Gonzalo Gortázar, the CEO of CaixaBank, met with the national winner and the regional winners of the latest edition of the "CaixaBank Women in Business Award", which recognises leading Spanish female business managers .
At the event, which was held online this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chief Executive Officer of CaixaBank congratulated the winners and praised the high quality of this year’s candidates, a testament to the success of the campaign in the last four years.
Gonzalo Gortazar took the opportunity to share his experience and thoughts on the need to advance diversity in business invited them to join the new "CaixaBank Women in Business Community" online network.
Commenting on the initiative, Gonzalo Gortázar said: “At times like the present, CaixaBank seeks to go beyond public acknowledgement of female talent. Through this online Community, we are enabling professional relationships between leading businesswomen around the world, sharing information on equal opportunities and best practices among companies in this field".
Furthermore, Gonzalo Gortázar commended this year's national winner, the businesswoman from Menorca, Lina Mascaró, chairwoman of Grupo Mascaró, which includes the brands Mascaró and Pretty Ballerinas, as one of the Spanish representatives of the International Women’s Entrepreneurial Challenge (IWEC) Awards, which were awarded online in November this year. This year’s event included a new feature,the winner of the Prémio Mulher Empresária BPI, which acknowledged the career of Isabel Furtado, CEO of Grupo Textil Manuel Gonçalves (TMG) thus extending the reach of IWEC Awards to businesswomen in Portugal.
This year, the IWEC conference recognised the achievements of 41 female employers from 16 countries, representing a global turnover of more than 2 billion USD and employing more than 10,000 people.
The "CaixaBank Women in Business Community"
The "CaixaBank Woman in Business Community" is an online network that brings together regional and national winners from the four editions of the CaixaBank Women in Business Awards. The virtual community, which takes place on a private space on LinkedIn, has been set up as a platform to share knowledge, ideas and experiences, as well as a meeting point to establish professional connections between a group of female managers, who stand out for their careers, strategic vision, capacity of innovation and transformational leadership.
The platform offers an extensive repository of information on female business and leadership, adapted to the interests of participants, and enables a participatory forum in which the winning businesswomen can exchange knowledge and learn from the best practices that have been adopted in each of the businesses represented.
The community also offers access to exclusive experiences, such as forums, debates, conferences and domestic and international events, with which it aims to contribute to the development and leadership of women in the business world.
With the goal of creating a personal and professional connection among businesswomen worldwide, the 'Women in Business Community' facilitates participation in various initiatives of other leading domestic and international businesswomen networks, some of which include IWEC, the International Women's Forum, Vital Voices and EJE&CON (the Spanish Association of Executives and Directors).
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. At CaixaBank 41.7% of managerial positions are held by women, with a public commitment to reach 43% in 2021, while 40% of the Board of Directors are women, one of the highest ratios 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 improve the visibility of women in the workplace. Wengage includes internal measures to foster flexibility and work-life balance, to raise awareness on diversity and strengthen the role of women, with training programmes and female mentoring plans, through which female managers will guide other professionals in developing their careers.
Wengage also develops external initiatives for customers and society, based on championing the diversity and equal opportunities across three areas: leadership and enterprise; innovation and education; and sport.
This year the programme has received recognition as the “Best Practice in Management of Diversity 2020 in the Large Corporates category” by Fundación Diversity, the promoter in Spain of the European Diversity Charter.
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 managerial positions and strengthen measures to enhance work-life balance. The plan features the scope of gender in managerial development programs and in recruitment and training processes, and the fostering of remote working and flexibility.
Thanks to this commitment, CaixaBank has received 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 Spanish Federation of Female Managers, Executives, Professionals and Entrepreneurs (FEDEPE) Award. It also features on the European Women on Boards (EWoB) Gender Diversity Index.
In addition, CaixaBank collaborates with EJE&CON, with which this year it has launched the study of IESE's “Code of Good Practice Monitoring Survey for Managing Talent and Improving the Company's Competitiveness”, selected by the UN to be presented at the 2020 Women's Empowerment Principles (WEP) Forum held in New York in March.
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 the Diversity Charter, promoting equal opportunities and anti-discriminatory measures.
