Yvonne Greenstreet

1
Chief Executive Officer
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals

As CEO at Alnylam, Yvonne has advocated for the development of measurable benchmarks to hold the company accountable, leading a cross-functional global team to create an action plan for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion that after establishing a set of guiding principles to inform their work, it led to Alnylam's first-ever Corporate Responsibility Report for 2021. Alnylam is committed to supporting women in the office and at home and creating a work environment that allows staff to balance work and family. Alnylam’s Employee Resource Networks (ERNs) enable global networking, education, advocacy on gender diversity, and promotion of equity and inclusion both internally and externally. In 2021, the company initiated The Athena Project, which focuses on enhancing women's leadership skills at the Director and Senior Director levels. As a board member of the Biomedical Science Careers Program, Yvonne advises and supports initiatives to provide academic opportunities to underrepresented individuals.

Anne Richards

2
Chief Executive Officer
Fidelity International

As the Chief Executive of Fidelity International and Chair of Fidelity’s Global Operating Committee, Anne is responsible for setting the firm’s corporate and strategic initiatives with a strong focus on diversity and inclusion. Under her leadership, Enhanced Parental Leave Policy was introduced, allowing fathers/secondary carers to take equalised paid leave as mothers/primary carers regardless of sexual orientation or working location. Another policy provided all employees with caring responsibilities with up to five additional days paid leave per calendar year. In 2020, Fidelity achieved their target of 30% women in global senior management roles and set a new target to achieve 35% women in senior roles by December 2023. Under Anne’s leadership, Fidelity also piloted a female leadership program which resulted in a direct increase in female recruitment to senior roles in India, and expanded the firm’s successful New Horizon Returnship Program.

Michele Wee

3
CEO
Standard Chartered bank (Vietnam) limited

Michele’s organization has 70% female representation with 45% in leadership roles. As chair of the Vietnam’s people’s agenda, the focus on DEI, CSR and New Ways of Working resonates across the organization of 1550 employees that participated in 30 events through the year. More broadly, Michele is also senior Bank sponsor of SCB’s global coaching program – IGNITE that target mid-level females as they progress their leadership journey. The program has coached 650 females (21% of total female population) across 53 countries. For the Vietnamese community SCB’s commitment of female empowerment through various local partners NGO’s, Chambers of Commerce, clients and vendors impact ethnic minority students to executive / entrepreneurs providing thought leadership, toolkits and financial education that augments female participation in society and business. Michele is vocally advocates for all DEI through media and panel discussions and is recognized by Top 100 women in Fintech 2022 and Heroes for the 2nd consecutive year.

Serpil Timuray

4
CEO Europe Cluster and Member of Group Executive Committee, Vodafone Group
Vodafone Group plc

Since 2014 Serpil has chaired Vodafone’s global Inclusion for All Committee, which has led a pioneering agenda towards colleagues, customers and communities to improve diversity and inclusion. Serpil has championed the development and rollout of specific apps and services to support women in markets where Vodafone operates – such as the domestic violence app, and drove a target of connecting an additional 20 million women in Africa and Turkey, achieved four years ahead of schedule. In March 2020, Serpil led the development and launch of Vodafone's #ChangeTheFace initiative – a call for action based on ground-breaking research into the lack of racial, gender, age diversity within the technology industry. This evolved into the #ChangeTheFace Alliance where leading global tech companies and organisations collaborate on accelerating diversity and equality in the technology sector. In February 2022, Serpil received the Diversity In Tech Outstanding Achievement Award at Mobile World Congress.

Sharon Thorne

5
Global Board Chair
Deloitte

Sharon has spent over three decades on boards and held several executive roles including Deputy CEO of Deloitte North South Europe. She actively promotes and is a sought-after public speaker on diversity and inclusion, mental health/wellbeing, and sustainability. Sharon works with Deloitte’s leadership to set and meet ambitious goals for the representation of women in leadership globally. She is an advocate for allyship and sponsorship in the workplace, for example through her involvement with Deloitte's Women in the Boardroom report. Sharon established Deloitte’s UK diversity networks in 2007, and champions the Deloitte Global Gender Balance network, the Deloitte UK Neurodiversity network, and the Deloitte Global LGBT+ network. She personally sponsors and mentors several people, and actively participates in external forums such as The 30% Club. Sharon regularly meets with groups of women at Deloitte and externally to share her experiences, understand theirs, and encourage them to pursue their career ambitions.

Alisha Alaimo

6
President
Biogen U.S. Organization

Alisha is responsible for driving growth and people development for Biogen’s U.S. Organization. Leadership to Alisha is about inspiring people to achieve more than they thought possible, embrace change, and seek diverse perspectives to deliver extraordinary results. She created new development programs including "Women on the Rise" and "PROPEL" to accelerate the readiness and visibility of mid-level women and non-white people for senior roles. She also serves as Executive Sponsor for Biogen's Women's Innovation Network, an employee resource group designed to create opportunities for empowerment, advocacy, and advancement. As a board member of The Biogen Foundation, she advocates for supporting access to science education for diverse populations. Her career spans a wide spectrum of leadership roles in strategy, sales, marketing, market access, key account management, advocacy, and medical functions in the U.S. and internationally.

Megan Clarken

7
Chief Executive Officer
Criteo

Megan Clarken is the Chief Executive Officer at Criteo, the global commerce media company. Since joining in 2019, Megan has been instrumental in Criteo’s transformation. Today, the company operates a robust Commerce Media Platform that connects 22,000 marketers and thousands of media owners to deliver richer consumer experiences. Prior to Criteo, Megan served as Chief Commercial Officer of Nielsen Global Media, where she spent over 15 years in a variety of roles leading initiatives that allowed the 90+-year-old company to adapt and prevail in a time of change. Before she was dubbed one of the “most important figures in media” by Adweek, Megan was an Olympic class athlete, using her perseverance and resilience to pivot into a successful career in technology. With vast awards under her belt, Megan continues to be recognized for her ability to transform businesses, while championing underrepresented groups in media.

Masami Katakura

8
Chairwoman & CEO
Ernst & Young ShinNihon LLC

Since her appointment as Chairwoman and CEO of EY ShinNihon in 2019, Masami has accelerated her efforts in developing and appointing female talent and fostering a more flexible working environment to further improve gender representation of the firm. One of her key focuses is a hybrid working style, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, aimed at not only promoting work-life balance but also improving productivity and a level of collaboration with firm’s clients. According to a recent EY people survey, the female engagement index was up 16 percentage points from pre-COVID-19 levels in 2019. Masami also demonstrated the power of diversity through leadership. She serves as a member of EY Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusiveness Steering Committee, leveraging the group as a means to advance DE&I efforts worldwide. Externally, Masami focuses on developing female talent and future generations through lectures and mentoring programs for various forums, organizations, and universities.

Burcin Ressamoglu

9
CEO
Sodexo Engage

Burcin has been a member of Sodexo's global women advisory board (SoTogether) since 2017. The board sponsors inclusion and gender balance initiatives in the company and partners with local NGOs to advance women's representation. She collaborates with Sodexo leadership teams on HR processes, the embedding of DE&I strategy, and how to improve the measure of KPIs. Burcin is also a mentor to women in Sodexo and across the world, encouraging and advising them on building their careers through Sodexo Together initiatives. Her commitment to gender equality and inclusion has resulted in 59% of the management community and 45% of the senior leadership community in Sodexo being represented by women. Furthermore, in 2022, the company was awarded an Investors in People Gold Award – a recognition that only 17% of firms achieve. Additionally, Burcin is part of several NGOs leading on gender equality and actively mentoring young Turkish women through TurkishWIN, a global community of women with cultural, professional, or family ties to Turkey

Mel Edwards

10
Global Chief Executive Officer
Wunderman Thompson

Mel Edwards is the Global CEO of Wunderman Thompson, a network built to inspire growth for ambitious brands. She oversees 20,000 creatives, data scientists, technologists, and storytellers across 90 markets.A catalyst for business transformation, Mel is recognized as a leader with a proven record of helping marketers anticipate and navigate change. At WPP, Mel successfully led the global brand transition to Wunderman Thompson whilst continuing to expand the agency’s client relationships with Ford, HSBC, Microsoft, Nestle, Pfizer, Unilever, and more. Most recently new clients have included The Coca-Cola Company, Snap and Kyndryl. Mel is recognized as one of the most influential people in digital marketing and advertising, having been featured in Campaign’s A-List, The Drum’s Digerati, HERoes Women Role Models, and Ad Age’s European Women to Watch.Mel currently lives in London with her husband, Rich, and her two teenage children, Honor and Mack.

Karen Blackett OBE

11
WPP U.K Country Manager & GroupM U.K CEO
WPP & GroupM

As the GroupM UK CEO and WPP UK Country Manager, Karen has launched the Visible Start Program, which has trained 300 midlife female returnees in digital media, and provided confidence building, soft skills, networking, and mentoring. Since 2020, she has supported a Sponsorship Program benefiting 30 Black and ethnically diverse employees and launched best-in-class mandatory DEI training on Allyship and Conscious Inclusion. In addition, she has been championing training for senior management in understanding all structures of oppression and helped build and launch the Inclusive Leadership Learning Experience to help mid-level managers foster a culture of belonging for their teams. As a result, WPP UK was named 9th best performer in FTSE100 gender diversity ranking in Senior Leadership and on the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index for transparency in gender data for four consecutive years. Karen is also a founding trustee of the Black Equity Organization; a new national Charity focused on dismantling systemic racism.

Terecina Kwong

12
Chief Operating Officer, HSBC Bank PLC and HSBC Europe
HSBC

Terecina is a passionate supporter of driving gender diversity and inclusion. She strongly supports the creation of a nurturing and sustainable inclusive culture, where differences are acknowledged, appreciated and encouraged. This helps individuals thrive, supports innovation and makes the organisation a better workplace. Terecina is the Global Co-Sponsor of HSBC Balance (an Employee Resource Group promoting gender diversity with over 50,000 members across 48 countries) and HSBC Digital Business Services (DBS) on 'Inclusive Culture’. Terecina also sponsors #Inclusive Europe, an Employee Resource Group covering over 10,000 colleagues across 21 countries. Alongside sponsoring female talent under HSBC’s talent programmes, Terecina also mentors colleagues around the world and participated in various external events in Europe and Asia supporting wider female talent growth in the community.

