The Live Conversation: Shaping the future of inclusion at Hong Kong inclusion summit 2026
What began as a modest virtual gathering has now grown into a multi-market platform that drives business dialogue throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
Shaping the future of inclusion at the Hong Kong Inclusion Summit
As Asian companies confront economic uncertainty, rapid technological change and intensifying competition for talent, business leaders gathering in Hong Kong on Monday argued that inclusion has moved beyond a “soft” agenda to become a strategic driver of performance, resilience and long-term value.
The Hong Kong Inclusion Summit 2026, held at the Ocean Park Marriott Hotel and streamed to hundreds of participants across the region, brought together senior executives, students, NGOs and professionals from sectors including retail, financial services, transport and infrastructure. Organised by SCMP Live, the event reflected a growing consensus among Asian businesses that inclusion is increasingly linked to brand trust, workforce resilience and sustainable performance.
Throughout the day, speakers emphasised that the challenge is no longer how to define inclusion, but how to translate intent into consistent leadership behaviours, operational decisions and measurable outcomes.
“Inclusion isn’t just a concept to discuss. It’s a movement we’re actively building together, one step at a time,” an SCMP representative said.
Opening the summit, Sudesh Thevasenabathy, head of inclusion Asia at Manulife, positioned the event as evidence of how corporate priorities in the region have evolved. What began as a small virtual gathering during the Covid pandemic has grown into a multi-market platform for business dialogue across the Asia-Pacific region.
“Who would have thought something that was a virtual event during Covid started an entire movement over the last five years?” he said, noting that the summit has since been held in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, with Japan planned later this year.
This year’s theme, Redefining Belonging: Inclusion for the Asian Century, reflected what Thevasenabathy described as both the urgency and opportunity for Asia to shape its own approach to inclusion, closely tied to competitiveness and growth.
Leadership, culture and performance
In the opening keynote, Scott Price, Group Chief Executive of DFI Retail Group, made a compelling business case for inclusion, demonstrating how leadership behaviour and organisational culture directly drive commercial success.
"I personally believe that diversity and inclusion is not just a business decision," Price said. "It is an imperative – a critical path forward to success."
Leading an organisation of nearly 80,000 employees across 12 countries and territories, Price emphasised that organisations without a clearly defined and actively modeled inclusive culture face significant competitive disadvantages in talent acquisition, employee engagement, and operational excellence. He stressed that authentic inclusion requires consistent demonstration through daily leadership actions, not merely policies or corporate communications.
"If you don't act that way as a leader, then you're not going to be inclusive," he cautioned, explaining that leadership inconsistency erodes organisational trust, hampers talent mobility, and ultimately undermines business performance.
From strategy to execution
These themes carried into the first panel discussion, The Future of Inclusion – Where Accountability Meets Empathy, which explored how inclusion moves from policy to practice through governance, incentives and everyday decision-making, particularly during restructuring or transformation.
Subsequent sessions focused on practical challenges facing employers, including embedding business-led inclusion strategies, addressing accent bias in Hong Kong workplaces, and engaging younger employees whose expectations of leadership, purpose and transparency differ from previous generations. Speakers highlighted how barriers such as language, hierarchy and age are often overlooked but can each affect collaboration, productivity and innovation.
The second plenary panel, Asia Steps Up – Filling the Global Inclusion Vacuum, examined how Asian companies can define their own inclusion models as global norms evolve. Panellists discussed how ESG frameworks, regulation and board-level accountability can embed inclusion into long-term competitiveness, rather than treating it as short-term reputation management.
Infrastructure, partnership and long-term impact
From an infrastructure perspective, MTR Corporation framed inclusion as central to service delivery and stakeholder trust. Olivia Wong, general manager for environmental and social responsibility, emphasised the role of sustained partnerships in turning intention into impact.
Afternoon sessions broadened the conversation to social return on investment, everyday biases, and the influence of Asian cultural values on the development of inclusion. Panel topics touched on longer-term collaboration over transactional movements, while a student-led discussion examined how social media influences inclusion, brand perception and reputational risk.
Across sectors, a consistent message emerged: in Asia’s next phase of growth, inclusion is increasingly linked to talent pipelines, customer trust and sustainable returns, making it a durable competitive advantage.
Concluding the event Tina Arcilla, director, Inclusion Asia at Manulife gave the audience some food for thought: “What is it that makes us potentially the new bastion for inclusion?” she said. “We’re not talking about theories. We’re talking about very real ways that inclusion impacts all of us.”
SCMP’s Hong Kong Inclusion Summit 2026 is supported by:
Presenting Sponsor: DFI Retail Group
Inclusion Partners: Manulife, MTR Corporation
Exhibitor: The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust