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
Opensignal Crowns the World's Best 5G Networks29.9.2026 11:18:00 EEST | Press release
Opensignal, a global independent consumer connectivity analytics and insights company, today announced its annual Opensignal 5G Global Mobile Network Experience Awards, recognizing the providers delivering the best real-world 5G experiences across their national mobile networks. The awards assess billions of real-world user experiences across Download Speed, Video, Games, Voice App, Reliability, Coverage Experience, and — new for 2026 — Time on 5G, collected between Jan. 1 and June 29, 2026. "The consumer connectivity experience is at the core of everything we do at Opensignal. As the role of 5G in modern life grows, the bar for what great 5G looks like keeps rising," said Shawn Heidel, President, Network Experience at Opensignal. "The best operators in the world are defined by how well they deliver on that challenge, and this year's Global 5G Award winners set the standard." The highest-scoring provider in each category earns the 5G Global Winner title. Global Leaders make up the next
ClickHouse Expands Collaboration With Microsoft, Bringing Fabric Integration, Deeper OneLake Interoperability, and Enterprise Deployment Flexibility29.9.2026 10:30:00 EEST | Press release
ClickHouse, the company behind the open-source, real-time analytical database that has become the data layer for the AI era, today at The European Microsoft Fabric + SQL Community Conference announced a significant expansion of its strategic collaboration with Microsoft. The announcement encompasses four major milestones: the launch of the native ClickHouse workload for Microsoft Fabric, the general availability of OneLake read, the public preview of OneLake write, and the availability of ClickHouse Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) in the Microsoft Marketplace. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260929947201/en/ ClickHouse expands collaboration with Microsoft This expansion builds on ClickHouse's growing presence within the Microsoft ecosystem, where data-intensive organizations rely on ClickHouse Cloud on Azure to power real-time observability, business intelligence, AI/ML pipelines, and analytical applications at sc
Opengear Expands Reach Through Pan-European Distribution Agreement with Ingram Micro29.9.2026 10:01:00 EEST | Press release
Opengear, a Digi International company (NASDAQ: DGII) and global leader in out-of-band management solutions, has signed its first pan-European distribution agreement with Ingram Micro, one of the world’s largest technology distributors. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260929668925/en/ Opengear Expands Reach Through Pan-European Distribution Agreement with Ingram Micro The agreement will give resellers in participating Ingram Micro countries access to Opengear’s portfolio, supported by Ingram Micro's regional infrastructure, logistics capabilities and partner network. This expands Opengear’s existing reach in the UK, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium and Luxembourg, and brings its network resilience platform to resellers and end-users in additional European markets, such as Switzerland, Hungary, and Czech Republic. “This agreement with Ingram Micro marks a significant milestone in Opengear’s EMEA
Estonia and Owkin Partner to Advance Sovereign AI in Biology29.9.2026 09:00:00 EEST | Press release
Estonia, led by the National Applied Research Center Metrosert, and Owkin today announced a collaboration to advance sovereign AI in biological and health research, working with Metrosert, Estonia’s state-owned applied research organisation. The collaboration will evaluate how K Pro, Owkin’s AI scientist platform, can help approved researchers work with complex Estonian health data inside secure national infrastructure, enabling reproducible analysis, and faster generation of scientific insight while preserving data sovereignty. The first phase will focus on selected Estonian health-data cohorts, with Owkin and Metrosert also exploring high-value research areas including oncology, where linked clinical, molecular, imaging and treatment-outcome data could support future biomedical research. Estonia has built one of the world’s most advanced digital public infrastructures and holds population-scale health and biomedical data assets. The partnership will explore how these foundations can
Freemarket and Axiym launch LIQUI-DT™ – real-time business access to primary-market USD₮ from Tether29.9.2026 09:00:00 EEST | Press release
Freemarket and Axiym today launched a world-first service that gives businesses 24/7 real-time access to freshly minted, primary-market USD₮ issued by Tether. LIQUI-DTTM gives businesses compliant access to primary market stablecoins inside a fully regulated payment ecosystem via Freemarket’s global payment network. In audited trials, clients have minted or burned more than $300 million to date. Institutional users and high-volume traders will benefit from superior price certainty and direct liquidity giving them budgetary control. As the USD₮ is minted directly in the primary market, treasury and compliance teams have clear provenance for internal reporting 1. The LIQUI-DT service works because while no single party owns the whole stack, it is integrated into the Freemarket network. The combination of Freemarket’s compliant fiat rails and payment network, Axiym’s liquidity engine and on-chain settlement layer and Tether’s primary market issuance creates a regulated payments network wi
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