Bina Mehta MBE

13
Chair
KPMG UK

In 2021, Bina was appointed KPMG UK’s first female chair in its 150-year history. As well as chairing KPMG’s UK Board, Bina also chairs the firm’s Inclusive Leadership Board, a forum for independent experts to provide challenge to ensure the organisation is embedding inclusion, diversity and equity within the business strategy. She uses her prominent role to champion the need for organisations to create inclusive, supportive, and diverse cultures that enable people from all backgrounds to thrive. Bina won the Hammer Award at the 2022 GG2 Leadership & Diversity Awards, awarded to an individual who has broken through the glass ceiling, and was awarded an MBE in this year’s New Year’s Honours list for supporting female entrepreneurs.

Jennifer Bell

14
CEO, North America
Aon plc

As Co-Chair of the Global Inclusive Leadership Council (GILC), Jennifer drives the group’s efforts to provide advice, recommendations and accountability for I&D strategy and actions at Aon plc. Her achievements in the role have included the formation of a new Aon plc sub-committee to the board for I&D, which she now regularly reports to, and the launch of a global ‘I&D Scorecard’ which has clear goals for gender diversity and is linked to leadership renumeration. Part of Jennifer’s work with the board sub-committee led to the recent announcement of a 50:50 gender balance within the Aon Executive Committee. She has also worked hard to ensure that female representation on her leadership team is higher than average, and she remains connected with Aon’s Business Resource Groups in order to drive equity at all levels of the firm, not just at senior leadership. Over recent years she has mentored a number of female colleagues and clients.

Cristina Palmaka

15
President, SAP Latin America & Caribbean
SAP Latin America &Caribbean

Cristina Palmaka is president of SAP Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) since July 2020. With more than 30 years of experience in the IT industry, she is known for creating inclusive conditions that allow diverse teams to thrive and achieve extraordinary results. SAP LAC has more than 6,000 employees throughout Latin America and Cristina believes in the power of their diversity to unlock business value and social impact. She brings to the table people from different races, genders, sexual orientations, and backgrounds to broaden perspectives and make decisions educated by different viewpoints. Cristina is part of the company's D&I council and its main sponsor. Under her leadership, women in the workforce at SAP LAC increased from 35.6% to 38%, and women in leadership went from 28.8% to 33%. Also, SAP LAC's employee network model grew substantially, thanks to an executive sponsorship program that promotes their work and increases visibility.

Siew Choo Soh

16
Chief Information Officer, Asia
Metlife Asia

As a Chief Information Officer for Metlife Asia, Siew Choo serves on the Global T&O Diversity Council and is a sponsor of the Asia Women in Tech group. Prior to MetLife, Siew Choo was Managing Director at DBS Bank in Singapore and was the sponsor for the DBS Gender Diversity agenda, where she drove many initiatives including DBS Women in Tech Hiring that helped increase by 4% representation of women in tech in a single year. She is a Board Member who champions gender diversity at the School of Science & Technology in Singapore and the National University of Singapore - High School of Maths & Science. Siew Choo was recognized in 2020 as one of Singapore’s Top 100 Women in Tech. In 2019 and 2021, she was recognised by IBM for the Top 40 Women in AI awards. Furthermore, she is a mentor at the Financial Woman Association in Singapore and a Core Team Member of Web3 Women in Hong Kong.

Yvonne Garcia

17
Chief of Staff to State Street Chairman and CEO, Global Head of Internal Communications, and Head of Global CEO Experience Program
State Street Corporation

Yvonne sits on State Street’s Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (ID&E) Council and serves as Executive Sponsor of the firm’s Latino Professional Affinity Group. Under her leadership State Street earned a spot on Working Mother Magazine's “100 Best Companies” and “Best Companies for Dads” lists, as well as the Diversity Best Practices Inclusion Index and the “Top 10 Companies to Work For” by Latina Style Magazine. In 2020, Yvonne helped to define the firm’s 10 Actions Against Racism and Inequality, and in 2021, she supported the addition of two women to State Street’s Management Committee, bringing the balance to 28% women. In addition to her work for Slate Street, Yvonne is the Chair of the Association of Latino Professionals for Advancement (ALPFA) Advisory Board, and the Executive Director of Small Business Strong, a coalition of leading firms in Massachusetts supporting women and minority-owned businesses impacted by the COVID-19 economic downturn.

Farmida Bi CBE

18
Global Chair
Norton Rose Fulbright

As Norton Rose Fulbright LLP’s first female Chair, Farmida is committed to further increasing the representation of women in management positions and closely supports the firm’s ambitious global gender diversity targets. She has also long been a sponsor and steering group member of the firm's women's network. Farmida personally reorganised the firm’s CSR programme and, alongside the Europe, Middle East and Asia (EMEA) Managing Partner, implemented initiatives addressing gender and wider diversity and inclusion issues. This included a bursary programme to improve access to the legal profession and a Race & Ethnicity Strategy, which involved setting targets and launching a learning and development programme to increase BAME representation. Farmida leads the firm’s EMEA partnership with Save the Children (STC), which tackles the disruption COVID-19 caused to education, providing pro bono and volunteering support. She also drives the firm’s 2022 Global Charitable Initiative with STC, helping communities affected by climate change.

Rebecca Glashow

19
CEO Global Distribution
BBC Studios

Since joining BBC Studios in June 2020, Rebecca has recruited a senior leadership team with talented women leaders in key roles that are helping to grow BBC Studios' commercial business around the world. Furthermore, she has been at the forefront of creating and championing BBC Studios' flexible work environment that allows all employees to find balance in their lives while still making an impact. She is a member of the Women's Forum of New York, a network of women leaders representing the highest levels of professional achievement across all sectors, industries, and spheres of influence in New York City. Rebecca previously served on the board of WICT, an organization dedicated to helping women in media, entertainment and technology advance, and she is also the global executive sponsor of the Pride network at BBC Studios, an employee group dedicated to providing support, advice and community to LGBTQ+ team members and allies.

Linda Yaccarino

20
Global Chairman, Advertising & Partnerships
NBCUniversal

As global chairman, Linda is an advocate of BOLD, an initiative created by NBCUniversal with a mission to influence, inspire and develop the next generation of Global Advertising & Partnerships leaders. Linda's extensive championing of BOLD's mission has driven transformational change for the initiative, including the creation of new opportunities in leadership and diversity, with BOLD Vets, the group's program to honor and engage veterans within NBCU, and BOLD Spotlight, a series of inspirational conversations with internal and external leaders from diverse backgrounds and careers. Externally, Linda uses advertising to advance equity through a variety of partnerships including the #ShesMy campaign, which champions the ways women break down barriers in both the professional and personal spheres; Target’s Scene in Color, which elevates emerging BIPOC creatives in film; and a partnership with Telemundo to release a Latina-centric storytelling guide as well as external partnerships around Telemundo’s exclusive coverage of the Women’s World Cup in 2023.

Tracy Garrad

CEO AXA Health
AXA Health

Tracy is the Executive Sponsor for Diversity & Inclusion across AXA in the UK and Ireland, and as part of this role she chairs the Diversity and Inclusion Board, which is comprised of senior leaders from across the business. Over the past year successes have included getting AXA UK&I listed as a coveted 2021 Times Top 50 Employer for Women, developing and executing an Ethnicity Action Plan, and launching an allyship program which has been engaged with over 2,000 times to date. Additionally, Tracy was able to strengthen senior leadership commitment to D&I by ensuring all leaders have two performance-related D&I objectives, as well as making D&I a quarterly standing agenda item at Executive Committee meetings. To celebrate 2021 International Women's Day, Tracy starred in a global AXA Group panel discussion on the impact of Covid-19 on gender equality, which was watched by over 3,000 employees across the globe.

Lisa Quest

Partner – Co-Head of Public Sector - Europe
Oliver Wyman

As leader of the Public Sector and member of the European Leadership Team supporting over 1,500 employees in Europe, Lisa is committed to using her platform to drive diversity and inclusion through core commercial operations. An Executive Sponsor of Women of Oliver Wyman (WOW), Lisa’s goal is to achieve gender equality; therefore, she has built out her team on this principle resulting in being the only one that is gender-balanced at all levels. Her teams have achieved results through their deep understanding of public institutions and their ability to bring together diverse skills to solve complex problems. Long before the pandemic, Lisa was pivotal in championing the option of fully flexible working and job shares and campaigned for equal maternity and paternity leaves at 26 weeks. Beyond Oliver Wyman, Lisa is a member of the Board of Trustees for Best Beginnings and co-founder of the Green Hat Foundation, both charities focused on supporting people from diverse backgrounds to thrive in the UK.

Efe Ukala

Vice President and Assistant General Counsel
JP Morgan

Efe is Vice President and Assistant General Counsel at JP Morgan. In addition to her role as in-house counsel, she’s involved in the company’s diversity and inclusion efforts that have resulted in hiring and retaining diverse talents. Her passion for inclusiveness transcends her day job. Efe is also the Founder of ImpactHER, a non-profit that cultivates environments within which African female-led small businesses not only survive but thrive. Under her leadership, ImpactHER has provided pro bono business advisory support and directly trained 46,806 African women entrepreneurs from 53 African countries, connected them with investors, and converted 16,432 non-technologically enabled businesses to technologically enabled businesses. Her work not only helped African women-led businesses from permanent shutdown during the covid shutdowns but is also actively changing the narrative of disenfranchised female business owners on the Continent; allowing women to crash through glass ceilings and re-define the face of successful entrepreneurs in Africa.

Keri Gilder

CEO
Colt Technology Services

Keri founded Colt's first Inclusion & Diversity Council and chairs the TM Forum's Diversity & Inclusion Council, the aim of which is to make the telecommunications sector more diverse and inclusive. In response to 2020's Black Lives Matter protests, Keri held listening sessions with a cross-section of employees from different racial and ethnic backgrounds to find out what was on their minds and gain an understanding of what Colt could do to support them. The insights she gathered led to a collaboration between HR and the YOUnited employee network group, aiming to ensure that Colt was focused on removing any biases inherent within its systems, processes and structures, and that all employees, including those who identify as BAME, had a fair chance to join and develop at the firm. Over the past year, under Keri's support, Colt has sponsored 12 employees through the Black British Business Awards Talent Accelerator programme.

