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
Earnix Brings Agentic AI to the Decisions That Drive Insurance Performance17.9.2026 16:09:00 EEST | Press release
Earnix today announced the introduction of Agent Hub, a curated catalog of insurance-specific AI agents and apps within Earnix AIOS — the AI Orchestration System powering Earnix’s pricing and rating, underwriting, and customer engagement solutions. Agent Hub brings agentic AI directly into these solutions, enabling more intelligent workflows and strengthening the high-stakes decisions that shape pricing, underwriting, customer engagement, growth, and profitability. In an increasingly turbulent insurance environment, the useful life of an insurance decision is getting shorter. Risk and market conditions are changing faster, making growth, profitability, and portfolio performance harder to manage. AI is increasing the speed and scope of what insurers can analyze, recommend, and increasingly act on — but as intelligence moves closer to action, the standard for governance, explainability, and accountability also rises. For insurers, that shift has direct implications for both financial per
Medisca Launches Global Peptide Division17.9.2026 16:07:00 EEST | Press release
Medisca today announced the launch of Medisca Peptides, a dedicated global division focused on expanding access to API-grade peptides and building an integrated peptide platform for pharmaceutical and personalized medicine markets worldwide. As the peptide landscape evolves, Medisca is proactively building the capabilities and infrastructure needed to support API-grade peptides within applicable regulatory frameworks. The launch represents a significant long-term commitment to peptides, including the expansion of Medisca’s portfolio, strategic manufacturing relationships, and the pharmaceutical infrastructure needed to support the category’s growth. It also signals Medisca’s ambition to become a leading force in the next generation of peptide innovation. For Medisca, the opportunity is familiar. More than 35 years ago, the company was founded to help close the gap between the pharmaceutical standards compounders needed and the quality ingredients they could readily access. Today, as pe
Elliptic Launches Its Decode Agent to Answer On-Chain Risk Questions and Shows Its Work17.9.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
Elliptic, the global leader in on-chain risk, today launched Decode, an AI agent built on Elliptic’s intelligence platform. The Decode agent answers natural-language questions about cryptoasset addresses and their exposure in seconds, and returns the evidence behind every answer. Compliance and investigations teams need answers to questions nobody planned for. Getting them out of the data is now a specialist skill, so the questions wait for someone who has it, or go unasked. Meanwhile illicit actors move at machine speed, and agents are starting to sit on both sides of a payment. General-purpose AI assistants can produce an answer. They cannot show where it came from. A fluent response with nothing behind it cannot be put in front of a second-line reviewer, an auditor, or a regulator. “The market is full of AI that asks to be trusted. That is not good enough when someone asks how you reached a decision,” said Jackson Hull, CTO at Elliptic. “We published the Elliptic Standard last week
AMRA Medical Earns TIME’s Highest “Outstanding” Rating in World’s Top HealthTech Companies 202617.9.2026 15:51:00 EEST | Press release
The 2026 result builds on AMRA’s inclusion in the inaugural ranking in 2025, when the company received a “Very High” designation. Its advancement to the top category reflects continued progress in scientific excellence and technological innovation, as well as the expanding application of MRI-based biomarkers across research, drug development, and clinical care. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260917956850/en/ “Being recognized by TIME and Statista for the second consecutive year and receiving the highest ‘Outstanding’ designation is a meaningful recognition of AMRA’s continued progress,” said Olof Dahlqvist Leinhard, CEO of AMRA Medical. “It reflects the dedication of our team and the strong scientific foundation behind our work. Our mission is to advance the understanding of health and disease through MRI-based biomarkers, and we are proud to see that work recognized on a global stage.” At AMRA, our work is c
INNIO Secures 450 MW Order to Power Next-Generation Data Centers17.9.2026 15:30:00 EEST | Press release
INNIO N.V. (Nasdaq: INIO) today announced it has secured an order from a U.S. energy company for 450 megawatts (MW) of power infrastructure. INNIO's Jenbacher J624 containerized gas engines will support the deployment of prime power solutions for large-scale data center projects in North America. The order reflects continued demand for the company's high-efficiency gas engine technology as data center developers seek off-grid alternatives to constrained grid infrastructure. This is the first order by the customer of this scale. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260917646026/en/ INNIO secures 450 MW order to power next-generation data centers The engines are expected to be delivered by 2028. The firm order was booked in INNIO’s current third quarter of 2026.In line with customary confidentiality practices in the data center industry, the energy company’s name is not being disclosed at this time. "AI is driving un
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