Avivah Wittenberg-Cox London, UK

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox is CEO of 20-first, one of the world’s leading gender balance consultancies. She works with progressive companies to diversify their leadership teams and optimise both halves of the talent pool: female and male. Her books include “7 Steps to Leading Gender-Balanced Businesses” (Harvard Business Review, 2014), “How Women Mean Business: A step-by-step guide to profiting from gender balanced business” (John Wiley & Sons, 2010), and “Why Women Mean Business: Understanding the emergence of our next economic revolution” (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

Almost half of the world’s leading companies have no women on their Executive Committee. Many have created women’s networks, mentoring programmes and female leadership training – but Avivah Wittenberg-Cox argues that they all miss the point by assuming women lack the necessary skills. Instead they should ask ‘What’s wrong with our company if we can’t attract, retain and promote the majority of today’s educated talent and connect with the majority of consumers in an ever-expanding range of sectors?’

Avivah speaks on a range of topics relevant to modern leadership and effective organisations: global trends in gender, why gender balance matters, how to implement balance, and how better balance can create new market opportunities and increase customer satisfaction. She allies to this how current changes in countries and markets around the world emphasise the value of genuine cultural balance for international businesses. She offers a practical guide to implementation (and shows what hasn’t worked in the past). She brings a truly global perspective to these key issues for 21^st century managers, executives and leadership teams.