Dipi McKernan

Chief Operating Officer, Fidelity Holdings Limited, Global Head of First Line Risk and Regulatory Solutions
Fidelity International

For over a decade Dipi has passionately championed D&I in the financial services sector at a senior level. Within Fidelity she is an Executive Board member, sits on Fidelity’s Global D&I Leadership Council and is Executive Co-Sponsor of Fidelity’s Social Mobility Strand. She is also a role model and mentor, particularly to women in the industry and has contributed to the City Hive mentoring programme and The Investment Association’s Investment20/20 programme. Dipi is also a Director and Steering Group Member of “Progress Together” – a membership body that drives socio-economic diversity at senior levels across UK financial services. Chosen to be part of a group of 30 industry leaders - she was instrumental in the development of Progress Together - promoting social mobility across the UK financial and professional services sector. In 2022, she received the Freedom of the City of London in recognition for her exceptional contribution to the industry.

Francesca McDonagh

CEO
Bank of Ireland

At Bank of Ireland Francesca set D&I targets to achieve a 50:50 gender balance in management and leadership appointments and introduced dedicated female accelerator and development programmes . In 2021 the percentage of women represented in senior appointments was 45%, up from 38% in 2017, and by H4 2021 this figure had risen to 51%. Under Francesca’s leadership a number of initiatives were introduced including a policy whereby colleagues having a baby via a surrogate can take paid leave in line with maternity benefits; a Recruitment Charter for hiring diverse talent; and a domestic abuse leave policy providing a range of supports to colleagues who may be experiencing domestic abuse. Additionally, Bank of Ireland is the only Irish bank to proactively publish their Gender Pay Gap Report ahead of legislation, and during the pandemic colleagues unable to work due to childcare and caring commitments continued to receive a full salary.

Anne Erni

Chief People Officer
Audible

Anne Erni is the Chief People Officer at Audible where she leads the People and Places team, which comprises Human Resources, Workplace Real Estate and Facilities, and Newark neighborhood-making. Anne has consistently partnered with the CEO to drive diversity in the leadership team, including reaching 55% female representation in the executive team in 2021. Thanks to Anne’s work to intentionally grow women into leadership roles, the proportion of women at VP level and above has risen by 11 percentage points from 2020 to 2021. As well as informing the creation of a D&I strategy which includes targeted, bespoke plans for each business, Anne encouraged the formation of formal affinity groups, renamed ‘Impact’ groups, with one key aim being to increase diverse representation in Audible's content offerings. Anne is an internationally recognized thought leader on workplace innovation and a champion for equitable hiring and professional development practices.

Catherine Johnson

Group General Counsel
London Stock Exchange Group

As Executive Sponsor for Diversity and Inclusion and chair of LSEG’s D&I Working Group, Catherine brings together leaders who own, drive and oversee change within their business units and regions. In her collaboration and overarching leadership of the LSEG Inclusion Networks, Catherine's focus on diverse female talent drives these networks' realignment and overall strategy to increase awareness and allyship. Catherine’s consistent visible leadership and promotion of internal activities and events in support of LSEG Inclusion Networks that represent diverse groups and talent are evident in her attendance, promotion, and speaking engagements at specific activities such as International Women's Day – No Woman Left Behind panel discussion, which discussed how to drive genuinely equitable opportunity for all women, across all backgrounds and demographics. She accelerated the progression of underrepresented talent by launching Women's Mentoring Circles in collaboration with LSEG's Women Inspired Network, and in 2020, she spearheaded LSEG's reverse mentoring program for black colleagues and senior leadership.

Robyn Grew

Global COO & GC, Head of ESG, Head of Man Group US
Man Group

Robyn leads ‘Drive’, Man Group's global DE&I network, and chairs its Steering Committee, overseeing Man Group's DE&I activity globally. She is the senior executive sponsor of Man Group's BEAM (Black employees and allies) and PRIDE (LGBT+) employee networks and has been driving "Paving the Way," the firm’s campaign to diversify the "pipeline" and encourage a broader range of talent, especially women, to enter the company and industry. Alongside the CEO, Robyn led Man Group's signing of the Women in Finance Charter and has been working to meet the targets set by this. Man Group now has 56% women representation on its board. She spearheaded the inclusion of gender pronouns across WorkDay, Slack and emails and has been leading HR and Talent in Diversity-focused recruitment, graduate engagement policies, and initiatives. Furthermore, she championed a Women Returners program, which helps highly-skilled women return to the workforce following a career break, and also worked on expanding the firm’s mentoring program to include peer mentoring through the "Power of 10" program, which is led by Robyn and other women from the Executive Committee.

Jen Tippin

Chief People & Transformation Officer
NatWest Group

As Chief People & Transformation Officer and executive sponsor for LGBT+, Jen co-chairs NatWest’s 'One Bank Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Action Committee’, bringing together key stakeholders, including employee-led networks, to share best practice, drive impact and positive change. Jen strives to build a culture of inclusivity where all women can thrive, working with the Gender Network to ensure women's voices are heard. Jen pushes for constant improvement, recently initiating a review of women’s safety, the company’s parental leave policy and introducing enhanced menopause support. Jen relentlessly holds leaders to account for attracting and retaining diverse talent and building strong sustainable pipelines. Externally, Jen is a proactive ambassador, regularly speaking at external events to help to facilitate change across UK plc, and supports several campaigns such as female executive development, the 30% club and 25x25, an initiative to help to increase the number of female CEOs in the UK FTSE.

Jennifer Remling

Global Chief People Officer
WPP

As WPP's Global Chief People Officer, Jennifer Remling is laying the groundwork for unlocking the creative potential in all 109,000 employees within the WPP network. Central to that is ensuring DE&I is embedded in all aspects of the People strategy – from talent acquisition and total rewards to employee engagement and leadership development. Jennifer has a wealth of experience building high-performing teams in agency environments in roles at Essence, R/GA, AKQA, 360i and most recently GroupM. There, she transformed the People team to deliver a world-class People proposition that ensured a fair, equitable and inclusive workplace for all 36,000 employees in 80 markets. Jennifer is passionate about helping people find meaning and purpose in what they do, no matter their background. That’s why she published “Carve Your Own Road: Do What You Love and Live the Life You Envision” in 2009 and has made it her lifelong ambition to help as many people as possible reach their full potential

Samina Jafree

Managing Director - Head of Advisory & Sales, Wealth Management Middle East & Turkey
Credit Suisse AG

As a managing director and internally Head of the Middle East & Turkey Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Board, Samina focuses on highlighting the strategic role that D&I plays in achieving business goals, as well as implementing several initiatives that promote an equal opportunity landscape within her region, centered around three ongoing D&I Priorities. To build women's representation, Samina implemented female talent mentorship programs, set gender aspiration and hiring targets through ongoing monitoring, reviewed the gender pay gap, and set up a Women's Network. Additionally, Samina focuses on fostering an inclusive culture through awareness. She also focuses on age by using the generational gap as an advantage and implementing some strategies like reverse mentoring. As a senior female leader at Credit Suisse in the Middle East, Samina co-hosted Women's Events in Saudi Arabia in 2019 and Qatar in 2022.

Tamara Box

Managing Partner, EME
Reed Smith LLP

Tamara Box is the Managing Partner, EME and a member of the global board at Reed Smith LLP. Tamara is a founding member of the Steering Committee of the 30% Club, an influential group seeking to enlist Chairs and CEOs to bring more women into senior management and onto boards. Tamara is also a non-executive director on the Board of Interpath Advisory, a member of the Board of the Chartered Management Institute, a trustee of gynaecological cancer charity Eve Appeal, a member of the Advisory Board of children’s charity, Theirworld and an Emeritus Governor of the London School of Economics. Tamara is an active and passionate advocate for the women at Reed Smith and for gender balance more generally. Several Reed Smith women Tamara has nominated have been shortlisted or winners of female leadership awards including from Rising Star, Citywealth PowerWomen, and Asian Women of Achievement.

Jessica Rascionato

Executive Vice President, Head of Underwriting & Portfolio Management
Citizens Financial Group

Jessica has served in several leadership roles in the Citizens Business Resource Group, Women's Impact Network (WIN), since its inception in 2017. From 2019 to 2021 she served as the Chairperson of the group, growing the organization to reach 2,000 members, aligned under the mission to help women advance their careers through professional development and networking opportunities. Jessica also helped initiate the development of the Women in Commercial Banking Group, an internal organization at Citizens that provides networking opportunities and encourages local connections in the Greater Boston area and across Citizens' footprint in North America. Externally, Jessica serves as Board Director for the Center for Women and Enterprise, a 501C3 organization that provides education and support to female and minority business owners throughout New England and in 2021 she co-chaired the Boston chapter of 50/50 Women on Boards, a global advocacy organization that promotes gender diversity for corporate boards.

Rachel Higham

Global CIO
WPP

Through a complete redesign and relentless focus on equality through our recruitment process, Rachel improved the female intake into the WPP IT organization from 11% to 38% over the past 12 months. Through the firm's operating and organizational model redesign and by establishing a new people design authority to govern internal and external appointments, she has improved the representation of women in the top 3 layers of leadership in WPP IT. Before joining WPP, she was the founder and executive sponsor of the multi-award-winning TechWomen program in her previous job. During her final year leading the program in 2020/1, Rachel delivered a year-long development journey for 450 women across BT and supported an alumni network of 2,300 women. The program was enormously successful, dramatically improving participants' confidence, with 67% of them moving into more prominent roles, and addressing the local cultural barriers to women's progression in India and Malaysia.

Danny Harmer

Chief People Officer
Aviva

Danny champions the female agenda by encouraging business to consider the potential future impact of hybrid working on women, carers and the future gender pay gap. Danny is responsible for Aviva’s Diversity and Inclusion strategy, which supports women through initiatives including: simplifying all job adverts to encourage more female candidates; including diversity targets in Executive reward; monthly reporting on gender diversity metrics; inclusive leadership training; Aviva’s own Licence to Hire training (covering non-inclusive behaviours and recruiting underrepresented candidates); extending sponsorship programmes to advance the careers of underrepresented talent (including women); and engaging 1,000+ part-time colleagues (87% female) to understand challenges around development and progression. Aviva’s employment policies include equal parental leave, paid carers leave and domestic abuse support, the latter of which Danny is co-executive sponsor of. Danny is also the co-executive sponsor of our Pride community, and has also contributed to a number of external news articles championing women.

