Filipina-led HERDD aims to close gender gaps in leadership

FILIPINA-LED platform HERDD is building a regional network of women leaders in Southeast Asia to help address persistent gender gaps and barriers in leadership across sectors.

“We are grounding these discussions in lived experience, data, and leadership, and we are asking: ‘How do we ensure women are not only present in these conversations, but shaping them?’” HERDD Chief Curator Ivanna Aguiling-Dela Torre said in a statement.

She said her experience in international forums highlighted how leadership spaces remain unevenly represented.

“At the high-level dialogues that I was very privileged to attend, the rooms were overwhelmingly led by men,” Ms. Aguiling-Dela Torre said in an Instagram video during the platform’s launch. I really wanted to do something simple, which was to help elevate women’s voices in these conferences, in these dialogues, in these board meetings.”

HERDD is positioned as a leadership accelerator for women, designed to support both emerging and established leaders in navigating professional environments and expanding influence.

The platform’s website features “boardroom briefs” that provide analysis on Southeast Asian developments across sectors, along with a “Dossier” section highlighting stories of women leaders in the region.

The initiative was launched in New York by Ms. Aguiling-Dela Torre, alongside Women’s Federation for World Peace International UN Relations Office Director Merly Barlaan and WOW founder Isa Buencamino-Agbayani during a global women’s forum.

“We wanted to host this huddle in New York because it is Women’s Month and because the 70^th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women is the biggest gathering of global women’s organizations,” Ms. Aguiling-Dela Torre said.

“This is where we recalibrate, we realign, we flag what needs to be flagged, and then we set out ourselves for greater heights,” she added.

The Philippines ranked 20^th out of 148 countries in the 2025 Global Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Forum, making it the highest-ranked country in Asia.

However, a study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) said women continue to face barriers in employment, including lower labor participation, job insecurity and concentration in informal or low-paying work.

“Many women are still outside the labor market, and those who do work often find themselves in informal, low-paying or unstable jobs,” PIDS said. — A.L.S. Martinez