‘Deeply ingrained’: How a culture of inclusion helps Standard Chartered balance the scales for women in the workplace

[SINGAPORE] Breaking the glass ceiling as a woman in the workplace is often framed as a lonely endeavour. For Stephanie Keh, being able to come into her own and make her mark at Standard Chartered was not only the result of personal persistence, but also a supportive and inclusive work environment.

Keh, who is now head of Singdollar macro trading at Standard Chartered, said the bank’s inclusive policies have played a major role in her career. In particular, its emphasis on flexibility, trust and performance-based progression meant she did not have to step back during pivotal life stages, such as becoming a parent.

“Inclusion is most powerful when it enables continuity while allowing people to deliver, progress and lead through life transitions, rather than in spite of them,” she said.

Standard Chartered was among the first banks in Singapore to offer shared parental leave of at least 21 weeks to all employees. This applies regardless of an employee’s gender or how a child came to join their family. The bank also provides support to staff managing menopause, including medical coverage for related symptoms. 

Such policies are part of Standard Chartered’s commitment to “balancing the scales”, empowering and supporting its female employees to thrive in the organisation.

Trust and flexibility

Patrick Lee, the bank’s chief executive officer for Singapore, Asean and South Asia, explained that creating an inclusive culture is “deeply ingrained” throughout the organisation. 

“We know that having a diversity of perspectives and lived experiences improves our ability to innovate, solve problems and enable better outcomes for our diverse client base, and is key to how we execute and accelerate our strategy,” he added.

To support and enable such diversity, Standard Chartered takes an approach that centres on trust and flexibility. The bank’s hybrid work policy, for instance, allows staff to coordinate with their managers on schedules that suit their needs; more than 70 per cent of employees in Singapore are on such flexible arrangements.

Standard Chartered also launched six employee-led Global Colleague Communities in February 2025. Each of these employee-led networks is focused on a theme, supported by a senior sponsor and led by high-potential employees.

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They are aimed at providing insight into lived experience to inform policies, practices and leadership behaviours; supporting the development and visibility of high-potential talent; and strengthening connection, belonging and engagement across the bank’s global workforce.

Keh co-leads the Gender Colleague Community in Singapore, through which she gets to go beyond her usual responsibilities and help uplift others. Being part of the network gives her a hand in shaping systems and behaviours that allow her colleagues to succeed, even as they navigate life transitions such as parenthood and caregiving.

Having a formal structure with organisational backing has made balancing the different aspects of her work easier. “Feeling supported to lead both in the business and in colleague advocacy reinforced that I didn’t have to choose between being a trader and being an inclusion champion, and that the two can, and should, go hand in hand,” she said.

Tangible benefits

The consistent application of these policies – rather than having them be granted as concessions – at Standard Chartered not only helps employees achieve better work-life balance and well-being, but also benefits the organisation by enabling more consistent, sustainable performance.

This has translated into better career progression and transitions into leadership. In Singapore, close to 40 per cent of Standard Chartered’s country management team is made up of women. 

Among those who have benefited from the bank’s culture of inclusion is Kathleen Charmaine Huang-Hernandez, its head of transaction banking in the Philippines. 

“I’ve always felt that I had a voice and that my opinions matter,” said Huang-Hernandez, who received the Excellence in Banking Award at Markets Media Group’s Women in Finance Asia Awards in 2025. “That has given me the confidence to push forward new initiatives, even in the face of challenges.”

Despite a demanding job that has involved everything from enabling instant payments to promoting digital adoption, she said Standard Chartered’s support has allowed her to also juggle raising her three children as a “hands-on” mother. That balance, she added, has “allowed (her) to grow both personally and professionally”, being present for her family’s major milestones without sacrificing her career development.

Beyond representation and individual-level impact, enacting systems to create equal opportunities also allows Standard Chartered to draw from a more diverse pool of voices. This enables more informed decision-making and innovation, which in turn leads to better outcomes for both the bank and its clients.

Going beyond

Standard Chartered’s efforts to champion gender equality go beyond its internal policies and structures. 

For instance, the bank’s philanthropic arm, the Standard Chartered Foundation, recently launched Youth Employment for Success (YES) in collaboration with Community Chest and Daughters of Tomorrow (DOT), to improve employment prospects for young, underserved women.

Going beyond the formal programme, Standard Chartered’s Gender Colleague Community has hosted a workshop on self-care and confidence for YES participants.

The bank’s human resources organisation development team will also pilot a three-month-long coaching programme on building confidence, motivation, clarity and agency. This will be open to DOT’s wider pool of beneficiaries.

Separately, to mark this year’s International Women’s Day, the bank’s Gender Colleague Community brought together seven women-led and women-focused organisations for a “Giving Marketplace”. 

With social enterprises and social service agencies participating, Standard Chartered’s employees were given the opportunity to support female entrepreneurs and take part in activities to uplift women in the community. The same event also featured a panel discussion where leaders from the bank and representatives from social enterprises spoke on leadership, balance and impact.

Speaking on the bank’s theme of “balancing the scales” for this International Women’s Day, Keh noted that balance is dynamic, involving many parts that continually interact and interlock with one another. 

“In the workplace, balance sits at the intersection of performance, opportunity and inclusion,” she added. “By bringing voices from across the bank and the wider community together, we wanted to highlight how inclusive systems, both within organisations and beyond, help individuals, businesses and communities thrive together.”