Caroline Frankum

Global CEO, Profiles Division
Kantar

Kantar is a world-leading market research agency, inspiring growth by understanding people. As a Global CEO, and part of Kantar's Exco and I&D Steering Committee, Caroline is committed to ensuring a culture that embraces all intersections of diversity. She holds herself accountable to increasing female representation by being an authentic ‘see it, be it’ role model to Kantar’s ~12,000 women, which includes being a mentor and sponsor for Kantar’s Aspire programme empowering females across the globe progress their careers by building strong, authentic, influential personal brands. Caroline also serves as Global Executive Sponsor of Pride@Kantar, the Employee Resource Group inspiring Kantar’s 700+ LGBTQIA+ employees and allies flourish at work by embracing and celebrating their individuality, and co-founded Kantar’s 360 Mentorship Program with Special Olympics athletes, to support people with intellectual disabilities build successful careers in paid jobs. She also represents the ‘Agency’ voice on the Market Research Society’s DI&E Council.

Rachel Stern

EVP, Chief Legal Officer and Global Head of Strategic Resources
FactSet

Passionate about D&I, Rachel has promoted gender diversity since she started at FactSet in 2001. As the company's first general counsel and sole female executive leadership team member for over 15 years, she fought for women to be included and promoted to higher ranks of management globally. Rachel is responsible for introducing the first female director to FactSet's board and including three more after her. Rachel has formally mentored and informally sponsored women who are now part of the company's leadership. As an Executive Sponsor of FactSet's Women's BRG, Rachel furthered programs around the world designed to bring women together to support each other. Furthermore, Rachel founded and led a 20/20 Women on Boards chapter to achieve at least 20% women directors on boards of public companies, and has supported the Thirty Percent Coalition. Additionally, Rachel is a Mentor, WOMN, LLC, mentoring women law partners in New York since 2014.

Rebecca Henderson

CEO, Randstad Global Businesses and Executive Board Member
Randstad

Rebecca is one of two women on Randstad's executive board and the executive sponsor of Randstad's Global Diversity Council, which represents 15 business-led workgroups such as inclusive leadership, the Business Resource Group for Women, diverse hiring programs, equal pay, and the Pride Business Resource Group. Rebecca is a founding sponsor of Women in Randstad Empowering Development (WIRED), which empowers Randstad women to develop themselves as leaders and to achieve exceptional results through collective inspiration, sharing of knowledge, and giving back to the community. Furthermore, she is a sponsor and mentor to Randstad's Hire Hope apprentices, which provides career-readiness training and job-placement services to underserved and at-risk women. As a global executive at Randstad, Rebecca actively explores ways to advance gender parity issues and change policy in all areas of work. She also works with partner organizations like the Female Quotient to raise awareness and effect change to help working women advance their careers

Tanuja Randery

Managing Director, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Passionate about creating opportunities for women, evolving inclusion in tech is a key priority for Tanuja. At AWS, she has sponsored empowerment initiatives such as Leadership Circles, a monthly open forum focused on learning and development. She is a member of the AWS ID&E advisory board and championed the Inclusion Ambassador program – active change agents across genders. She is an avid GetIT advocate, an AWS program for young students especially girls to encourage them into tech and re/Start which started in the UK and is a free 12 week classroom training program for unemployed and underemployed individuals. In 2013, Tanuja founded PowerWomen Network, a peer-to-peer network of 150 C-level women across sectors and functions focused on building the next generation of female talent. She also hosts a podcast called PowerWomenSpeak, where she has conversations with senior female leaders. More recently, she started the Next Gen Power Women network, a group of high potential women who are actively mentored by PowerWomen members.

Catherine Brown

Partner, Financial Services
Oliver Wyman

Catherine’s leadership priorities at Oliver Wyman Australia focus on upholding its unique culture and values. During her time in Australia, the company jumped to #5 in "Most Prestigious Consulting Firms in Asia Pacific" in the 2022 Vault rankings, and the Australian office has been certified as a Family Inclusive Workplace. She has helped increase women hired by 11% since May 2021. In 2016 she pioneered Oliver Wyman’s European BOOST program, which provides sponsorship and support for individuals taking parental leave. In 2021 she introduced BOOST in Australia, with a 100% success rate to date. She is a mentor to over 25 incredibly talented women, and a senior stakeholder for Women of Oliver Wyman. She has been a sponsor of the company's Inspiring Leaders program since 2015. In addition, through her pro-bono work she supports organisations that promote gender diversity. Her motivation: I would rather women don’t have to think about it.

Apiramy Jeyarajah

Co-founder of the Intersectionality workstream at the Diversity Project & Head of UK Wholesale Aviva Investors
Aviva Investors

As co-founder of the intersectionality workstream at the Diversity project, Member of the Inclusion Steering Committee at Aviva Investors, Mentor to women, Apiramy consistently and tirelessly works to drive DEI within the company and the industry. She challenges outdated business practises to contribute to creating a more gender-balanced company. She drives discussions on how Aviva can create a culture of belonging for all to thrive and has helped implement Inclusive leadership approaches within organisations to focus on getting middle managers on the inclusion journey to flex their management style to the individual in their teams. Apiramy’s goal is to create a culture of "add," not "fit," and a leadership team and style that has, at its core, empathy and curiosity for its employees. She is keen to inspire the next generation into work, pass on the knowledge to navigate the industry, and empower others with the soft skills required to succeed.

Wesley LePatner

Global Chief Operating Officer, Core+; Chief Operating Officer, Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT)
Blackstone

Wesley has served as Chair of Blackstone's Women's Initiative since 2019. Under her leadership, the Initiative has driven many programs focused on developing employees' careers, fostering connectivity across businesses, encouraging organic mentorship relationships, and helping shape Blackstone's recruiting strategy. Wesley also created the Working Parents initiative in the U.S. for the firm. She is a mentor and champion for other women and is deeply committed to hiring and retaining top women talent. Over the past few years, Blackstone has also evaluated its benefits to ensure they are comprehensive and competitive. The firm offers primary and secondary caregiver leave, adoption leave, phased back to work, fertility coverage, and backup childcare, to name a few. It also recently introduced family planning benefits for US employees, such as enhancing infertility benefits to include cryopreservation and extending primary caregiver leave to 20 weeks.

Nadjia Yousif

Managing Director & Partner
Boston Consulting Group

In addition to her main job, Nadjia chairs DE&I for BCG's largest region covering Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and South America. She oversees the regional networks: Women@BCG, Pride@BCG, Accessibility, and Ethnic & Cultural Diversity with a focus on gender, driving the mission internally to step-change BCG gender diversity, especially women’s representation, particularly at senior levels across the region. Nadjia has been driving the change across Recruiting, Sponsorship; Career Support, Bonding; Policies, and External Engagement. She has ensured the company’s policies have maintained equal retention rates of men and women across cohorts, resulting in a 10% increase in the number of junior female consultants in the last two years and this year, a 5% increase in experienced women hires. Nadjia's involvement with DEI goes beyond BCG by being a Trustee of the charity Women for Women International UK, which helps women affected by war and conflict to rebuild their lives and communities through a holistic curriculum of social and economic empowerment.

Rachael Asonibare

Chief Information Officer
Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria & West Africa

Rachael Asonibare is the Chief Information Officer for Nigeria and West Africa at Standard Chartered Bank. Rachael is an advocate for employee development, and she is an active member of the Bank’s Network of Women (NOW). She champions an annual awareness program on health, wellness and fitness. She is a career mentor to several women both in and outside of the Bank and is committed to helping them upskill their capabilities to take advantage of the new evolving professional roles within the professional industry. Racheal is passionate about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) especially on education and the empowerment of women and youths. Most recently, she sponsored a CSR program on Climate Change to create awareness and enable the behavioural and societal support required for the achieving the global net zero agenda. Rachael consistently works towards inspiring young girls in Information Technology and Cybersecurity through ELICIT, an NGO she co-founded.

Susan LaMonica

Chief Human Resource Officer
Citizens

Susan LaMonica is the Chief Human Resources Officer & Head of Corporate Social Responsibility and serves on the bank’s executive committee. She is responsible for developing and driving people strategies to further Citizens’ growth plans while working to enact sustainable and systemic change leading the company’s ESG efforts. As the Executive Sponsor of Citizens’ Business Resource Group, Women’s Impact Network, she understands the challenges that exist for female colleagues, customers and community members while advocating for efforts to attract, retain and support women inside and outside of Citizens. She led the development of initiatives aimed at increasing accountability in Citizens’ hiring process and the deployment of programs such as TalentUp which focuses on talent acquisition, reskilling/upskilling, and expanding the talent pipeline. Outside of Citizens, Susan is a board member of Oasis, a non-profit whose mission is to change the lives of women and children by breaking the cycle of poverty.

Anna Manz

Chief Financial Officer
London Stock Exchange Group

Over the past 18 months, Anna has engaged in several initiatives to promote D&I. She has led the cultural change aspects as Exco Sponsor for the D&I Committee, focused on 'creating a culture that fosters belonging' to embed the concept and enabling policies across the group. She held an 'employee board listening conversation' with colleagues from North and Southeast Asia, and spent time with the Indian teams discussing culture, diversity, and inclusion in various formats to understand the challenges. Anna is committed to coaching and developing leaders of all backgrounds by sharing her career path, views, and experiences at women’s networking and D&I events. She has taken an inclusive approach to developing her Finance Leadership team, ensuring diversity. In 12 months, she reached 36% ethnic diversity from a baseline of almost no diversity, with seven of the 13 being female.

Teresa Ko

China Chairman
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Teresa has been a staunch advocate for gender diversity for over a decade. As the first female to chair the Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s Listing Committee, Teresa has been a leading voice on greater board diversity in listed companies. Teresa is known for her commitment to clients and believes in using her position as a trusted advisor to encourage systemic change. She is dedicated to developing Freshfields colleagues, both professionally and personally to maximise their potential. As executive sponsor of Freshfield’s Asia Women's Network, Teresa mentors and sponsors female associates, helping them to hone their business development skills, connecting them to key contacts, and nurturing them to become future leaders. As well as being recognised as a HERoes Executive Role Model. She was recently named in IFLR1000 Women Leaders 2022 - an elite ranking for the most prominent women lawyers globally and in Forbes’ ‘Asia's Power Businesswomen’ list 2021.

Sue Unerman

Chief Transformation Officer
MediaCom

Sue has been involved in a number of major initiatives to drive greater gender diversity and equality at MediaCom. These include serving as Executive Sponsor of the Gender ERG and serving as a member of the new Global Belonging Council, a diverse mix of senior people from different areas of the business who meet on a regular basis to drive sustainable change in all areas of DE&I. She is also actively involved in the company's Leadership Reverse Mentoring, a program which sees junior employees act as mentors to senior global leaders. Sue has been a frequent participant in, and promoter of, the company’s ongoing learning initiatives around allyship and microaggressions and is also the author of two best-selling books on diversity in the workplace, “Belonging, the key to transforming and maintaining diversity, equality and inclusion at work” and “The Glass Wall, success strategies for women at work and businesses that mean business”.

