WEQUAL-GLOBAL
17.11.2020 15:44:08 CET | Business Wire | Press release
Twenty-four female executives of leading EMEA companies have been identified as having the leadership traits for top level C-suite positions. The WeQual Awards (www.wequal.com/awards ) identify already successful senior women who are one level below C-suite, and are aimed at tackling the slow progress in appointing women to executive roles.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201117005907/en/
A quarter of the winners of previous UK and US WeQual Awards have since been promoted to the executive committees of FTSE and Fortune 500 companies.
“The glass-ceiling concept has been an issue for decades, and the drop-off is steepest just below the C-suite, so I launched WeQual to champion gender equality at the top,” says Katie Litchfield , founder and CEO of WeQual.
The EMEA finalists are from a wide range of sectors and companies, including Orange, Unilever, Schneider Electric, Bayer Consumer Health, ENGIE, KCB Group, Sodexo, Enel Group, L'Oréal, Mondi Group, Bureau Veritas, Standard Chartered, Veolia Environnement, Ericsson, Fresenius Medical Care, AkzoNobel, Ooredoo Qatar, Danone, Aryzta.
The 24 finalists were assessed against seven criteria: Leadership, Cognitive Ability, Integrity, Drive & Resilience, Equality, Knowledge of the Business, and Personal Development. All candidates were assessed blind with no name or company revealed in their application.
Eight executive interviewers will hold 30-minute interviews with the three finalists in their category before each choosing a category winner: Brand Innovation, Commercial Performance, Digital Impact, Finance, Head of Region, People Excellence, Strategy Development, and Transformational Leadership.
The finalists will be announced in December 2020.
Among supporters of the awards are Ann Cairns, Executive Chair of Mastercard and Global Chair of the gender equality campaign group ‘30% Club’; Sir Ian Cheshire, Chairman of Barclays; Dame Inga Beale; and Ron Kalifa OBE of Network International. They are part of a roster of well-known C-suite executives who will now choose eight category winners.
Sir Ian Cheshire says: "These awards are among the first to target women at this level. We believe building awareness of these talented people, as well as connecting them to each other, is an important step in improving diversity at top levels of business.”
This senior group of 24 executives will become members of the WeQual Club and join the existing 72 senior FTSE and Fortune 500 female executives.
(Ends)
Notes to editors
Methodology: The eight assessment questions were developed from a research-based meta-analysis of the factors and characteristics that mark leaders as different from non-leaders (Kirkpatrick and Locke, 1991). They were designed to help the women best describe how they deliver on leadership characteristics and how they are seen by others as a leader, and indeed engage people who see them as fit to lead.
About WeQual
WeQual's mission is to make businesses more inclusive by identifying exceptional women executives and address the gender imbalance across the world's Executive Committees. Katie Litchfield, founder and CEO of WeQual Awards, devised the new platform which calls for women senior executives to build their case as to why they are deserving to be appointed to the Executive Committee.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201117005907/en/
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
JSS: 2025 Sake Exports Grew Steadily, Reaching a Record 81 Markets6.2.2026 04:00:00 CET | Press release
Sake exports continued to expand in 2025 in both value and volume, with export destinations reaching a record 81 countries and regions. Export value increased 6% year on year to 45.9 billion yen, while export volume rose 8% to 33.55 million liters (3.73 million cases on a 9-liter basis), marking the second-highest export performance on record. The average export unit price per 750 ml bottle declined 2% year on year to 1,026 yen. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260205671686/en/ Sake Export Performance by Country (Top 10, 2025) Export value has nearly doubled since 2020, and the CAGR over the past five years reached 14%. This underscores sake’s position as a high-growth category globally. Asia remained the largest export destination, with export value totaling 28.8 billion yen, representing an 8% increase year on year and accounting for 63% of total export value. North America recorded exports of 12.4 billion ye
