Speaker
Dr. Moez Doraid
Deputy Executive Director, Organizational and Business Development Service

Lecturer brief history

Dr. Moez Doraid is the Deputy Executive Director for Operations and Partnership Building at the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). An Egyptian national, he has wide experience with the UN spurning twenty years across various agencies and countries. Prior to joining UNIFEM, he held various positions, the most recent being as UN Resident

Coordinator/UNDP Resident Representative in Kuwait. His other work with the UN system includes in the Maldives as UN Humanitarian Coordinator and Resident Coordinator, a.i. where he helped bring attention to the humanitarian crises in that area following the tsunami in 2004. He was also the Assistant Resident Representative in UNDP Sudan and a co-author of several global and Arab Human Development Reports.

Before joining UNDP, Mr. Doraid was a Diplomatic Attache' with the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has a B.A. in Economics from the American University of Cairo, a Masters in Public Administration focusing on economic development from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from the Lebanese University.

Speaker
Ms. Nicole Hollows
CEO & Managing Director, Macarthur Coal Ltd

Lecturer brief history

Nicole Hollows was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Macarthur Coal in January 2007 and Managing Director in June 2007. Prior to this Nicole held the positions of Acting CEO, Deputy CEO and Chief Financial Officer.

Nicole joined the group in 1998 and Macarthur Coal Limited listed on 5 July 2001 at $128 million market capitalisation. In her role Nicole leads a team of over 350 employees and is recognised as one of Australia's emerging business leaders.

In 2007 Nicole was appointed to the Board of the Queensland Resources Council (QRC) and became president of the QRC in November 2008. Nicole's memberships include the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Institute of Chartered Secretaries Australia. In 2008 Nicole joined the QUT Faculty of Business Executive Dean's CEO Strategy Group and in 2009 the Board of the Queensland Museum Foundation.

In 2009 Nicole was awarded both the QUT Outstanding Alumni Award for Faculty of Business and the Veuve Clicquot Rising Star Award.

Speaker
Ms. Yuri Konno
President & CEO, DIAL SERVICE Co., Ltd.

Lecturer brief history

In 1969, Yuri Konno established Dial Service Co., Ltd. to provide telephone secretary service and childcare telephone consultation service, both first in Japan. At that time, she understood telephone as a means of bidirectional media in the days when it was still considered as a mere communication tool. Since then, she has found out the day's needs while always maintaining consumers' viewpoints, sought possibilities of telephone services, and started new information services. At the same time, she made every effort to overcome obstacles due to legal regulations that actually hindered the development of such information services. Her efforts led to the creation of a billing system based on information provided. For this reason, she is known as the substantive founder of Dial Q2.

In 1979, Konno established Living Science Institute, a woman-only think tank. She has continued to present to society a lot of proposals about how women should live, what lifestyles they should follow, and other subjects, including Expo '85 (The International Exhibition, Tsukuba, Japan, 1985), community development, aging society, and efforts for surveying and studying household support services.

She also participates in official activities, including the government's Tax Commission, Financial System Council, Telecommunication Council, Industrial Structure Council, and other ministry and agency councils, as well as Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai) (manager), the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry (regular member), and Japan New Business Conference Associations (vice chairperson).

As a forerunner of woman entrepreneurs, she was appointed ambassadors of a lot of prefectures and has concentrated her efforts on activation of local communities and support of venture businesses. For this reason, she is called the mother of venture businesses.

She has built wide networks inside and outside Japan by inviting woman entrepreneurs from across the world to Women Entrepreneurs International Exchange Program sessions held every year. On the other hand, she sometimes showed her own personal powerfulness by, for example, setting up a new national record of Japan in marathon golf (included in the Guinness World Records) and successfully climbing Mt. Grand Teton in the United States.

In 1985, she was awarded the Minister's Prize, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications for her contribution to new media development, In 1998, she was awarded as one of the Leading Women Entrepreneurs of The World. In the autumn of 2007, she was conferred The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon. The books she wrote include "Woman's Selection" (Japan Broadcast Publishing Co., Ltd.), "Working for a Venture Business" (Nikkei Inc.), and "When a Woman Organizes a Company" (Toyo Keizai, Inc.) (co-author).