Aditi Javeri Gokhale

EVP, President of Retail Investments
Northwestern Mutual

Aditi is the executive sponsor of Northwestern Mutual's African American ERG and has spearheaded strategy development with leaders and advocated for resources required for the group's mentorship program, talent development, and robust programming for its 700+ members. In 2019, Aditi championed the company's first-ever Women's Initiative, which aims to increase the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women at the company. Since then, she and her colleagues have created programs that support women through leadership development and coaching. As a result, women recruitment grew by 60% over the last five years, and women in leadership positions increased by 57% in the previous three years. Aditi, with her team, championed the Northwestern Mutual's Women's Field Association, a first-of-its-kind industry group, which supports the growth, development, and relationship building of the women advisors in the organization.

Julie Lilley

Chief Executive Officer
Federation of Small Businesses

As CEO at the UK’s largest business group, Julie founded a new cross-organization Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Steering Group, which includes both leading staff and a set of elected FSB volunteer members, including female business owners and staff. As the leader of the business, Julie has overseen a majority female Board of Directors, and a majority female Senior Management Team – empowering women to put themselves forward, and sending the message throughout the organization that women succeed at FSB, and reach the very top. Most recently, Julie has signed FSB up to the Menopause Workplace Pledge, starting a conversation with the small business community (collectively – the UK’s largest employer) to address 900,000 women that have left work because of periods, fertility struggles, pregnancy or menopause.

Ilse van Gasteren

Partner/Lawyer
Clifford Chance LLP

Since joining Clifford Chance in 2001, Ilse has advocated for gender parity within the Amsterdam office and the Global Firm, ensuring that diversity is at the very top of the agenda. From 2020 to 2022, Ilse co-led a project with Harvard's gender and behavioral science expert, Paola Secchi Dimeglio, to perform an AI data-driven "body scan" of the Amsterdam office appraisal and promotion systems to find nudges to improve the gender balance and enhance retention numbers in the longer term. The research outcome has been used to implement changes in the Amsterdam appraisal and collaboration systems and heavily contributed to increasing the number of women partners from 2 to 5. Under Ilse's leadership, Clifford Chance Amsterdam launched their chapter of the global gender parity group Accelerate in 2020, and she also organized a high-profile women leadership program for women associates.

Leanne Wood

Chief HR Officer
Vodafone

Leanne has been driving gender balance, diversity, and inclusion for over 20 years across tech-comms, luxury and FMCG industries. At Vodafone, Leanne is an Executive Committee Member and Sponsor for its Employee Networks, including the Women's Network, and led Vodafone's #CountMeIn diversity data capture initiative to enable an intersectional approach to DEI and strengthen women's inclusion and representation. She launched the Reciprocal Mentoring program enabling senior leaders to connect with minority groups and, in 2019, equalised parental leave to support parents and families so that responsibilities are shared. In 2022, as part of Vodafone's support of Ukrainian refugees, she led the Ukraine Employment Programme providing those displaced with employment and resettlement, with 61% of applicants being women. Additionally, Leanne launched Vodafone's hybrid working model to provide flexibility, including 20 days of remote working from any location to attract and retain diverse talent.

Melíosa O’Caoimh

Country Head - Ireland
Northern Trust

As Country Head for Northern Trust Ireland, Meliosa is responsible for all its asset servicing business conducted from Dublin and Limerick supporting fund managers and institutional investors worldwide. Under her leadership, female representation at senior level has moved from 37% in 2019 to 44% in 2022. Meliosa led the firm’s signatory of the Women in Finance Charter in Ireland, setting a target of improving senior female representation from 44% to 48% by 2025. Meliosa has led a number of notable initiatives across the Irish community to help underrepresented groups obtain work experience. Meliosa is the chair of the 30% Club in Ireland. Since taking on this role, Meliosa has committed to ensuring the network is fully inclusive of diverse groups, recognizing the additional challenges underrepresented women face. She is planning to expand the network’s reach, recognising the talent in regions beyond Dublin, and ensuring the network is accessible to all.

Debbi Vandeven

Global Chief Creative Officer
VMLY&R

Over two decades, Debbi has built VMLY&R into a creative force — experiencing unprecedented growth and recognition. In May 2021, under Debbi's leadership, Campaign magazine named VMLY&R as Global Creative Network of the Year. Additionally, in 2021, Debbi's leadership helped earn yet another year of growth for the nearly $2B agency, which bookended the year with renewal wins of two of VMLY&R's long-standing and notable clients. Debbi drives her teams around the world to create advertising that makes a difference, particularly in the crusade for gender equality. She was named 2020 Ad Age CCO of the Year, as well as being featured on Adweek's Creative 100, Business Insider's "30 Most Creative People in Advertising," and Campaign's Female Frontier Awards.

Angela Yang

General Counsel of BlackRock Taiwan
BlackRock Taiwan

Angela, one of the 3 representatives from APAC sitting on the global Talent Development Committee from 2018 to 2021, has successfully promoted 89 females within the global Legal & Compliance function to the next level of their corporate title. Since 2020, she has been serving as the sponsor for the VP Village and the Associate Arena for BlackRock, social networks for colleagues with junior to mid-level corporate titles. Through these social networks, Angela has been mentoring young female colleagues and assisting them in navigating their careers in the firm. She has coached more than ten female colleagues across different functions and geographical areas, resulting in 2 of them being promoted to VP and Director roles in 2021. She has been conducting career advancing sessions for colleagues in BlackRock Taiwan since 2019 and served as the WIN Chairperson from 2012 to 2019, holding quarterly events to promote gender diversity and inclusion.

Erin Platts

Head of EMEA & President of the UK Branch
Silicon Valley Bank

Erin has been Executive Sponsor for SVB’s global gender network since 2021 and established a local EMEA chapter in 2022. Five years ago, she created the first EMEA women's network and under her leadership the team implemented significant enhancements to the company’s family-friendly policies by extending enhanced pay for maternity, shared parental and adoption leave from 12 to 30 weeks; making it available from day 1 of employment. In addition, introducing 'Special Parental Leave' that provides any FTE 12 weeks fully paid. Her commitment to women’s inclusion has seen her exceeding internal targets to achieve 50% women in senior leadership hires and promotions. She mentors and sponsors numerous women, internally and externally. Erin's ambition is to dramatically increase the number of women and other overlooked talent in the innovation ecosystem and to create an environment where all people can thrive, build with purpose, and bring their authentic selves to work.

Keri Sweet Zavaglia

SVP & US General Counsel
National Grid

Keri is helping National Grid, The Energy Transition Company, implement its vision for a fossil-free future while delivering safe, reliable, and affordable service to its more than 7 million customers across New York and Massachusetts. Keri is committed to helping women thrive in the energy industry. She serves as the Executive Sponsor of National Grid's PRIDE Employee Resource Group- which advocates for, invests in, and sponsors LGBTQ+ employees to ensure everyone is treated fairly, respected, and empowered to achieve their full potential. Keri is a member and former Executive Sponsor of the Employee Resource Group WiNTR, focused on supporting women in field, engineering and technology roles. She has incorporated diversity metrics in personal and team objectives and promoted women to leadership roles. She has been a speaker for WiN, an ERG focused on supporting and sponsoring women in the organization, and a mentor through Executive Connections with the Alliance of Black Professionals ERG.

Nicolina Andall

Senior Corporate Counsel
Atlas Copco

Since 2020, Nicolina has been a member of the UK D&I committee and was spotlighted globally for her support for women and diversity within this global Nasdaq listed company. As one of the few diverse members of the senior leadership team at the top of the Holdings group within the UK, she is often approached to encourage and mentor those within the organization. Nicolina is involved with the rollout of the new mentoring program for young women at university to build an understanding of STEM careers and join the innovative global engineering sector. Furthermore, she is an Ambassador, presenter, and mentor for Women On Boards UK and sits on the Racial Equity Committee of International Women’s Forum UK. In 2022, they set up a mentoring scheme to link ethnic women with high-profile women leaders to help them on their senior leadership journeys.

Shimna Sameer

Head of Preferred Lending
Bank of America

At work and in her communities, Shim is a tireless advocate advancing women’s careers, mentoring and developing women leaders, and working to dismantle barriers built by unconscious bias. She is often invited to speak at various forums, panels and events, and has served as a keynote speaker addressing global audiences on the topic of inclusion and empowerment of women. She is an executive sponsor for Bank of America’s Leadership, Education, Advocacy & Development for Women employee network, with 44,000 members in 25 countries. She is founder of the company’s Consumer Investments Women’s Forum and founder and executive sponsor of the Preferred Banking Executive Women’s Forum, bringing together executive women and providing them exposure to education, expansion and advancement opportunities. She has been named to the 2022 and 2020 EMpower Top 100 Executives Role Model list, and the 2021 and 2020 “INDIA New England News” list of Outstanding Women.

Sandra Arnold

Regional Head of Learning, UK & EMEA
GroupM UK Ltd

Sandra has been an active ally and advocate of women’s inclusion. Through the Visible Start women 45+ “returnship” program, she has supported the production and delivery of mid-life women returners training program, helping to build/rebuild confidence, learn new skills, and recognize and appreciate their existing transferable skills. The full program resulted in 20 women being hired within the Group, around a quarter of those into senior roles. Sandra also designed, developed, and launched an internal sponsorship program, requiring senior leaders to actively and intentionally advocate for and seek out the opportunity to grow and develop the careers of minority ethnic employees (60% women), resulting in 50% promotions overall (of which 60% were women). Additionally, she is a member and co-chair of Lifetimes (Generation) ERG promoting multi-generational workforce benefits with a particular focus on women 45+. Sandra organized numerous menopause lunch and learns, drop-in sessions, and set up a menopause champion group.

Linda Seymour

General Manager, President & CEO
HSBC Bank Canada

Throughout her career with Canada’s leading international bank, Linda has been a passionate advocate for gender diversity and women's inclusion. Over the last two years, Linda continued to use her position of influence to create meaningful change. She championed D&I by making it a key priority in HSBC's strategy approved by the Board in November 2021 and supported the creation of a D&I Dashboard, including targets for women leaders, to drive accountability and measure progress. Linda endorsed improvements to employee benefits supporting women, including flexible/hybrid work, market-leading maternity benefits, parental leave, and family-building benefits. Additionally, she set a 50% promotion target for women in senior leadership, which was achieved in 2020. Furthermore, Linda has been mentoring and sponsoring female talent, actively hosting exchange sessions and other employee-led meetings on challenges experienced by women, and challenging her leadership team to increase women's representation in their respective succession plans.

