Fifty women board directors and executives opened the Deutsche Börse today to salute German women’s contributions to the country’s economy as well as the country’s commitment to increasing women’s access to corporate leadership. Brought together by Corporate Women Directors International (CWDI), a Washington, DC-based organization which researches and promotes women on boards globally, in partnership with Egon Zehnder International, the Market Open was followed by a Forum on Board Diversity featuring Daniela Weber-Rey, Chief Governance Officer and Deputy Global Head of Compliance for Deutsche Bank, member of the German Corporate Governance Code Commission and a former Board Director of BNP-Paribas.
“German women, whether they are CEOs, executives with multinational corporations, or entrepreneurs of businesses large or small, play a major role in the country’s economy,” states CWDI Chair Irene Natividad. “We are pleased to bring them together to salute their achievements and to discuss what more can be done to increase the number of women in leadership positions,” she adds. Joining Ms. Natividad for the Market Open were Deutsche Boerse’s Managing Director of Cash Market Martin Reck and Deutsche Bank’s Daniela Weber-Rey.
Women corporate leaders also participating in the Market Open include SAP’s Senior Vice President Anka Wittenberg, Lufthansa Senior Vice President for Corporate Human Resources Ria Hendriks, Deutsche Telekom’s Former Senior Vice President Maud Pagel and Hamburg-Koln-Express CEO Eva Kreienkamp, among others.
At the Discussion Forum, Ms. Natividad shared the results of CWDI research on women board directors of the 200 largest companies globally, while Ms. Weber-Rey lent her perspective on the situation in Germany from her view as a corporate executive, a Board Director and Corporate Governance Commission Board Member. A recent report from FidAR shows that 17.4% of Supervisory Board seats of the 160 largest listed companies in Germany are filled by women, a figure just above the European Union’s average of 16% of board directorships held by women in the blue chip companies of the 27 EU countries, and surpassing the U.S. Fortune 500’s current average of 16.6% women directors. Today’s event marked the 12th Market Open organized by CWDI.