WeQual: Eight Exceptional Women Executives Honoured in EMEA Diversity Awards
15.12.2020 18:17:00 EET | Business Wire | Press release
Eight businesswomen holding prominent executive roles in leading companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa have been named as winners in the annual WeQual Awards (www.wequal.com/awards).
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201215005796/en/
WeQual EMEA 2020 - Winners (Photo: Business Wire)
WeQual identifies and recognises world-class women executives, one level below the group C-suite, and is designed to promote diversity and gender equality within the group executive committees of EMEA’s largest companies.
The eight winners were selected from a shortlist of 24 finalists. The successful award holders are employed in Aryzta, Bayer’s Consumer Health Division, Bureau Veritas, Fresenius Medical Care, Ooredoo Qatar, Sodexo, Standard Chartered Bank and Unilever.
Katie Litchfield, Founder and CEO of WeQual, says: “WeQual identifies already successful senior women who are qualified to be appointed to the group C-suite. Our mission is to tackle the slow progress in appointing diverse women to executive roles and highlight successes where they occur.
“The glass-ceiling concept has been an issue for decades, and the drop-off is steepest just below the group C-suite, so it is important to champion gender equality at the top.”
The awards come at an important time for women in business. The global Covid-19 pandemic is in danger of pushing back opportunities for women to be appointed to the most senior positions. “The fact that we are able to celebrate the achievements of these women in major companies at this time sets a shining example to others,” says Katie Litchfield.
The winners are:
− Bola Adesola: Senior Vice-Chairman, Africa, Standard Chartered Bank, Nigeria. Head of Region Category.
− Dr Cora Koppe-Stahrenberg: Executive Vice President, Global Head of Human Resources, Fresenius Medical Care, Germany. People Excellence Category.
− Munera AL-Dosari: Chief Strategy Officer, Ooredoo Qatar. Strategy Development Category.
− Patricia Amaro: Digital Hub and E-commerce Director, Unilever, Spain. Digital Impact Category.
− Patricia Corsi: Global Chief Marketing and Digital Officer, Bayer’s Consumer Health Division, Switzerland. Brand Innovation Category.
− Nathalie Pousin: Chief Financial Officer, France, Africa, GSIT, Bureau Veritas, France. Finance Category.
− Petra Melander: EMEA Account Director, Sodexo, Finland. Commercial Performance Category.
− Rebeca Navarro: Chief Transformation Officer for Europe and Head of Procurement, Aryzta, Switzerland. Transformational Leadership Category.
The 24 finalists were assessed against seven criteria: Leadership, Cognitive Ability, Integrity, Drive and Resilience, Equality, Knowledge of the Business, and Personal Development. All candidates were assessed blind with no name or company revealed in their application.
To choose the winners, eight executive interviewers held 30-minute interviews with the three finalists in each category before each choosing a category winner. The judges were:
− Sir Ian Cheshire, Chairman, Barclays UK
− Viswas Raghavan, CEO EMEA, J.P. Morgan
− Warren East, CEO, Rolls-Royce
− Dame Inga Beale, Chairperson, Mediclinic
− Chris O'Shea, CEO, Centrica
− Ron Kalifa OBE, Chairman, Network International
− Tamara Box, Managing Partner EME, Reed Smith LLP
− Tulsi Naidu, CEO, Zurich Insurance Company UK
All the 24 award finalists have been given access to a range of WeQual support services and networks designed to help them make the step up to the group executive level. A quarter of WeQual award winners in the UK and USA have since been promoted to the global executive committees of FTSE and Fortune 500 companies. There are now 96 senior women involved with WeQual globally.
(Ends)
Notes to editors
About WeQual
WeQual's mission is to make businesses more inclusive by identifying exceptional women executives and address the gender imbalance across the world's Group Executive Committees. Katie Litchfield, founder and CEO of WeQual Awards, devised the new platform which calls for women senior executives to build their case as to why they deserve to be appointed to the Group Executive Committee.