Amanda Brock

CEO
OpenUK

Amanda supports the initiatives of several organizations. She is a Judge at We are the City's Rising Stars Program, speaks at many organizations' diversity events, and in 2022 organized an IWD Day event at the House of Lords with Baroness Kennedy and the Judges rescued from Afghanistan. Amanda leads an organization with Diversity at its core and supports diversity at every turn in her work. She also led the creation of two OpenUK Kids Camps in 2020 and 2021, designing courses for kids using a digital glove based on Imogen Heap's software glove, with which Arianna Grande toured. This has encouraged young women into developing digital and coding skills. OpenUK gave away over 8000 gloves to young people, particularly targeting the digitally excluded to allow them free participation.

Marian Salzman

Senior Vice President, Global Communications
Philip Morris International

A veteran communicator and trendspotter, Marian makes smart use of her global platform to advance positive change. Through regular bylines, interviews, and keynote addresses, she advocates for the equitable advancement of women. A member of the PRWeek Hall of Femme and Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, she has been honored with the Changing the Game Award from AWNY/She Runs It and serves as a mentor for Brown Women in Business. Within Philip Morris International, Marian promotes change through two employee resource groups: EMBRACE Global (focused on racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity) and the Women’s Inspiration Network (WIN). Her latest book, The New Megatrends: Seeing Clearly in the Age of Disruption (Penguin Random House, May 2022), examines changing gender mores and the role female leaders can play in addressing critical societal issues.

Natasha Harrison

Founder & Managing Partner
Pallas Partners LLP

Natasha is a leading international disputes lawyer and one of the few women to set up and lead a City law firm. Natasha launched Pallas Partners in February 2022, starting out as a majority female firm with significant representations of ethnic minority background and LGBTQ+ colleagues. Diversity is integral to the firm-wide strategy she introduced, with the firm pledging to achieve diversity parity by 2025. When launching Pallas the vast majority of the partners, associates and staff from Boies Schiller Flexner’s London office joined her. That office, which Natasha founded, was ranked #1 for the highest proportion of U.K lawyers identifying as LGBTQ+ by Law.com, and #1 in AmLaw’s UK A-List for diversity and female equity partner representation in 2020. She further won plaudits for overhauling BSF’s diversity programme when she was the Deputy Chair there, securing the firm Mansfield Rule Certification. Natasha sits on the Changemakers Board at The Brokerage, a charity creating internship opportunities for under-privileged candidates.

Maria Cornett Bertram

Global Head, Technology, Media & Telecommunications
S&P Global

Maria is a leader in S&P Global women's PILOT program, a skill-based program targeting mid-career women. She participates actively, leading panels, sharing expertise, and coaching women throughout the duration of the program. Maria has successfully raised the profile of women leaders by participating in a 2-year program on women sponsorship at the executive level, thereby highlighting the contribution of women in leadership at the company. She has also been an active mentor for years, and thanks to her coaching, many women successfully moved into leadership roles. Furthermore, she mentors graduates in programs from the Brandeis International Business School, Miami University and other institutions, helping them to identify areas of career direction and find internships and employment.

Sue Fox

Independent Non-executive Director
Scottish Power Energy Networks Holdings Ltd

In her previous role of CEO HSBC Channel Islands and Isle of Man, Sue was the Lead Executive Sponsor of the D&I Allies Group. Through this role she raised the profile of the group’s work and helped to cement an inclusive culture at the bank. In by-monthly ‘Ask Me Anything’ townhalls hosted and sponsored by Sue for over 1,200 colleagues, she regularly raised issues of diversity, inclusion and equality, actively encouraging people to discuss and ask challenging questions about gender bias in the workplace. For the last 4 years Sue has been a Global Ambassador for BALANCE, HSBC’s gender diversity Employee Resource Group, made up of over 48,000 members. For International Women’s Day this year she hosted a virtual panel event and wrote a thought leadership article about gender equality, sharing her own experiences of trying to climb the executive career ladder in a historically male dominated sector and highlighting the struggles women still face today.

Claudia Parzani

Partner
Linklaters

Always hugely passionate and supporter of the value of the diversity at every strand, Claudia serves as sponsor many initiatives and programmes and has participated to mentorship projects to support female and young talent. She is the founder of Breakfast@Linklaters, an important female business community in the country and the Italian Ambassador of Inspiring Girls, a project launched in Italy with the Ministry of Education. As Special Friend of UNHCR in Italy, she is supporting the campaign for the instruction of refugees focusing on young women. In the past she was President of Valore D, the largest Italian association of companies for gender inclusion. In 2020 Claudia published with Il Sole24Ore the book “Meravigliose. Tour guidato all’interno di noi stesse” dedicated to gender issues, young women and talent. In 2022, she has been appointed as Chair of the Italian Stock Exchange, the first woman to take this position.

Charlotte Duerden

International Chief Customer Officer
American Express

While leading the UK Business as Country Manager, Charlotte pledged American Express’ commitment to achieving a 50:50 gender balance in senior management under HM Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter, a target which was reached earlier this year. As an Executive Sponsor of American Express’ Women’s Interest Networks, Charlotte has championed the Company’s ‘Ambition Project’ as a means of raising awareness of the role ambition plays in women's professional success. She has also overseen initiatives including the roll out of self-identification amongst colleagues to help drive D,E&I changes across the company and the introduction of training to over 5,000 colleagues in order to combat unconscious bias. As colleagues moved towards working from home during the pandemic, American Express also initiated a range of company-wide internal communications and initiatives intended to support colleagues, particularly those shouldering caring responsibilities. Under her leadership American Express has been recognized over the past two years as a top employer by the Financial Times, LinkedIn, Working Families and Glassdoor.

Mairead McIlkenny

Vice President Global Product Delivery
Fiserv

Mairead has always been a keen advocate for Diversity and Inclusion and has sponsored a number of ERG’s in her previous companies and participated in several discussion panels and working groups in Ireland and globally. Since joining Fiserv, she became a Committee member of the Disability Associate Council, of the Women's Impact Network, and an ally of the LGBTQ+ Leadership Council Unity. Her commitment sees her participating at DEI events, in mentorship programs, discussions, and driving engagement externally with local community women's events. Mairead takes a servant leadership approach with her teams and her stakeholders, ensuring that as a leader, she creates an environment of diversity and inclusion, where diversity of thought is encouraged and where everyone has a voice and where that voice is listened to. She is also always driving her recruitment partners to ensure they bring in gender-balanced and diverse candidates and have diverse interview panels with closed feedback loops to remove unconscious bias in the selection process.

Beth Diamond

Group Head of Claims
Beazley Group

In January 2020, Beth joined the Executive, taking on the global Group Head of Claims role, reporting to Beazley's CEO. She is responsible for the development, management, and operational efficiency of a high-performing global team who she committed to a culture valuing inclusion, friendliness, approachability, and creativity. Throughout her career, Beth has been devoted to developing junior talent through mentorship, helping many achieve promotions because she is passionate about empowering others to accomplish their objectives, maximize their opportunities, and stretch their development. Since she took the helm, Beth was able to double the number of People of Color on the team and materially increase the number of managers who are People of Color, as she recognizes development and promotion are crucial markers of change. Beth also played a key role in extending parental leave to 6 months paid leave, honoring equality in family responsibility while materially enhancing a staff benefit.

Roni Savage

CEO & Founder
Jomas Associates(Engineering & Environmental)

UK’s first Black Female founder of a seven-figure turnover engineering company serving the construction sector, Roni is a trailblazer and role model, combining being CEO of Jomas with campaigns championing women in industry. Roni is a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Geologist. Graduate of Portsmouth University with a BEng(hons) in Engineering Geology and Geotechnics, she also holds a Masters’ (with distinction) in Environmental Management from Exeter University. She has worked on major construction schemes including the widening of the A406 and M25, and various buildings and structures across the UK. She is Construction Policy Chair for FSB. She received the highly prestigious presidential invitation to Fellowship of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in 2019 and was appointed Honorary Fellow of RIBA in 2020. Multi award winner, international speaker and dedicated mother to three boys, Roni is passionate about diversity, social mobility and volunteers her time to mentor and coach many.

Rhonda Taylor

Executive Vice President and General Counsel
Dollar General Corporation

Rhonda has leadership responsibility for legal, risk management, public relations, government affairs, global compliance, corporate social responsibility, philanthropy, and internal audit. As one of three female C-suite leaders at the Fortune #106 company, she values diversity and inclusion as well as the mentorship and development of all talent. Rhonda mentors several individuals, both formally and informally, connecting one-on-one with future leaders of the Company and offering counsel and advice. She also is a mentor to her team, leading by example as a good business partner while proudly celebrating the accomplishments and successes of her colleagues. She also helps spearhead D&I efforts at Dollar General to guide and support the Company’s diversity and inclusion strategy, mission and goals. Additionally, Rhonda is a member of the Women's Professional Network Employee Resource Group, which strives to cultivate and further inclusivity and empowerment through networking, leadership, educational opportunities, and experiences.

Lindsey Rix

Chief Executive Officer
Canada Life UK

Throughout her career, Lindsey has been a passionate advocate of women's inclusion, whether through significant mentoring and support provided to women during all stages of their careers or through setting up dedicated accelerated leadership programs to broaden further and accelerate women's opportunities. As a CEO, Lindsey has been able to ensure Canada Life UK has committed to offering fully flexible working to all 1500 of its colleagues. Additionally, she has put Family Friendly Policies under review to ensure that they have a robust D&I lens and has championed the rollout of Menopause support & guidance. Under her leadership, the company released an annual report to publicly set out Canada Life's commitment to reducing the pay gap and has committed to having 35% Women in Senior Leadership Roles by 2023. Lindsey is currently a key mentor to several women looking to achieve senior executive positions in financial services.