Canva Brings On-Brand Designs Directly into AI Assistants6.2.2026 00:00:00 CET | Press release
Designs created in ChatGPT now come to life in Canva, instantly on brand and ready to use The future of work is being rewritten by AI, with professionals accomplishing in minutes what used to take hours. But there's been one persistent breaking point in AI assistants: generic visual outputs and off-brand colors that undermine AI speed with tedious manual cleanup. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260205384226/en/ Canva Today, that friction ends as Canva brings brand intelligence directly into the AI tools where modern day work happens most. Starting now, ChatGPT users can create designs completely tied to their Canva Brand Kit, making a company’s brand come to life visually and function as a living participant in AI workflows. This expansion marks the coming together of Canva and ChatGPT, two category-defining platforms, in a new way to make on-brand design more accessible and fluid. From client-ready pitch deck
DNIB.com Reports Internet Has 386.9 Million Domain Name Registrations at the End of the Fourth Quarter of 20255.2.2026 23:04:00 CET | Press release
VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), a global provider of critical internet infrastructure and domain name registry services, today announced that, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief Quarterly Report from DNIB.com, the fourth quarter of 2025 closed with 386.9 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs), an increase of 8.4 million domain name registrations, or 2.2% compared to the third quarter of 2025. Domain name registrations also increased by 22.7 million, or 6.2%, year over year. The .com and .net TLDs had a combined total of 173.5 million domain name registrations in the domain name base at the end of the fourth quarter of 2025, an increase of 1.6 million domain name registrations, or 0.9% compared to the third quarter of 2025. The .com and .net TLDs had a combined increase of 4.5 million domain name registrations, or 2.6%, year over year. As of Dec. 31, 2025, the .com domain name base totaled 161.0 million domain name registrations and the .net
Calix CEO Michael Weening To Keynote at MWC26 Barcelona: How Agentic AI Enables an ‘Experience of One’ for Every Subscriber5.2.2026 20:30:00 CET | Press release
In a livestreamed keynote at Mobile World Congress, Weening will reveal how service providers can turn agentic AI into operational advantage, personalizing at scale to grow subscribers while increasing ARPU and reducing churn Calix, Inc. (NYSE: CALX) today announced that President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Weening will deliver a keynote in the Tuesday morning, March 3, “Architects of the AI Age” session at MWC26 Barcelona. Calix’s presence at MWC, the world’s largest and most influential connectivity event, extends the momentum following the recent launch of the company’s AI‑native platform. Weening will take the MWC Main Stage on Tuesday morning to reveal a transformative vision for telecommunications: how agentic AI enables service providers to deliver an “experience of one” to millions of subscribers simultaneously—personalizing every interaction in real time, unlocking new revenue streams, and fundamentally redefining what it means to grow in the connected world. He will
Andersen Consulting udvider sine kompetencer med tilføjelsen af SHMA5.2.2026 19:20:00 CET | Pressemeddelelse
Andersen Consulting indgår en samarbejdsaftale med SHMA, en førende virksomhed inden for aktuarfaglig og finansiel rådgivning med hovedsæde i De Forenede Arabiske Emirater. SHMA er et aktuarfagligt rådgivningsfirma med næsten fire årtiers erfaring i at hjælpe organisationer med at navigere i kompleksitet, håndtere risiko og skabe muligheder gennem aktuarfaglig og forsikringsmæssig rådgivning, risikostyring samt værdiansættelse af slutvederlag (End-of-Service Benefits, EOSB). Ved at samarbejde med forsikringsselskaber, pensionsordninger samt private og offentlige organisationer hjælper SHMA sine kunder med at opbygge robuste og resiliente organisationer. "Hos SHMA er kvalitet, skræddersyede løsninger og ægte menneskelig forbindelse i centrum for vores mission," udtaler Shariq Sikander, direktør for SHMA. "Samarbejdet med Andersen Consulting giver os mulighed for at udvide vores indflydelse globalt og styrke vores aktuarfaglige ydelser ud over MENA-regionen, samtidig med at vi leverer in
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom