Open Mind: Diversity and inclusion as competitive advantage

Different abilities, backgrounds and perspectives make companies understand customers better. Telenor Myanmar is making diversity and inclusion a competitive advantage through its Open Mind program.

Telenor Myanmar
4 min readApr 7, 2020
Left to right: Myo Min Htet, Wai Wai Aung and Nu Htwe Win together with Selina Lomholdt at Telenor Myanmar’s Yangon office.

In January 2020, three new hires joined the ranks of Telenor Myanmar. Wai Wai Aung, Myo Min Htet and Nu Htwe Win are working within our central staff functions. These three are experts within HR, Corporate Affairs and Finance, with a solid education and aspirations to build a career within one of Myanmar’s growth sectors. Over the past six years, Telenor Myanmar has welcomed hundreds of talents keen to prove their mettle in the telecoms industry. We are fortunate to be able to select top-tier talents who quickly demonstrate their value both here in Myanmar and within our global organization. Making sure Telenor is a great place to work is a top priority for us.

So why am I highlighting Wai Wai, Myo Min and Nu Htwe? Because despite being highly talented people with sought-after competence, their path to employment has not been a straightforward one. All three of them are born with different physical handicaps. Because of this, each of them have struggled to find relevant employment, even with well documented qualifications.

Global Chief People Officer for Telenor Group, Cecilie Heuch, was in Yangon at the launch of Telenor Myanmar’s Open Mind program in January 2020.

Myanmar is a highly competitive market for telecoms. Four operators are vying for customers’ attention and business. All of us are trying to deliver the best possible service and the most relevant products by being present exactly when and where customers want to engage with us. Doing so means we need deep understanding of your customers, their needs and desires, as well as systems and structures to make sure we are able to act on those insights. When serving mass market customers, customer understanding isn’t limited to a specialized segment: we need to be able to cater for a wide range of customer profiles. In Telenor’s purpose statement, we emphasize this understanding: “Connecting you to what matters most. Empowering societies.”

At Telenor, we care about diversity and inclusion not because we want to be nice or because it looks good, but because it is good business. According to the World Bank, 15% of the world’s population, or 1 billion people, experience some form of disability. Understanding this customer group, what their pain points and connectivity needs are, is just as important as understanding what matters most to any other market segment. This is why we at Telenor believe in broad representation in our employee base. At the same time, it is critical to live by a set of common behaviors that encourage inclusion — making sure that different perspectives are heard and taken into account. We work actively to promote such behaviors across our organization.

Telenor Myanmar’s Open Mind candidates together with representatives from local NGO partner Myanmar Independent Living Initiative (MILI) at the program launch in January 2020.

The three new hires joining us this week also matter from a societal perspective. Their gainful employment means they are taking responsibility for their own livelihoods, and are contributing back to society as tax payers and self-sufficient consumers. It is this “triple win” — for the individual, for business and for society, that encouraged Telenor Group to launch the first Open Mind program in 1996, in Norway. Since then, Open Mind initiatives have been introduced in Sweden and Pakistan. The program has engaged more than 300 people and brought more than 75% of candidates permanently into the workforce. We are hopeful that the introduction of Telenor Open Mind in Myanmar, in collaboration with Myanmar Independent Living Initiative (MILI), we can help create a movement that will inspire other companies as well.

Selina Lomholdt is the Chief People Officer at Telenor Myanmar. She has more than 20 years’ experience from HR and People Development, and has served in HR leadership roles in Telenor Denmark, Dell and Radisson SAS Hotels.

This article was first published in the Global New Light of Myanmar in January 2020.

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Telenor Myanmar

Telenor Myanmar was a mobile operator in Myanmar 2014–2022. The company will be operating under new brand from July 2022. www.telenor.com.mm