Arungalai Anbarasu

Chief Technology & Strategy Officer
Waygate Technologies

Arungalai is mother to a 7-year-old daughter, fierce gender-balance advocate and a member of the Women's Network Group within Baker Hughes, and she has been coaching and mentoring gender-diverse employees to succeed in their careers so that she can create more gender-diverse teams in a high-tech business. Arungalai has been promoting roles in STEM with school and university-level students and is a thought leader in Forbes Technology Council and on Gender Balance & Working Mothers. She was featured in the Top 100 Women in Technology Leaders by Technology Magazine in 2021, in the 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology by National Diversity Council in 2021, and in the 10 Most inspiring women leaders to follow in 2022 by Insights Success in 2022 & 40 under 40 by CDO Magazine in 2022.

Louise Prashad

Chief HR Officer
Diageo

Louise was appointed Chief HR Officer in January 2022 and is the Executive member responsible for the design and implementation of Diageo's Inclusion and Diversity strategy. In her previous role as Global Talent Director, Louise led the creation of Diageo's Thriving Through Menopause guidelines in 2021 to raise awareness and understanding of menopause throughout the business. The guidelines are live in over 40 countries and in June, Louise championed Diageo to become the first global company to make the balance+ menopause app available to all employees. Under Louise's leadership as Global Talent Director, she helped to foster a culture with inclusion and diversity at its heart and developed Diageo's approach to talent development and acquisition. During her time in this role, she worked to drive the representation of women in leadership roles from 28% in 2016 to 42% in 2021.

Marjorie Dickman

Chief Government Affairs and Public Policy Officer
BlackBerry Limited

Marjorie joined BlackBerry in 2020 as a corporate officer and the company's first Chief Government Affairs and Public Policy Officer, making her one of the few female Global Government Affairs/Public Policy C-suite leaders worldwide. As the top advisor to BlackBerry's Executive Chairman and CEO on worldwide government affairs and technical standards decisions, Marjorie has role-modeled gender diversity and women's inclusion across the company. She proactively endeavors to ensure that all voices and perspectives are considered in corporate decision-making and has mentored many women across the technology sector. Her multi-decade history of advocating for and mentoring women and promoting STEM education and careers for women has inspired an entire cohort of women (and men) at BlackBerry, who have joined Marjorie in promoting gender diversity and women's inclusion throughout the company and beyond.

Sandra Horbach

Managing Director & Co-Head of US Buyout and Growth
Carlyle

Carlyle's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council launched in 2013 as one of the first of its kind in the investment management industry. As well as being a leader on this council, Sandra plays a pivotal role in ensuring at least half of the firm's incoming classes are diverse. In the past year, she led the charge in re-evaluating and refining Carlyle's portfolio board diversity goals, which now includes ensuring that 30% of all directors on boards of Carlyle portfolio companies are diverse by 2023. As an active leader in Carlyle's Global Mentorship Program, which has had over 1,000 pairings globally since its inception in 2015, Sandra oversees more than 100 employees, 61% of whom are diverse (female or ethnic minority). She is a long-time Executive Sponsor of Carlyle's Women's Employee Resource Group, which creates inclusive environments for women to advance their skills and leadership potential through connection, mentorship and discussion.

Enna Jimenez

Business Transformation and Quality Leader
IDEMIA

Enna is a Founding Committee Member of Women in IDEMIA Network, WIN, facilitates WIN Circles in Boston, giving women a chance to come together in a safe space, and supported the launch of WIN's first Mentor/Mentee program. She spearheaded on-boarding recruiting vendors based in Puerto Rico to increase diversity for its Engineering roles and led the Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, raising awareness of Latinas and their influence in collaboration with LatAm colleagues. Between 2020 and 2021, Enna launched a partnership between IDEMIA and the Boston Greater Chamber of Commerce, where she sent three employees to their Women's Leadership program yielding 2 of the women to be promoted internally, with one to a director-level position. She is also part of the global company's Ambassadors social media group to help elevate the voice of employees internally and externally. Enna has been an active public speaker, speaking at over 40 organizations, conferences, and workshops, raising awareness of Afro-Latinas in Technology, leading as a woman, sponsorship, and mentoring.

Casey Ryan

Global Head of Legal Personnel
Reed Smith

In her position as the Global Head of Legal Personnel at Reed Smith, Casey oversees the firm's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Program, Women's Initiative Network, and Recruiting, Retention and Hiring Programs for lawyers. In 2021, she oversaw the launch of the Family Network, which included the introduction of benefits such as childcare, tutoring, and peer to peer networking, as well as resources to achieve a work-life balance across all family stages. Meanwhile the Family Support Initiative, which was launched in 2020 to address COVID-19 family challenges, was also enhanced. Other policies implemented under Casey’s leadership include a global flexible working policy to provide for agile work; expanded maternity and adoption leave policies; a family forming benefit with a leading global fertility benefits provider, and a Declared Pronoun policy focused on communicating preferred pronouns. Of the firm’s partner promotions in 2021, 42% have been women and 22% have been ethnic minorities.

Tracey Yurko

Chief Legal Officer
Bridgewater Associates

As Chief Legal Officer, Executive Committee member, Operating Committee member, and a Partner, Tracey is among the most senior leaders at Bridgewater. Her work spans initiatives designed to promote equality for all employees and a department-level D&I program. Under Tracey's leadership, Bridgewater instituted third party pay equity audits and is one of the only alternative asset managers to disclose pay equity data for women and people of color on their public website. In partnership with others on her team, she established the firm's first Pro Bono program, creating opportunities for attorneys to provide services to organizations that reflect their and Bridgewater's values around diversity. In addition, Tracey built a database of D&I industry memberships and conferences and established a development budget for each department member to attend. Furthermore, she promoted awareness and education by requiring diversity information from outside law firms and service providers and organizing department-wide D&I training within and outside the company.

Suzanne Rich Folsom

Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Philip Morris International

Suzanne is a leader in the global corporate, government, and NGO communities whose multi-decade focus on—and support for—emerging female leaders sets her apart. With a compelling strategic vision and sustained commitment, she actively supports mentoring and sponsoring the next generation of leaders around the world. Owing to the breadth of her experience—from working for multiple heads of state to her work with the United Nation’s Decade for Women Conference and the UN Commission on the Status of Women, to her corruption-fighting role at the World Bank, to serving as General Counsel and a trusted business adviser for a range of multinational companies, to her myriad board roles—Suzanne’s leadership is a model for how progress can be achieved. She continues to emphasize the critical role corporate governance engagement plays over the long term—all with the recognition that achieving meaningful change takes time and a champion to drive it forward.

Katie Koch

Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Public Equity at Goldman Sachs Asset Management
Goldman Sachs

As a passionate believer that diverse teams outperform, Katie is at the forefront of leading Goldman Sachs diversity efforts and is a champion for women at the firm and across the industry. She has built and leads one of the industry’s most gender diverse investing teams where over 50% of the team’s $330bn AUS is managed by female portfolio managers. She is a member of the Steering Committee for the Asset Management Division’s D&I Council and is the firm’s sponsor for the ‘Girls Who Invest’ program. Over the past four years, Katie has evolved the firm’s proxy voting policy to push for greater levels of diversity on public company boards and has seen significant improvement, with 68% of all-male boards voted against in 2019 having added at least one woman director. Externally, Katie serves on the Board of the Toigo Foundation, which seeks to advance inclusive leadership within finance and beyond.

Maria Glasscock

Executive Director, People
Selfridges

As Executive Director of People, Maria champions the representation of women within Selfridges by focusing on the cross-sectional data of female talent and creating more inclusive opportunities for female team members, particularly those from underrepresented and minority groups. In 2021, Maria set a target to increase female leadership in 'Director positions' to 50%, which was surpassed in 2022 (hitting 51%), while also increasing the number of female leaders from ethnic minorities in leadership roles. In 2021 and 2022, she created educational training for managers on Inclusivity, Menopause, and Mental Health. In March 2022, she hosted team panel discussions with 'Fertility Matters at Work' and launched the 'Fertility and Neonatal loss policy.' Furthermore, Maria has introduced new D&I Terms of Business for all partner recruitment agencies, where every candidate shortlist must be 50% female. Moreover, she has been sponsoring careers events that promote Black women within the Tech space and has mentored on Diversity in the Retail's Global Female Leaders program.

Jane Palmieri

President of Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure (II&I); Asia Pacific oversight
Dow

Jane is president of the Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure operating segment within Dow. With annual sales of $16 Billion, this segment provides innovative solutions to global markets including infrastructure, consumer, construction, mobility, and energy. Jane leads a diverse global leadership team comprised of 40% women, underscoring inclusion as a top business priority. As a member of Sadara Chemical Company’s and Stanley Black & Decker’s Board of Directors, Jane advocates for female representation in the workforce. Jane is also the Executive Sponsor of Dow’s Veterans Network Employee Resource Group focused on attracting, retaining, and mentoring active service members and military veterans. A true champion for gender equality, Jane’s executive-level speaking engagements have included: a notable keynote speech at the 2019 P.O.W.E.R. Up leadership development conference, co-sponsored by EY; and an executive-level industry panel at the March 2019 AFPM International Petrochemical Conference on "How Inclusion Ignites the Workforce in the Petrochemical Industry.

Helen Shan

Chief Revenue Officer
FactSet Research Systems

As the Chief Revenue Officer of FactSet, Helen is a committed advocate for driving equality and empowerment across races and genders. She is the company’s executive sponsor of the Asian Business Resource Group, a member of the Global Diversity Council, and an executive member of the Women’s Business Resource Group. Helen strongly believes in creating personal sponsorships and sharing advice on how to leverage differences into strengths. In addition to being an active speaker at FactSet, Helen has been a panelist at several external corporate events, such as the Women@Amazon’s "Achieving Gender Parity in AWS Partnerships” in 2020, EPAM's IWD 2021 "Lessons in Leadership" panel and HSBC's Latin American Women's conference that same year. As a result, she brings greater visibility to senior female executives, not only in a corporate area but also on the revenue-generating side.

Carol Lynch

Former Chief Business Officer
Sandoz

Carol was an executive sponsor of the Sandoz resource groups Women in Leadership and GLOW, where she had the opportunity to amplify the voices of and actively support underrepresented groups at Sandoz. By helping to bring awareness to GLOW issues, Sandoz has seen positive momentum, including raising its first Pride flag on the Holzkirchen, Germany campus and creating "all-inclusive" bathrooms. She is a globally experienced, values-based leader. She was a member of the Sandoz Executive Committee and served as co-chair of the Sandoz Executive Diversity and Inclusion Council, promoting diversity and inclusion across the organization to create an equitable and representative culture. Carol also endorsed Sandoz's sustainable programs and policies, which support minority and underrepresented groups with, for example, extended parental leave and flexible work, executive sponsorships, and DE&I training.

