CaixaBank shortlists 14 regional finalists for the national 2019 Women in Business Award

• The winner of this national stage will be one of the Spanish representatives at the IWEC 2019 awards, held in New Delhi (India) on 12 November.
• The CaixaBank Women in Business Award – now in its third annual edition – is part of the CaixaBank Wengage programme, which works to develop and promote the value of diversity inside and outside the bank. The company currently has 40.1% of women in management positions.

CaixaBank has chosen the 14 regional winners who have qualified for the national stage of the 2019 CaixaBank Women in Business Award, which acknowledges the careers and talent of leading managers in Spain. The awards, now in their third annual edition, have been consolidated nationwide as a result of fostering diversity and contributing to promote gender equality throughout Spanish society. The purpose of the initiative is to increase the awareness, credibility, social acceptance and respect for women in business, helping to create social consensus on the key role of women in the economic and social landscape.

After the regional stage, the national winner will be chosen from among 14 regional finalists by a jury made up of the CaixaBank Diversity Committee, comprising members of the Steering Committee and various leaders of the diversity projects. This winner will be one of the Spanish representatives at the 2019 IWEC awards, within the framework of the 12th International Women's Entrepreneurial Challenge (IWEC), which will be held this year in New Delhi (India) from 10 to 13 November.

Regional winners who are candidates for the national 2019 CaixaBank Women in Business Award

The 14 winners of each of the CaixaBank regional departments vying for the national 2019 Women in Business Award and to be one of the Spanish representatives at the 2019 IWEC Awards are:

• Western Andalusia: Arancha Manzanares Abásolo, Executive Vice-President of Ayesa Advance Technologies. It is a benchmark company in engineering, technology and consultancy in the industrial engineering, aeronautics and information systems sectors.

• Eastern Andalusia and Murcia: María Dolores Ciurana Boadas, CEO of Faccsa. The company, founded in 1941, is dedicated to manufacturing cooked meat products. It is today one of the 10 main Spanish companies in its sector.

• Aragon and La Rioja: Cristina Forner González, Chair of the Board of Directors of Unión Vitivinícola, a company founded in 1972, with long-standing experience in La Rioja winegrowing. It currently exports to more than 120 countries.

• Balearic Islands: María Antonia Llull Sánchez, vicepresident of the Hipotels Hotels & Resorts, in the hotel and tourism sector, which has 30 establishments spread throughout Majorca, Lanzarote, Cádiz and Mexico.

• Barcelona: Vanesa Martínez Chamorro, CEO of Carinsa (Creaciones Aromáticas Industriales), a multinational industrial group dedicated to manufacturing and marketing fragrances, functional ingredients and additives for food, perfumery and cosmetics.

• Canary Islands: María del Carmen Pérez Lara, Deputy Chair and CEO of Grupo Pérez Moreno, a parent company of a group of businesses from the construction, property, tourism and services sectors.

• Castile-La Mancha and Extremadura: Isabel Sánchez Serrano, CEO of Disfrimur, a Spanish company founded in 1997, dedicated to road freight.

• Castile León and Asturias: Verónica Pascual Boé, CEO of ASTI Tech Group, a company dedicated to robotics engineering.

• Catalonia: Anna Alzamora Planaguma, Manager of Alzamora Carton Packaging, a company specialising in manufacturing cardboard containers for its customers' packaging, active in various sectors.

• Community of Valencia: Ángela Pérez Pérez, CEO and Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of Imegen, one of Europe’s leading laboratories specialised in Oncogenetics, dedicated to the research and development in the hman genetic diagnosis, that works in the field of the customised precision medicine by offering DNA analysis aimed at the characterisation of tumours and the assignment of the best treatment to every oncological patient.

• Galicia: Emma Lustres Gómez, Administrator and Executive Producer of Vaca Films, an audiovisual and cinematographic production company for films intended both for the national and international markets.

• Madrid: Ana Victoria Ugidos Álvarez, CEO of Btsa Biotecnologías Aplicadas, a company specialising in manufacturing and preparing antioxidants. It is the first European company to manufacture natural vitamin E and to prepare natural antioxidants for the food industry.

• Navarre: Laura Sandúa Escribano, Manager of Aceites Sandúa, a company dedicated to packaging and marketing edible oils, a benchmark in Spain in the development of a special frying-type oil that does not contain palm oil.

• Basque Country and Cantabria: María Luisa Galardi Aduriz, CEO of Ondarreta Mesas y Sillas, a company founded more than 40 years ago and dedicated to manufacturing designer furniture. It currently exports 40% of its production.

CaixaBank, committed to diversity

The CaixaBank Women in Business Award has been consolidated nationwide for fostering diversity and its contribution to promoting gender equality in the Spanish society. It is part of the CaixaBank Wengage programme, which works to develop and foster the value of diversity inside and outside the bank.

In the internal setting, CaixaBank features 40.1% of women in managerial positions as of the close of March 2019, and has an Equality Plan to contribute to real equality between men and women.

In the external setting, CaixaBank promotes awards and conferences to increase the visibility of women in many areas of responsibility. This is precisely the goal of the CaixaBank Women in Business Award, which acknowledges the careers of women in the business world; or the WONNOW awards, in collaboration with Microsoft, which acknowledge the best students in the STEM fields (Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). In addition, in 2018, CaixaBank promoted 70 conferences in Spain to raise awareness on the value of diversity; and 11 Diversity Talks in the bank's international network.

The Wengage programme is framed within the CaixaBank model of socially responsible banking, characterised by its commitment to the environment, its social approach and its contribution to the development of people and society as a whole.

The IWEC Awards

The International Women’s Entrepreneurial Challenge (IWEC) is a worldwide network of female business leaders who nurture company ownership and cooperate on a global level with the goal of creating and distributing wealth in the business world.

Every year, within the framework of its Conference, IWEC hands out prestigious awards in recognition and support of businesswomen all over the world. Among other aspects, the IWEC awards aim to increase the awareness, credibility and responsibility of businesswomen, so that they can represent a major and decisive element in the development of the 21st century global economy.

The first edition of these awards took place in Barcelona in February 2007; subsequently, they were held in New York (2008), New Delhi (2009), Cape Town (2010), New York (2011), Barcelona (2012), Lima (2013), Stockholm (2014), Istanbul (2015), Brussels (2016), Seattle (2017) and Shanghai (2018).

In 2018, this international award ceremony recognised the careers of 48 businesswomen from 20 countries. The global turnover of the companies run by these women stands above 1.7 billion dollars and they employ more than 48,000 people.