BritCham and UN Women Host First In-Person WEPs Event, Encouraging Private Sector Participation in Women’s Empowerment

The British Chamber of Commerce (BritCham) in Cambodia and UN Women hosted the first-ever in-person Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs) Corporate Action Lab (WEPsCAL) event in Cambodia on August 20, 2025, at Prudential’s office in Chip Mong Tower. The event brought together senior leaders from across the private sector to explore inclusive leadership and strategies to advance gender equality in the Kingdom.

WEPs is a framework created by UN Global Compact and UN Women for the private sector to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment. 

“At UN Women, we see that the private sector plays a very important role in advancing gender equality—businesses have the power to create inclusive workplaces, offer equal opportunity, as well as promote fairer policy,” said Khun Sophea, National Program Coordinator at UN Women.

Advancing gender equality is not just the right thing to do, and it's not just for the UN and civil society to work on, it is also good for business. As many of you have been aware—and this has been informed by studies—gender inclusiveness will lead to greater economic performance as well.

“The Women's Empowerment Principles… offer businesses a very clear roadmap for advancing gender equality in the workplace, marketplace as well as community. By signing on to WEPs, CEOs commit to seven principles across the value chain, and today’s event is about showing how to put commitment into action,” she added.

WATCH: Advancing Gender Equality in the Private Sector - Khun Sophea, UN Women

The event featured a panel discussion moderated by Katja Freiwald, UN Women Asia-Pacific Regional Lead for Women's Economic Empowerment & Migration, with key speakers representing different industries:

• Carrie Cameron, Principal at The King’s School Vattanacville;
• Daniel Simon, Managing Director of Rosewood Phnom Penh;
• Sin Sokanha, Partner at Bun and Associates;
• Teng Sophanna, Chief Human Resources Officer, Prudential, CLM Hub.

The discussion highlighted the diverse perspectives necessary to drive meaningful change in the private sector, while Freiwald also helped provide a regional perspective on best practices and leadership strategies.

Monika Nowaczyk, Consultant for UN Women, also delivered a short presentation to introduce the concept behind the WEPs framework and explain how the Corporate Action Labs will engage with companies that sign up for them. Participants also took part in a group-based activity to get a taste of the human-centred design approaches that will be used in WEPsCAL.  

BritCham Cambodia partnered with UN Women to organise the first in-person WEPsCAL event hosted in Cambodia after recently signing on to the WEPs, making it the first chamber to do so in the Kingdom.

“We're the first chamber that's championing this, and I'd like to think that maybe some of the other chambers in the community will also follow our lead, because I think it's important,” said Paul Dodd, representative of the BritCham Cambodia Board of Directors, in an interview with B2B Cambodia.

Further reflecting on the breakfast talk, Dodd added:

When you look at the people in this room, a lot of them are spheres of influence, and one of the things that I feel has come out of today's session is the mentorship aspect of how we can bring up younger women into positions of influence in the city to take this forward so that they can become the mentors.

“I think for us, what we want to do—and this is from the Chamber's point of view—our focus on our board is to make it more equal and to listen to more of the opinions of women to help us direct the direction of the chamber," he concluded.

WATCH: Signing on to the Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs) - BritCham Cambodia - Paul Dodd