Renata Zuccolo

Partner Antitrust Practice
Mattos Filho

In 2016, Renata, along with other colleagues, founded the 4Women's Program, aimed at discussing and supporting the career development of all women at the firm. Since then, she continues to participate in discussions to bring new initiatives, such as the collective mentoring for women lawyers. She is highly involved in several others mentoring programs and has started to dedicate part of her time to other entities outside the firm. Renata is an active member of a female network called "Woman in Antitrust" (WIA) which gathers female lawyers, economists, and government officials in Brazil. She is currently participating as a mentor in the program organized by WIA and also on an initiative named "elas no jota," which has the aim of promoting and spreading the opinion of female lawyers by encouraging the publication of articles on law and economics for a Brazilian legal newsletter called "Jota."

Anissa Dhouibi

Managing Director, Global Head of Equities Quantitative Analysis
Citi

Since joining Citi, Anissa has been actively involved in increasing women’s representation in Markets, particularly in MQA (Markets Quantitative Analysis), an area of Wall Street in which women are traditionally underrepresented. At Citi, women's representation in Anissa’s group has meaningfully increased since she joined. She is also an MD sponsor for RISE, the women’s affinity network in Markets North America. The group organizes events ranging from mentoring, speaker series with women leaders, product teach-ins roundtable discussions, and regular networking events for women. Additionally, Anissa is a mentor to several junior women in Markets and a regular speaker and organizer of networking and career advancement events for women and has been a regular mentor also with Streetwise Partners for multiple years. She was one of the mentors in their first women-only mentorship program aimed at providing unemployed or underemployed women with professional mentorship, skills, resources, and access to networks they need to secure and maintain employment.

Meyseng Se Tchao

Head of Future Vehicle and Mobility Services - Vice President at DEKRA
DEKRA

With a background of over 20 years in the Automotive industry, Meyseng considers it a part of her mission to mentor and sponsor the next generation of women in the workplace, providing confidence and opportunities for their own journeys. She is taking part in two Mentorship programs for women, one at DEKRA and one for the WAVE (women and vehicles in Europe) association. With another colleague, she created a small initiative called Women Circle @DEKRA aiming to promote gender diversity within the company. Furthermore, she strongly supported an HR initiative to create a dedicated budget for salary equality in France that has been in place for a few years. Outside of DEKRA, she is also an active member of the Lean-In Network. She is known within her team and peers as a woman who stands up for other women and dares to speak out for women’s equality and gender diversity.

Marie-Jeanne (MJ) Deverdun

CFO of Deutsche’s Investment Bank
Deutsche Bank

MJ joined the CFO team in 2019 and is responsible for business aligned activities including strategy and planning, performance management, resource allocation and management reporting. She is also the COO for Fixed Income and Currencies.Since joining Deutsche Bank in 2010 MJ has held a number of positions, starting in Risk running Credit Operations, moving to Portfolio Risk Management focusing on the optimisation of financial resources across CIB and holding various COO roles in Structured Finance, GCT and Fixed Income. MJ holds an MBA from Audencia Business School and is Mum to a six year old boy.

Gretchen Berlin

Senior Partner
McKinsey & Company

Gretchen has been the co-lead of McKinsey’s DEI efforts in North America in an official capacity since October 2021 and previously for the Mid-Atlantic office. She launched the Women and Families initiative to drive an integrated effort on gender equity across multiple dimensions. Gretchen also advocated for improvements to the parental leave and return from leave re-boarding programs, resulting in an enhanced offering designed in a manner inclusive of all family structures/types. In her career at McKinsey, she has always been very committed to people leadership and passionate about being an ally and sponsor for all under-represented colleagues.

Donna Milrod

Executive Vice President and Lead Acquisition Integration Executive for the Brown Brothers Harriman Investor Services Business Integration
State Street Corporation

Donna is a member of State Street's Professional Women's Network, an employee resource group (ERG) that focuses on networking, coaching, and professional development opportunities for women; and also of the State Street Management Committee, which serves as the company's most senior strategy and policy-making teams, including implementing diversity and inclusion initiatives. In addition, Donna serves as a mentor in "Leading Women," a group of State Street's top female executives established to advance and sponsor senior women across the organization. Donna has a leadership role in State Street's 10 Actions Against Racism and Inequality, established in 2020 to help drive DEI issues both within the firm and beyond. As a Workstream Sponsor for Action #8: Representation Across the Industry, Donna and her team leverage partnerships across the industry and educational networks to advocate for industry representation and career opportunities for Black and Latinx talent, in addition to the creation of college and graduate internship programs designed to attract diverse talent to the industry.

Justine Anderson

Chief Operating Officer for EMEA
BlackRock

Justine is an active participant within BlackRock's Women's network, Black Professionals Network, Women in Investments network, and the Administrative Professional network. As COO of EMEA BlackRock, her biggest focus is to normalize the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives in the firm's every action, to challenge and create a subtle change in the day-to-day. Justine’s role provides her with dozens of daily decisions that impact employees across the region. She approaches all of these with DEI as one of the core pillars—for example, bringing in parental leave coaching and supporting an internal program to develop and retain women, as well as a development program for Black professionals. Justine is also a Sponsor for BlackRock's participation in Black Women in Asset Management, a non-profit organization promoting the advancement of Black women working in asset management.

Jennifer Taylor

Chief Compliance Officer, Institutional Clients Group & Citibank, N.A.
Citi

As Co-Chair of Citi's EMEA Women Affinity Steering Committee, Jennifer spearheaded the creation of initiatives, including the "Power Walk," bringing women and male allies together to walk in pairs, sharing stories in a mentoring conversation. In 2022, over 200 employees participated in 11 locations globally, with plans to expand in 2023. Jennifer is an advocate for gender diversity; hiring a number of high-profile women, improving her department's gender diversity globally and at senior levels. She is a mentor to several women and sponsors talent within Citi and pan- industry. Prior to joining Citi, Jennifer was the Co-Chair of EMEA D&I Council at a top-tier investment bank, where she executed a global D&I strategy, oversaw mentoring programs and panels, and drove progress toward representation targets. Furthermore, Jennifer was invited to ring the closing bell at the NYSE in celebration of International Women's day in 2022 in recognition of her diversity efforts.

Catherine Owen

Senior Vice President and General Manager, U.S. Commercialization
Bristol Myers Squibb

Catherine Owen was recently appointed to SVP and General Manager, U.S. Commercialization. In this role, she has responsibility for Cardiovascular, Immunology and Oncology Commercialization at Bristol Myers Squibb. Prior to her current role, Catherine was SVP Major Markets at Bristol Myers Squibb and oversaw 19 global markets. Each market has an active B-NOW (BMS Network of Women) chapter focused on ensuring all women at BMS have equal opportunities to develop and advance their careers through programming, development, and mentorship. BMS has achieved gender parity across the company and is on track to achieve gender parity at the executive level by the end of 2022. Catherine is a mentor to many women leaders across BMS and an advocate for supporting wellbeing at work, as well as expanded family care leave so that working parents can thrive in their personal and professional roles. Catherine also mentors colleagues from previous roles, and is on the board of the Philadelphia Conference for Women, a non-profit professional and personal development program where she advises on women's leadership initiatives.

Najoh Tita-Reid

CMO
Logitech

Najoh Tita-Reid is Logitech's CMO and an ambassador for the company's efforts to enable all people to pursue their passion in a way that is good for the planet. Previously she held senior roles at Hero AG, Bayer, Merck, GlobalHue and P&G. Throughout her career, Najoh has worked tirelessly to drive change and results, inspiring women to stand in their unique power and do the same. This includes driving equality of women’s representation, equal pay, and opportunities for career advancement. She has implemented psychological safety training and practices to establish environments that are safe for all employees, and women, to work and contribute fully. She is a mentor to over 20 women, coaching them to overcome barriers in achieving their career goals. Additionally, Najoh is a founder member of the first organization for Black CMOs that advocates for the next generation of talented and diverse women. Finally, she is an active speaker who shares advice on women's leadership to attract top female talent to join her organization and pursue their ambitions across sectors.

Ruulke Bagijn

Head of Carlyle's Global Investment Solutions
Carlyle

Ruulke is an active leader and a member of Carlyle's DEI Council, founded in 2013 as one of the first DEI initiatives of its kind within the investment management industry. She is an advocate for diversity and passionate about increasing the representation and leadership of women in private equity. Under her management, 45% of entry and mid-level employees are women, and 27% of senior leaders are too, which is an 8% increase since 2021. Since 2018, Ruulke has played an active leadership role as the Inaugural Chair of the Dutch committee of Level 20, the not-for-profit body established to inspire women to join and advance in the private equity industry. In addition, she focuses on attracting and retaining women into the private equity industry across the Netherlands, supporting women to reach the most senior levels, and organizing and running networking events and initiatives to connect women across the industry.

Susan Jurevics

EVP, Head of International
Audible, Inc.

As Executive Sponsor of Women@Audible, Audible's largest global impact group with chapters in the US, UK and DE, Susan champions women in business and guides future leaders in their commitment to career development. In leading Audible in nine marketplaces outside the US, Susan and her team have been intentional and purposeful with their responsibility as a content creator. In the past year, they increased their multi-million dollar fund designed to identify, produce and elevate local, diverse voices. Every International Audible marketplace delivered highly-rated, award-winning Original titles under this initiative. In addition to her work for Audible, Susan serves as Executor of the Christine Schneider Scholarship, part of NYU Stern’s Breakthrough Scholars Leadership Program. This four-year undergraduate initiative helps make college accessible to students from a diverse range of backgrounds, and offers cohort-based leadership workshops that complement extracurricular support and career development resources.

Ishita Dhamani

Partner, Supply Chain Competency Leader, EY ASEAN
EY

After these past two years of the pandemic, Ishita’s focus is to push forward equitable policies and a safe work environment to drive gender equality. As the Supply Chain leader at EY, she has ensured that 50% of candidates considered for any role should be female. In addition, she has furthered EY’s culture of flexible working hours which could help young mothers manage work and childcare commitments. Ishita also has organized monthly sharing sessions by women leaders and has been a mentor to young women within the company. Thanks to her efforts, her team has 40% gender diversity, with 60% of managers being women. Additionally, Ishita strives to create a better working world outside her company, so she engages with the professional and start-up community in Singapore to promote gender diversity through inspirational speaking, collaboration, support, and mentoring.