Mr. Sudesh Thevasenabathy

Bio Summary:
Based in Hong Kong, Sudesh Thevasenabathy serves as the Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Asia at Manulife. Recognized as a DEI thought leader and impactful speaker, he brings a rich multicultural perspective to his work. Sudesh is a firm advocate for diversity and inclusion, actively supporting and promoting the inclusion of all forms, both within the workplace and in customer interactions. His dedication and efforts significantly advance inclusivity and understanding across diverse groups.

Full Bio:

Sudesh Thevasenabathy brings with over 25 years of experience specialising in customer experience, process efficiencies and change management across multiple industries including telecommunications, consumer products, manufacturing, banking, healthcare tech, insurance and D&I in Malaysia and Hong Kong, through his tenures with Ericsson, British American Tobacco, HSBC, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, AXA Hong Kong and now with Manulife Asia.

Sudesh is currently Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Asia at Manulife based in Hong Kong responsible for driving the DEI agenda across the region for employees and customers. At Manulife, Sudesh focusses his efforts on the workforce, workplace, community and the business to ensure inclusion is embedded across the organisation and beyond. Before this, he served as Chief Operating Officer at Heals Healthcare Asia, and was formerly the Head of Customer Care Transformation at AXA Hong Kong looking to enhance customer experience through new innovation and technologies including AI and bots. He has received numerous awards in recognition of his work in the areas of customer experience across Asia.

Shifting his career towards his passion for inclusion, Sudesh was the founding member of the AXA Hong Kong Diversity & Inclusion Council. He also won the 2019 Hong Kong Ally Award by Community Business and was named 2019 Global Top 50 OUTstanding Role Model (Involve.org) through his work for the diversity and inclusion community. He is a true believer and advocate of diversity and inclusion in the workplace and with customers, and actively works and speaks in supporting inclusion of all forms be it disability, race, gender, sexuality and multi-generational employees in various forums around the world. He recently helped Manulife win Best Diversity and Inclusion Asia Pacific by PRAsia and Excellence in D&I by HKIHRM.

He's also a council member of ESF's Jockey Club Sarah Roe School in Hong Kong, Advisory Council member of SENsational Foundation and an Ally Mentor alumni for Community Business's Mentorship Programme. Sudesh also jointly co-chairs the Inclusion Collective with South China Morning Post, which is a coalition of 16 corporates and NGOs to drive diversity, equity and inclusion in Hong Kong.

Sudesh is an Electronics and Computing engineering graduate and is Six Sigma, Lean and Human Centered Design trained. A change agent at heart, he is passionate about delivering the best experience possible for employees and customers at every level of any organisation.