Female leaders in Singapore: Meet April Wan, VP of Human Resources at Razer

During lunch, groups would play Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB), a popular multiplayer online battle arena game, Pokemon Unite, or whatever the team’s latest game was.

AFK stands for “Away From Keyboard” and takes place on the last Friday of every month. It’s when Razer employees play games or watch others play games during work hours.

Wen also led her team in organizing the Razer Cup, an internal gaming tournament that typically hosts regional tournaments once a year and is live-streamed to employees.

A large part of her work includes advocating for sustainability and shaping a work culture that is more diverse, equitable, engaged, and well-being.

Under her leadership, Razer USA and Razer Singapore received Great Place To Work certification for two consecutive years from 2021 to 2023. This global certification is based on employee feedback and independent analysis.

Diversity is the core of innovation

Female leadership makes the difference – 65% of Razer Singapore’s employees are male The company’s global employee gender ratio is 62% male and 38% female.

She is also part of Generation X, a group not traditionally thought of as drivers of gaming culture. Wan admits she is not a hardcore gamer and is currently playing a more “childish” game, Disney Frozen, which is similar to Candy Crush Saga.

But she points out that gaming today is more than just a male or youth culture. Diversity of the workforce is the key to innovation.

““Diversity means diversity of thought, and diversity of thought comes from individual backgrounds, cultures, genders, and the people each person comes into contact with. This is key to building products that are relevant to our target audience,” she said.

In fact, Wan’s first job after joining the company in 2019 was to drive the transformation to a human resources information system, which enables the company to digitize and analyze data for its 1,500 employees worldwide.

It took Ms. Wan and her team of 50 people about a year to input the data. Using information such as employees’ race, gender, age, job, salary, etc., the software can indicate which of Razer’s employees have more skills and which areas they lack skills in, so that the company can optimize performance and productivity.

It also enables companies to implement inclusive hiring practices and anti-bias training programs.