better society and world a better world. She stated: “This award is not an ornament for me, itgives more responsibility towards my work for this nation.”

Dr. Segera is the Chief Innovation Officer of the Professional Career Women Awards, and Founder of the WIM Single Mother Project, Managing Director of Deep International Ltd. and owner of Search & SelectionLtd. Giving up on a promising career at a multinational company, Dr. Segera embarked on her own and launched a consultancy firm, which turned out to be a successful operation. 

Despite the success, the space seemed to be too visible. Her clients turned out to be all male and they were successful professionals occupying the top slots in the corporate world.

Furthermore, having worked as a head hunter for senior management, it dawned on her that corporates in general were biased in their process of hiring, which was highly skewed towards men and least in favour of hiring young women or married women with young children. 

Her training programs were well-attended, but by men. Women had the privilege of participating only if the company had decided to sponsor them. 

Witnessing the real-life scenario unfold in her work, Segera turned to researching on women and their status and role in the Sri Lankan context. 

Her endeavour was initiated when the country had just recovered from a 30-year bloody civil war. Women’s empowerment became a common metaphor during this time, which prompted Segera to try to understand the meaning underlying the expression that was so commonly used among civil society organisations.

Sri Lanka’s response to empowering women, as witnessed by Segera was not fitting in her eyes and in line with her expectations. 

Initiating her own mission to bring about women’s empowerment, Segera embarked on establishing her own network with Singapore and Malaysia in order to study their best practices in women’s empowerment.

Together with Nilam Samsudeen, she came up with the idea of registering Women in Management(WIM) as a private institute and not as an externally-financed Non-Governmental Organisation. This was indeed a very difficult and challenging decision that was accomplished, given the fact that most women’s organisations were totally dependent on local or international funding. Segera believed that self-reliance was the key to empowerment and thus, WIM was launched as a membership driven organisation in 2010. It had only two members. 

Today, WIM has 2,160 members worldwide and is open to all nationalities.

The mentoring program implemented by WIM began by enlisting WIM members who were in top positions in their respective fields of work to mentor women in middle management to be successful in their careers. 

Not stopping at that, WIM began a journey to the heart of the country, namely the rural areas where no organisation had ever been to. And today more than 10,000 women from all over the country are connected with WIM. 

WIM continues to stay true to its objective of ensuring that Sri Lankan women will be equipped to step into national and international markets and workplaces as professionals and skilled employees.