Staying Resilient: Inspirations & Insights from Young Women Leaders in Water

Staying Resilient: Inspirations & Insights from Young Women Leaders in Water

By CWR, Sophie Lam, Yisih Chai, Soomin Park, Jamie Chan, Ziyang Cai, Dawn McGregor 20 March, 2026

Why join the water space? Hear from CWR's past & present female staff reflect on their early career journeys & what keeps them going

Water has traditionally been a male dominated sector but today, more and more women are working in the space. So, we are pleased that this year’s World Water Day celebrates centering women in water solutions. After all, CWR is a woman led organisation with a women majority team today. But it hasn’t always been that way.

Over the years we’ve seen many impressive young women walk through our doors and so as the future of water will be in their hands … we thought we’d ask them to reflect on memorable moments in their water journey so far, the challenges ahead they see and what they are excited about in the water space …

As you can see, the answers below are diverse but given that they only spent less than 1 to 4 years in the water space, why they started their water journey and their memorable moments are certainly inspiring. And none of them had the same answer on the biggest challenges facing water today.

They are insightful and may not be what you’d expect …

Most memorable moments in your water journey …

Sophie Lam (CWR 2021-2025): My most exciting career achievement in water was co-authoring CWR’s report on No Sense Climate Strategies. Rather than an “aha” moment, it was more of a “huh” – realising just how misaligned decarbonisation, risk recognition, and adaptation-resilience strategies were among HK’s leading property developers. After the report launch, it was also pretty cool to be invited to speak in front of a room full of lawyers about the legal and regulatory risks they could face if they didn’t get on top of physical risks as well.

Yisih Chai (CWR 2023-2025): When I was young, a documentary about people struggling in dry, bleak environments left a deep impression on me. It made me realize how severe the gap in water access is across the world. As climate change makes these extremes even more intense and frequent, I felt a personal responsibility to join the water space to help tackle these challenges head-on.

Soomin Park (CWR 2021-2022): Water is climate change made real. That’s why I had joined CWR – to make those risks visible to readers in finance and corporate sectors. In 2021, I wrote for World Water Week that we must go from words to action; time is running out to build water resilience. Now, I write reports to flag those actions in due diligence reports for financiers.

Ziyang Cai (CWR Sept 2025-now): I spent years focused on the energy transition and thought I would end up working in a policy think tank focused on decarbonisation. But interning at CWR showed me the critical importance of the water-climate-energy nexus. The water cycle is also getting more erratic and will threaten all aspects of our lives if we don’t take any action right now and I was shocked that I had not realised that despite studying environmental policies for more than 3 years. So, I decided to switch to work on water instead – to help more people understand that water is deeply intertwined with our economic growth as well as the energy sector.

Jamie Chan (CWR May 2025-now): In university, my research project for my degree in anthropology led me to New Orleans (USA) to explore disaster resilience among communities living with rising seas and sinking ground. After graduation I ended up in Cape Town (South Africa) researching groundwater governance for managing drought risk. Both experiences were formative for me. I saw and felt climate impacts at the opposite ends of hydrological extremes, learned how socio-economic disparity shapes exposure, and from the people I met working on these issues, found astuteness and grit like I’ve never seen before.

Due to sea level rise, the Grand Bayou Village in Louisiana, USA is only accessible via boat now. Source: Jamie Chan

Biggest challenge facing water today …

Yisih: We’ve long operated on the myth that the future will look like the past, but everything is a lot more volatile now. And as an analyst, you see that water is a physical constraint on every sector we track – from power and mining to the high-tech supply chain. The biggest challenge is actually enforcing policies and moving capital fast enough to match the accelerating impacts and the scale of what all of us need to do.

Jamie: What we thought were “slow-moving” risks like water stress, sea level rise and AMOC shutdown are speeding up drastically (even just in the past year) but decision-making still hasn’t caught up to this urgency. It takes courage to confront the reality of total hydrological breakdown and a bold imagination to plan our systems around a post-tipping point future.