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wequal-awards
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/WeQualGlobal
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBpixTLeUsQVjwrivAP9-KA
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WeQualAwards
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wequalglobal
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201215005796/en/
Contact information
Katie Litchfield
katie@wequal.com
Mobile: + 44 7796 147466
UK office: +44 20 3290 3389
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Vertex Presents New Data on ALYFTREK ® at European Cystic Fibrosis Conference5.6.2026 19:00:00 EEST | Press release
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (Nasdaq: VRTX) today announced data demonstrating the potentially transformative impact of treating cystic fibrosis (CF) with ALYFTREK ® (vanzacaftor/tezacaftor/deutivacaftor) in children ages 2 to 5, as well as data from 96-week interim analyses of two open-label extension studies of ALYFTREK in children 6 to 11 years and people 12 years and older demonstrating the long-term safety and efficacy profile of the medicine. The data, presented at the European Cystic Fibrosis Conference, show children ages 2 to 5 with vanzacaftor/tezacaftor/deutivacaftor-responsive genotypes including those who are homozygous for the F508del mutation (F/F) and those who have F508del/minimal function mutations (F/MF)on ALYFTREK had further improvement in CFTR function from a TRIKAFTA ® baseline as measured by sweat chloride (SwCl), with 65% having achieved SwCl <30 mmol/L after treatment with ALYFTREK. Vertex also presented Phase 3 data of children ages 1 to <2 with TRIKAF
Owkin to Build AI Agents as Part of a Multi-Year K Pro Collaboration with Sanofi5.6.2026 14:00:00 EEST | Press release
Owkin, the agentic AI company pioneering Biological Artificial Superintelligence to transform drug discovery and development, today announced a multi-year collaboration with Sanofi to co-develop next-generation biopharma agents, to be backed by a five-year license for K Pro, Owkin’s AI Scientist. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260605704506/en/ K Pro, Owkin's AI scientist for biology, powered by multimodal patient data for smarter biopharma decision making. Owkin and Sanofi have collaborated since 2021 through a €90 million strategic partnership focused on target identification in oncology and patient subgrouping. The collaboration was later expanded to include drug positioning for Sanofi’s immunology pipeline. This new collaboration represents the next evolution in the partnership. During the five-year collaboration, Owkin will lead the end-to-end development of novel AI-driven biopharma agents purpose-built
DFNS Rebrands as the Core Banking Platform for Digital Assets5.6.2026 13:41:00 EEST | Press release
DFNS today announced a rebrand, marking its evolution from a wallet infrastructure to the first core banking platform for digital assets. The company is introducing a new logo, website, and market position as fintechs and institutions move their products and operations onchain. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260603859127/en/ Banks, fintechs, asset managers, trading firms, payment providers, market infrastructures, and clearing houses have stopped asking how to "add crypto." They're asking how to run financial products, controls, workflows, and client services on blockchain rails, with the reliability expected of core infrastructure. Some are going further still, exploring whether the blockchain can serve as the ledger itself, where an account is an onchain object rather than a row in a database. Where IBANs, virtual accounts, and blockchain wallets converge into one governed financial account. “DFNS was built
Compass Pathways Announces New Employee Inducement Grants Under Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4)5.6.2026 13:30:00 EEST | Press release
Compass Pathways plc (Nasdaq: CMPS), a biotechnology company dedicated to accelerating patient access to evidence-based innovation in mental health, announced today that Compass granted equity awards under the Compass Pathways plc 2026 Inducement Plan to seventeen newly hired non-executive employees. The equity awards were granted on June 1, 2026 and consisted of options to purchase an aggregate of 157,000 shares and restricted share units or, in the case of employees in the United Kingdom nominal cost options, covering an aggregate of 74,700 shares. The options have an exercise price per share equal to $14.19, the closing price of the Company’s American Depositary Shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on the grant date, and will vest over a four-year period with 25% vesting on the first anniversary of the date of the grant and the remaining 75% vesting in equal monthly installments over the three-year period thereafter, subject to each employee’s continued employment. The restrict
Renewable Electricity, Soft Wheat Flour From Regenerative Agriculture, Initiatives to Support Local Communities: Barilla Shares These and Other Projects in “Stories of Sustainability.”5.6.2026 11:00:00 EEST | Press release
A slimmer Tagliatelle pack that saves 150 tons of cardboard and cuts transport-related CO₂ emissions by 20%1; ready-made sauce jars made with around 65% recycled glass; the progressive scaling of regenerative agriculture practices across Barilla’s value chain and initiatives supporting inclusion and equal opportunities across the Group’s production sites and communities. These are just some of the “sustainability” stories the Barilla Group is sharing on World Environment Day with the publication of its 2025 Sustainability Report. The report comes just after Barilla was named the world’s most reputable company in the food sector for the third year running and, for the first time, ranked among the global top 10 in the Global RepTrak 100 2026. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260603162436/en/ “The future of the planet will increasingly depend on our ability to spread culture and education,” says Paolo Barilla, Vic
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom