WLI was conceived to increase the visibility and professional development opportunities for women in ULI and throughout the land use and real estate development industry, and to foster collaboration with District Councils in other cities.

The Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) was established in 2011 as a global programme of the Urban Land Institute. Today it has an active global Steering Committee in addition to 40 chapters in numerous countries around the world. The global WLI leaders support local programming and initiatives, helping to increase both the number and visibility of more women leaders throughout ULI’s vast network.

There are currently seven National Councils around Asia Pacific with active WLI groups, they are: Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines, Japan, China and South Korea.

A Bold Beginning

WLI was created in the US in 2012 and launched during ULI’s Spring Meeting. In addition to providing programming for ULI’s meetings, WLI is focused on:

• Developing materials that educate ULI members and non-members about women in leadership.
• Work collaboratively with the Singapore council on issues of importance to women who are ULI members.
• Recommending women for consideration as ULI Trustees, Product Council Chairs, District Council Chairs and programme speakers.
• Sponsoring original studies of women in real estate and disseminating existing research.
• Increasing the visibility of women in real estate professions by creating a speakers bureau and sponsoring ULI publications written by women.

The WLI chapter in Singapore intends to focus its activities around two pillars for our Singapore members.

Pillar 1: Women Empowerment – supporting the development and advancement of women in their careers towards being real estate industry leaders. Activities include: WLI Powwow Dinner Series, WLI Insider Series, WLI Honestly Speaking Series, WLI Getting There Series.

Pillar 2: Engaging Agents of Change and Stakeholders – supporting our real estate industry in enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion in our real estate industry, focusing our activities in raising awareness about gender bias and structural impediments to women’s career advancement, learning from companies or role models who have attempted to address this and encouraging our ULI community to apply best practices within their circle of influence. Activities include workshops addressing unconscious bias, fireside chats with business leaders or HR practitioners, and activation of more male leaders to be part of WLI programs.

Get Involved

We encourage ULI members regardless of gender to join us in our WLI activities and initiatives so that we can collectively drive a positive change in the community we live, work and play in.  Contact ULI Singapore at [email protected] to find out how you can be involved with WLI’s work.