Soomin: It’s the disparity between where the world is directing its focus versus what we’re actually facing on the ground. Global priorities are grossly misaligned – towards military spending and powering AI data centres, which themselves guzzle water, instead of climate action. Meanwhile, in my current job, projects I assess for financiers, water risks intensify, especially in the Global South: ports exposed to floods, bulk water projects exposed to droughts, solar farms battered by storms are now normal. I interview banks dealing with non-performing loans due to GLOFs. The disproportionate impact on women (this year’s World Water Day theme) surfaces constantly. What keeps me driven? Refusing to accept that all this is inevitable.

Ziyang: Floods and their secondary disasters are becoming more frequent nowadays, and they cause huge damage, resulting in 69% of the total economic loss in China in 2025, for example. The systemic impact it causes can take weeks or even months to recover from, and the current insurance system is increasingly struggling to cover the enormous losses caused by floods.

Sophie: Developing city-wide transformative adaptation plans, especially for looming risks like sea-level rise. Governments shouldn’t always rely on short-term planning, which can lead to maladaptation, and they shouldn’t be afraid to seek help from all kinds of experts. In that way they plan more pragmatically and holistically.

Most excited about in the water space …

Ziyang: The digital twin. Digital twin for watershed seems like an all-in-one solution to the management of the complicated nexus that involves climate, water, energy, agriculture, and so on. It’s an integration of a centralized platform embedded with AI, numerous sensors and the controllable water infrastructures, that can continuously monitor, simulate, and intervene in the water cycle to ensure both security and sustainability. As AI algorithms and models are trained to better reflect reality, digital twins will unleash even more potential.

Jamie: Early warning systems for all can save millions of lives and weather intelligence is making rapid progress to forecast storms with greater prediction accuracy. As we get better at understanding how this new water cycle works, we will have greater ability to mitigate hazards, build adaptive capacity, and recover more effectively from disaster events.

Yisih: The move towards a less “water-blind” future. It’s encouraging to see more governments and banks finally integrating water into their long-term strategies. This means we can expect more capital to flow into high-impact solutions – and in that case, I think we might actually be able to at least stay afloat!

Sophie: The need to think outside the box and be fearless! When I went to Stockholm World Water Week, it was amazing to witness innovative water solutions from 15-year old’s, like magnets that remove microplastic from our oceans. Now that I’m back at university for my master’s, I’m excited to get back into that momentum, be surrounded by individuals from different backgrounds in the climate space, and just get brainstorming.

Soomin: That change is possible – every due diligence report where water risks are highlighted can actually change the deal. Whether through lending conditions, design changes, or management systems – these are small wins against backsliding. And I get to be part of that shift, project by project.

We hope you enjoyed these insights and find them inspiration on this World Water Day … if you want to see what else they have written on water, click on their names to see articles by Sophie, Yisih, Soomin, Jamie and Ziyang during their time at CWR.

Still, we have far to go and lots to do in the water space to ensure water for all. This is clearly summed by our ex-colleague Dawn McGregor who has more than a decade of experience in water…

Dawn: For me, the core challenge in water today comes down to two interlinked realities: first, water is still widely treated as an abundant resource and/or basic service; second, water continues to be sidelined as a strategic priority despite sitting at the intersection of climate, food, energy, health, industry, tech and underpinning every major global risk. We must address this disconnect, elevate water to the strategic priority it is and align our systems, policies, infrastructure and investments accordingly. After more than 12 years working in water (mostly at CWR) I know this transformation is no small feat but if we don’t do it, water itself will ultimately determine its value and that’s going to be painful for us all.

Further readings

• 2023 World Water Week: 3 Key Takeaways & Personal Reflections — Back in-person at World Water Week after 5 years, CWR’s McGregor & Lam share key takeaways & reflections on the conference, for one 10 years on & the other on her first
• Water: Make Peace Not War – 5 Things To Know — Water, war and peace are inextricably linked; it is literally a life-or-death matter. Water can be a “trigger,” “casualty,” or “weapon” of violence – check out CWR Dawn McGregor’s 5 things to know to refocus water for peace
• A Conversation with Meghna Chakkraborty – Founder of South Asia Young Women in Water – There was no turning back for Chakkraborty after experiencing first-hand impacts of water scarcity in her early years. We sit down with Chakkraborty to find out more about her water story, founding of SAYWiW, advice to youth & more

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