Background - Meta HR & Communication
Meta HR & Communication was incorporated in 1993 as a training company. Since that date, the organization has evolved into a premier consulting firm specializing in the development of customized interventions for training, consultancy, and coaching.
Meta is an outgrowth of Eagles Communications (“Eagles”), a Christian nonprofit organization, which engages in a variety of activities to advance the cause of Christ in Singapore, Southeast Asia, and around the world. Eagles sponsors evangelistic events, provides leadership training to ministry and business leaders, and offers mediation services to organizations and individuals. Founded in 1968 by the current leadership team, Eagles was the outgrowth of its founder’s conversion and passion to see men and women come to know Jesus Christ personally. Eagles vision is “to share Christ, strengthen the church, and serve the community.” Its mission is threefold:
- To reach working adults with the Gospel of Jesus Christ through relevant media.
- To disciple Christians through teaching and equipping.
- To restore broken lives and relationships through the integrative approach of mediation and counseling.
Eagles began its training ministry in 1975 with a single seminar. Organized in 1990 under Mark Chan, the Institute of Leadership Development (ILD) is currently designing leadership development programs to focus on the following four distinct groups: senior ministry leaders; promising young ministry leaders; lay leaders; and Christian business leaders. The ILD training will eventually consist of five modules, to be given to participants over a five-year period. The modules focus on a range of topics, including personal development and conflict management. The first couple of training modules are complete. The remaining modules are in the final stages of development.
Engagement
The purpose of this project is to build on our seminal study conducted during the summers of 2003 and 2004, in which we conducted Behavior Event Interviews (BEIs) with 66 Christian CEOs and senior business leaders in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. The purpose of these prior studies was to uncover common leadership competencies and characteristics shared among top performing Christian CEOs. The project to be conducted during the summer of 2005 will build on this original work, seeking to validate (or invalidate) our original findings. It will also build upon our original studies by expanding the data sets to include senior business leaders from another cultural context, Indonesia, and from the Muslim and Buddhist religious traditions.
Through interviews with Christian CEOs in Southeast Asia, the team deepened their
understanding of how Christian CEOs in Southeast Asia uniquely approach their work. They further tested and validated the leadership competency model developed in Peter Chao’s (founder of Eagles) leadership research for use in Meta’s consulting work. The project took a step forward in building an understanding of how Buddhist and Muslim CEOs in Southeast Asia approach their work and leadership tasks, in order to begin to understand the characteristics and competencies that differentiate Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist CEOs. Finally, the team developed recommendations for Eagles to improve the effectiveness of its leadership development programs targeted to Christian business leaders and Meta clients. Like previous years, the findings were recorded in a monograph or book to be published at a later date.
Team Bios
Kelly Egenes - Kelly is a 2005 graduate from Harvard Business School. Originally from Texas, Kelly worked at Sabre, Inc prior to usines school, which included a six-moth assignment in Sao Paolo, Brazil. After business school, Kelly will be joining Kraft Foods.
Mei Chee - Mei is a 2005 graduate of Harvard Business School and was originally from Malaysia. Mei has significant experience on Wall Street (JP Morgan) and managing non-profit organizations, including co-founding an organization that “seeks to celebrate and facilitate the ways in which microfinance strengthens the entrepreneurial spirit in impoverished communities.”
Lawrence Chung Trained as a civil engineer, Lawrence originally rears from Canada and is a 2005 MBA from the University of Oxford. He also serves as a Senior Consultant in the Technology Integration Practice of Deloitte Consulting.
Priscilla Mwangi – Priscilla has completed her 1st year at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, MD. Priscilla is originally from Kenya, where she has worked with Unga Limited, Kodak, and Proctor & Gamble. At the Robert H. Smith School of Business, Priscilla serves as the VP Programs, Black MBA Association and as a Graduate Assistant with the Smith Media Group.
James Whitehead – James is a 2005 graduate of the Harvard Business School. He is an engineer and originally rears from Atlanta, but has lived in Australia as well. His long-term professional goals are to provide strategic management consulting for non-profit and/or government clients as well as operations and logistics coordination and people-oriented assistance.