 Irene Natividad is a recognised leader for women in the United States and wears many hats. Ms. Natividad is the President of the Global Summit of Women, an annual international gathering of women leaders from around the world, and co-chairs Corporate Women Directors International, which promotes the increased participation of women on corporate boards globally. Most importantly, she is the Founder and President of her own public affairs firm, GlobeWomen, based in Washington, D.C.
A sought-after commentator, her views are aired nationally in the United States. Irene’s commitment to promoting women, nationally and internationally, stems from her decade-long involvement with the National Women's Political Caucus, a bipartisan organisation dedicated to electing and appointing more women to public office. Widely recognised for her outstanding leadership of the Caucus, she was elected President in 1985 and re-elected in 1987, the first Asian American ever to head a national political organization.
During the nineties, she assumed the chairmanship of the National Commission on Working Women, which works on economy equity issues affecting women through groundbreaking research and training programs. Her commitment to women’s economic empowerment has extended to the global arena, where she has provided a forum through the Global Summit of Women to exchange best practices in accelerating women’s economic progress.
Irene’s work has been honoured by numerous media organisations. In 2004, she was selected by Women’s eNews as one of the ‘21 Leaders for the 21st Century’. She was named in 1997 as one of ‘25 Most Influential Working Mothers’ by Working Mother Magazine; in 1993 as one of the ‘74 Women Changing American Politics’ by Campaigns & Elections Magazine; and recognized by A. Magazine as one of the top 25 influential Asian Americans. Irene was also named in 1988 as one of the ‘100 Most Powerful Women in America’ by Ladies Home Journal.
She has received numerous organisational awards ranging from the 2001 ‘Women of Genius’ by Trinity College Washington, D.C. to the 1995 ‘Magnificent 7’ award from Business & Professional Women/USA to the 1985 Women Making History Award presented by the Women's Congressional Caucus. She has been awarded a Doctorate in Humane Letters by Long Island University, from where she graduated valedictorian in 1971; and by Marymount College New York in 1994 for her global work on behalf of women.
Ms. Natividad resides outside of Washington, DC with her husband and son.
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 Joanna Barsh is passionate about many things, but at the top of her list is women’s leadership. A Director in McKinsey & Company's New York office, she serves as a leader of McKinsey's Consumer, Retail and Organization Practices. Since joining the firm in 1980, Joanna has served a broad range of consumer-facing clients. Her client experience spans mergers and acquisitions, development of corporate growth strategy, and performance and operations transformation. She also spearheads the Centered Leadership Project and co-authored the book, How Remarkable Women Lead, published by Crown Business.
Joanna is a strong advocate for women at McKinsey and beyond. She has been a New York City Commissioner on Women's Issues since 2002, appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Joanna created "The McKinsey Centered Leadership Project," including a video archive of 100+ in-depth interviews with women leaders from around the world. Its objective is to accelerate the development of women leaders. She co-authored How Remarkable Women Lead, published by Crown Business (September 2009).
A dedicated contributor to the New York community, Joanna has served the Partnership for New York City, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Manhattan Theatre Club, as well as St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the Alaska Conservation Foundation. She has been a trustee of Sesame Workshop, the education organization responsible for Sesame Street, for 15 years.
Prior to joining McKinsey, Joanna held positions at Macy's and at Bloomingdale's. She holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar.
She has two wonderful daughters and a husband of 18 years.
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 Rita Benoy Bushon was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group (MSWG) on 1 January 2009 and as its Director on 18 May 2009. She is currently in the Ethics Standard Board of MIA. She is also a member of International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) Shareholder Responsibilities Committee 2009-2010, Corporate Governance Working Group) and The ASEAN Capital Markets Forum Working Group.
Rita had served the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) for 23 years since 1984 in various senior positions including Head of External Portfolio Managers, Head of Corporate Surveillance, Head of Equity Research as well as Head of Private Equity until her optional retirement in 2007. She was the founder director of MSWG from 2001 until 2007. She was a non executive director in KFC Berhad from 2003 to end 2007. She was also the non-executive director in Land & General Berhad from 2002 to end 2006 and re-designated to be the executive director from December 2006 to August 2008.
Rita holds an MBA from Henley Management College and has an Honours Degree in Economics (Statistics) from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
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 Dinah Bennett is the Director at the International Centre for Entrepreneurship & Enterprise, United Kingdom. Dinah’s work has supported female economic empowerment for over twenty five years. Beginning her career working on a Woman’s Development Programme in the Sudan, Dinah returned to the UK and spent two years as a Chancery Associate at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
She spent twenty one years at Durham University initially responsible for an innovative research programme into Market Development in the Independent Growth Firm. The results of this work have been disseminated via books, BBC Television Series and training programmes internationally.
Dinah researched and taught internationally on marketing related issues and the concept of Networking and Relationship Management in relation to successful Business Development. She calls herself a ‘pracademic’ a practical academic who is able to translate the theory into practice.Latterly Dinah was Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning where she had a remit of supporting the strategic development of entrepreneurial practices. The Centre not only worked with staff and students within the University but engaged with a range of stakeholders nationally and internationally.
As a founding director of the International Centre for Entrepreneurship Dinah designs and delivers business and entrepreneurial development programmes internationally. In 1999 Dinah founded an innovative project ‘Women into the Network’ (WIN). This project supports the creation and management of businesses by women through their integration into existing networks and hundreds of jobs have been created in the North East of England as a result of this initiative. The success of WIN has been recognised by being selected as the UK best practice initiative for promoting female entrepreneurship. This project has now been developed into a social enterprise and led by woman entrepreneurs. She is soon to launch WIN Global Networking Women.com – which aims to support promote and connect women on an international basis.
Dinah is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has been a trustee of the Institute of Small business and Entrepreneurship since 2004. In 2005 Dinah was one of the first people in the UK to be honoured with an individual Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion in recognition of her work promoting women’s enterprise nationally and internationally and in 2007 she was awarded The UK’s Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) Corporate Woman Award for her outstanding work in supporting women’s entrepreneurship. In 2011 Dinah was honoured with an OBE for her services to women’s entrepreneurship.
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