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Leaders from Edelman, Grey Global, and Micron share the secrets to a great partnership - be it with employees, or external stakeholders.
Of all the hats HR professionals and leaders wear, none shines brighter than their role as connectors, fostering partnerships that strengthen teams, elevate workplaces, and drive meaningful change across the HR community.
Beyond their day-to-day responsibilities, many of them generously contribute their time and expertise to industry platforms, including serving on judging panels for HRO's awards programmes. Their insights help shape the standards of excellence we celebrate.
As a thank-you to some of the HR leaders who judged our HR Vendors of the Year Awards 2025, Singapore, Umairah Nasir speaks to a few of them to find out: What are the secrets to a great partnership with internal and external stakeholders? And looking ahead, what is their vision for HR in 2026?
Let’s hear what they had to say!
Amanda Lam, Senior Vice President, People Partner Southeast Asia, Hong Kong & Taiwan, Edelman
Q What are the secrets to a great partnership, whether it's with your internal or external stakeholders?
The secret to a great partnership is really about having built and established that trust between the various parties involved. With the trust built, there's a lot of challenges that can be overcome and a lot of different new ways of learning. The posture of wanting to do better for each other and to learn from each other is also very different once the trust is built. That stems from the agenda and the way we take our publications forward.
Q What is your vision for HR in 2026?
The vision for HR in 2026 is about how, with AI changing the game, we as HR partners can continue to set ourselves apart while at the same time, continue to do better by the people. How do we become more efficient? How do we become more trustworthy in the way we counsel, in the way we advise? How do we position ourselves as wanting to do better by the people?
Sameen Khan, Regional HR Director (APAC/MEA) Grey Global
Q What are the secrets to a great partnership, whether it's with your internal or external stakeholders?
One, is that you always have to work together with everyone. Whether you're working with external partners or you're working internally, you need to understand the stakeholders on both sides. So, for example, internally, you need to see who you are working with, who your team members are, and just work together and see what perspective you want to put across from your side while listening to theirs. I think that's important.
And if you work with the external partners, you need to understand their side and your side [of the story], and see how you can bring the synergies together to take it forward with everyone.
Q What is your vision for HR in 2026?
AI, AI, AI. We can hear the buzzword everywhere, but it's important to understand how the skills landscape is evolving, and it's also good to understand how technology can come in and add value into our day-to-day workflows, and how it can also increase efficiency and productivity in the organisation. You have to keep progressing and keep growing and keep doing better every day. That's the key to success.
Kenneth Koo, Country Head of Talent Acquisition, Micron Technology
Q What are the secrets to a great partnership, whether it's with your internal or external stakeholders?
The key thing would be communication because with communication, more often than not, it's not about you talking, but more [about you] listening. So really understanding your stakeholders, understanding the key needs, their pain points, that's really how you start partnering. You need to start communicating and listening.
Q What is your vision for HR in 2026?
It will be, I wouldn't say it's a start, but you will see a lot more AI-powered HR solutions that will be rolled out. Anyone that thinks that AI is not going to transform the way we work will be hit with a huge surprise, but typically, I think in the next year, or even the years to come, a lot of what we do will be AI empowered and enabled.
Photos: Provided
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