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A group of executive women from Ireland, Portugal, Switzerland and the United Kingdom visited UNESCO Headquarters on Monday, 24 January, to hold the second brainstorming session with the Director for Gender Equality on how to improve the representation of women in leadership positions, with a focus on corporate boards, and to explore collaboration possibilities for UNESCO’s upcoming International Women’s Day Conference on the gender bias in AI and other frontier technologies.

Building on UNESCO’s work to improve the representation of women in leadership and decision-making positions at the highest levels in all spheres, the group reviewed data on the current situation of gender balance in leadership positions with a focus on corporate boards and discussed the current legislative and policy frameworks that aim to address this issue. The group agreed to continue reflections on the way forward at the planned annual meeting in London scheduled for October 2020.

Members of the group participating in the meeting included Rosie Bichard; Valerie Robert; Eduarda Luna Pais; Mary O’Connor; Ana Barros; Ana Paula Reis and Marie Holive.

Dr Christine Chow from Hermes Investment Management was invited as a guest speaker.  She presented the background and approach of Hermes Investment Management and its long-term track record of stewardship through active engagement with investee companies.  She focused in particular on its approach to governance, focus on board diversity and culture of the organisation. Hermes Investment Management is collaborating with UNESCO for the IWD Conference and has reached out to several investee companies in Asia and elsewhere to encourage them to participate. 

These prominent women executives met when they all attended Harvard Business School’s Women on Boards (HBS-WOB) Executive Education programme in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Since then, they have collaborated to launch a movement to improve women’s representation on corporate boards through an association,  “Women Execs on Boards”, established by the graduates of the same programme that comprises over 100 members from around the world. UNESCO’s Director for Gender Equality, Saniye Gülser Corat, attended the inaugural session of the HBS-WOB programme in November-December 2016.