Gonzalo Gortázar, CEO of CaixaBank, Spain’s leading retail bank, has opened the 'CaixaBank Women in Business Community' in a virtual meeting; the online network that brings together regional and national winners from the three editions of the CaixaBank Women in Business Awards.
The virtual community, operational through a private area on LinkedIn, has been created as a platform to share knowledge, ideas and experiences, and as a meeting point to establish professional connections between the group of female managers, who stand out for their careers, strategic vision, innovation capacity and transformational leadership.
During the launch session, Gonzalo Gortázar shared his vision on leadership in times of COVID-19 with businesswomen from the community, and expressed his satisfaction with this new initiative, which represents a step forward in terms of gender equality: "In times like these, the need to move forward towards equal opportunities is even more essential, and at CaixaBank, we want to contribute with initiatives like this new virtual businesswoman community, which aims to pool together female talent and leadership and expand their visibility.
The 'CaixaBank Women in Business Community' offers an extensive repository of information on female business and leadership, adapted to the interests of participants, and enables a participatory forum in which businesswomen can exchange knowledge, learning from the best practices that have been adopted in each of the businesses represented.
The platform also offers access to exclusive experiences, such as forums, debates, conferences and national and international events, with which it aims to contribute to the development and leadership of women in the business world. This month will see an exclusive virtual session on Disruptive Innovation, led by chef Ferran Adrià.
Besides creating a personal and professional connection among winners in Spain, the Women in Business Community' will facilitate access to other networks of businesswomen in Spain and internationally, such as IWEC, the International Women's Forum, Vital Voices and EJE&CON, among others. Each year, the network will incorporate the winners from new editions.
The Women in Business Award and the international IWEC awards
Each year, the CaixaBank Women in Business Award recognises professional and business excellence in women with a significant and recognised trajectory of leadership in the Spanish business world. The award has been endorsed nationwide for its boost to diversity and its contribution to promoting gender equality in the Spanish society.
The national winner of the Women in Business Award is one of the Spanish representatives in the IWEC awards, which are given out as part of the International Women's Entrepreneurial Challenge (IWEC), the global network of leading businesswomen around the world, that own part of the capital of the companies in which they work, and who cooperate worldwide to help to create and distribute the business wealth. After its first edition in Barcelona in 2007, the International IWEC Conference has travelled to various cities throughout the world, such as New York, Stockholm, Cape Town and New Delhi, among others.
Since the creation of the IWEC awards, 411 women from 42 countries have been awarded, whose companies have a total turnover of $35.5 billion and employ more than 348,200 people.
CaixaBank's Wengage programme, the institution's commitment to equality
Diversity, meritocracy, equal opportunities and talent recognition are some of the pillars of CaixaBank's corporate culture. Under these premises, it works with a commitment to be a pacesetter for its employees, promoting inclusion and participation and bolstering projects that promote equality, both within the company and across the whole of society. In fact, 41.3% of management positions in CaixaBank are held by women, with a public commitment to increase this figure to 43% in 2021, and with 40% proportion of women on its Board of Directors, one of the highest in the sector.
CaixaBank's Wengage diversity programme is a cross-disciplinary project developed by people from all areas of CaixaBank, based on meritocracy and the promotion of equal opportunities, which works to foster and visualise gender, functional and generational diversity. Wengage includes internal measures to promote flexibility and work-life balance, training and female mentoring plans, through which managers of the company help other professionals to develop their careers.
Furthermore, in January 2020, CaixaBank signed an Equality Plan to promote the principles of equal opportunities and diversity in work teams, increase the presence of women in management positions and strengthen measures to enhance the work-life balance. The plan features gender as part of managerial development programs and in recruitment and training processes, as well as in the fostering of teleworking and flexibility.
Thanks to this commitment, CaixaBank has distinctions such as being included in the Bloomberg 2020 Gender-Equality Index, the Equality in Business Badge (DIE), managed by the Institute of Women, and has been recognised by the Másfamilia Foundation with EFR Certification (Family Responsible Company). It has received various recognitions, such as the 25th anniversary of the FEDEPE Award (The Spanish Federation of Female Managers, Executives, Professionals and Entrepreneurs). It also features on the EWoB Gender Diversity Index.
CaixaBank is associated with the international programme Target Gender Equality and the Women’s Empowerment Principles, of the United Nations; the Voluntary Agreement with the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality, 'More women, better businesses', seeking better representativeness of women in management positions; and to the Diversity Charter, promoting equal opportunities and anti-discriminatory measures.
