Women's Forum For The Economy and Society - Initiatives

Initiatives

The Women’s Forum has initiated a range of practical initiatives to support women around the globe.

The Cartier Women's Initiative Awards is an international business-plan competition for women, created in 2006 by Cartier and the Women's Forum with the support of the consulting firm McKinsey & Company and INSEAD business school. Five female entrepreneurs, one per continent, are rewarded annually. Each receives coaching support for a full year, a $20,000 grant and an exclusive trophy designed by Cartier. The competition comprises two rounds: the selection of the finalists in June based on their short business plans and the selection of the Laureates in October based on their detailed business plans.

Rising Talents aims to distinguish highly talented young women who will become influential figures in our economies and societies in the future. In partnership with Egon Zehnder International (WIKI Link) and Eurazeo (WIKI Link), the initiative is an example of the values championed by the Women’s Forum since its creation. Each year, some 20 young women are invited to attend the Women’s Forum Global Meeting and join the Rising Talents network, which includes more than 100 members and offers networking opportunities year-round. They work in business, in community and humanitarian associations, in science, politics and the arts, and all have demonstrated real capacity to carry through ambitious projects in both their personal and professional lives.

CEO Champions, launched in 2010 in partnership with Ernst & Young, is one of the first CEO groups to feature men CEOs working with their colleagues on women’s advancement within the private sector. CEO Champions is a global, CEO-only group designed to drive progress and accountability for women’s advancement through practical exchanges among top executives. It presents an opportunity for CEOs to highlight their organization’s commitment to women’s advancement, and to work together to promote women in the broader global business community.

Women in Media is a joint initiative by the Women's Forum, Deloitte and voxfemina, in partnership with leading French television channel TF1, the Agence France Presse, Lagardère Active, LinkedIn and Facebook. It exists to promote women's voices in the media, and to strengthen their representation as experts. It features intensive individual coaching workshops, surveys, and a series of practical seminars centered on real-life scenarios, giving women the tools to analyze their media profile and practical guidance on improvements to their approach to both traditional and digital media.

The Diversity Club for Business is an initiative created with the Boston Consulting Group, to gather companies involved in the promotion of diversity, so that together they can identify the best and most effective ways to make diversity central to corporate culture. In 2011, the Diversity Club included the following member companies: AIG, August & Debouzy, Barclays, Baxter, The Boston Consulting Group, JCDecaux, Lenovo, Renault-Nissan Alliance, Orange, and Unilever.

The Women for Education award, created in 2007 with ELLE magazine and the ELLE Foundation, annually honors an international NGO working to train women in developing countries. Projects in Madagascar, Afghanistan, India, Mexico, Ethiopia, Haiti and a pan-African education campaign for midwives have all received this award.