Congratulations to the 2019 Women Leadership Awards Winners!
On May 31st, we hosted our fourth annual IPWS Summit at Kathleen’s Waitan in Shanghai. Every year, this event pushes the boundaries of traditional conferencing, fusing powerful speakers with innovative, active conferencing. The Summit is also where we announce and celebrate the winners of the annual Women Leadership Awards (WLA), one of the longest running international awards for women leaders in China.
This year, we received 70 nominations for the seven categories of the 2019 Women Leadership Awards. The independent WLA Jury generously volunteered a significant portion of their time to review each complete nomination and select two finalists for each award category. Following the finalist selection, the Jury convened for a full-day interview process where each finalist was present for a 20 minute interview.
Last Friday, the winners were finally announced at the 2019 IPWS Summit. Congratulations to all!
Business Leader of the Year:
Anna Chitty
CEO, PHD China
Anna Chitty is a globally recognized senior media practitioner who has worked across multiple markets. With more than 20 years of experience, Anna joined the OMG family in 2006, where she helped land blue-chip clients including Pepsi Foods and Beverages, Dongfeng Citroen & Peugeot, Intel, Danone, and Unilever, the largest media pitch ever in China at the time. Anna’s leadership reflects on how she fosters talent, grows teams and manages projects, nurturing an agency of forward-thinking individuals that together, support the business development of PHD China’s offices. Recognized by local and international award shows, she was named Greater China’s Media Planner/Buyer of the Year and winner of Campaign Asia’s Women Leading Change Award 2018.
Young Business Leader of the Year:
Emily Spink-McCarthy
R&D President & Educational Chief Officer, American Eagle Institute
Emily Chen is the R&D president and Chief Education Officer of American Eagle Institute. She began her career as an English teacher after graduating from the University of British Columbia in Canada, and has been working in the education field for over 10 years.
The company is a family business founded by her mother. For 20 years, the business focused on providing children 3-15 years old North American standard English education, and to date has two international Kindergartens and over 100 language schools.
Emily is in charge of curriculum development, teachers training programs, and academic quality control of the schools across China. The company expanded from Taiwan into Mainland China in 2010, since then, Emily has been leading the company’s new course development, such as the early childhood program, and also the introduction of an online learning APP.
She believes that a happy work environment helps people to be more creative and productive, so you will find the office is always full of laughter. When Emily’s not at work, you will find her playing hide and seek or reading books to her 3-year old daughter. Now that she’s expecting a second child along the way, she feels very lucky that her husband is always there to support her, especially those times when pregnancy cravings ask for different food every hour.
Entrepreneur of the Year:
Barbara Ex
Founder & CEO, WhiteSpace
(Award accepted by Grace Wang on behalf of Barbara Ex)
When someone is getting to know me, there’s usually a point in the process where I respond to a rhetorical question with a literal answer. When I recognize it, I laugh, apologize and explain that I’m a former engineer, so I think in process flow diagrams and numbers but I know that’s not normal. Even though I haven’t worked as an engineer in more than 2 decades, I believe it still influences how I think about the world. I’m interested in effectiveness and workability over glamour, so I’m really interested in how to make a business productive and reach the greatest number of people. I’ve worked in chemicals, manufacturing, ship-building, construction and business-to-business IT. I like to think of the things I do as the invisible gears of industry that most people never think about but that make modern life run so smoothly.
The second most important factor in my life is that I truly consider myself a global citizen. When I was in my 20’s I was working in consulting and the company offered the opportunity of an international relocation, to move from Boston and join the European team in Cambridge, UK. I jumped at the chance. Working with clients in every country across Western Europe showed me how varied working cultures could be, even within the same continent. When I decided it was time to learn more about business, I chose to get my MBA in London because the business school there one of the most international in the world. And that decision played out well, as only 6 later, my Australian husband and I moved to China together. Now I’ve lived in China for almost 15 years, and I still wonder at my luck to find myself with a front and center seat to watch (and hopefully be part of) the development of the 21st century. And as much as I admire and take part in the explosive growth China’s social, mobile and tech platforms, I love contributing what I know best to the business economy of modern China – an affordable, efficient operation that service ordinary Chinese businesses. I’m dedicated to WhiteSpace and hope it makes a difference in the lives of my customers.
Social Contributor of the Year:
Corinne Richeux Hua
Founder & Executive Director, Stepping Stones
Corinne Hua is the Founder and Executive Director of Stepping Stones, a non-for-profit that seeks to improve the education and welfare of Shanghai’s migrant children. Corinne is half British and half French, and a graduate of Chinese studies from Cambridge University. In 1993, she moved to Shanghai with her husband and began work in the Commercial Section of the British Consulate General and as H.R. Senior Manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
After 12 successful years, she left her corporate career to pursue her dream of working with children. She has always been passionate about social service, volunteering, education and cultural exchange, and derives inspiration each day from the amazing people that Stepping Stones brings together from all walks of life in Shanghai. She has been working tirelessly over the last 8 years to grow Stepping Stones into a successful and influential organization.
Because of Corinne’s previous work experiences, she already knew a lot of English speakers in Shanghai who were looking for a meaningful way to help others. Shanghai benefits from a large expatriate and local English-speaking community, many of whom are eager for meaningful volunteering opportunities. Stepping Stones was founded to match this rich resource to a real need in the community. Stepping Stones recruits, trains, coordinates, and supports hundreds of volunteers to teach thousands of students in more than 30 migrant schools and community centers in Shanghai and more than a dozen of schools in rural China.
Innovator of the Year:
Gina Li
CEO & Co-Founder of Beach Creative Technology
Born from the Desert of the Gansu Province as an only child, Gina moved alone to Shanghai and graduated in 2007 from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics with a major in Business. Having been brought up to be strong and independent, she took her self-belief and became an entrepreneur. After years of working in the financial funding industry, she created her first business in 2010 focusing on marketing and production, channeling her passion to take opportunities, learn and apply her creative mindset to help businesses with their marketing and event needs.
With a great open mind, she had the chance to be exposed to different viewpoints on creativity, business and culture by opening up her own company in the international community in Shanghai – Beach Creative Tech ( www.beachcreative.com). From its humble beginning offering design services, Gina has directed and nurtured Beach into a team international team capable of creating the new product innovations across a wide variety of products and industries. The growth of Beach reflects Gina’s unyielding and fearless drive to exceed her and the teams own expectation and strive for greatness. Now, Beach is on the cusp of a level that has launched their own products in CES Las Vegas and worked with a great number of companies that has took innovation to a new market.
HeforShe Man of the Year:
George Ubbelohde
Dean, YueXiue Institute of Hospitality Administration
George is a hospitality and education industry executive with considerable global international experience in Europe, Middle East and Asia over 30 years. Devoted to hospitality education, next to his current role as the Dean of YIHA- YueXiu Institute of Hospitality Administration, he is a faculty member, certified master trainer and educator of AHLEI – American Hotel and Lodging Educational Institute, holding the prestigious titles of CHA- Certified Hotel Administrator, CHE- Certified Hospitality Educator and CHT- Certified Hospitality Trainer. George regularly conducts various quality assurance projects as certified “Excellence Assessor” and “Quality Auditor” from renowned worldwide organizations.
Lifetime Achievement Award:
Theresa Hudzinski
Senior Manager, Workforce Management, Shanghai Disney Resort
From the moment Theresa Hudzinski entered Disneyland in Anaheim, California, energy and excitement buzzing around her, she knew this where she belonged. She was 10 years old. At 17, she packed her things and moved from Rochester, NY to sunny California.
This is where her journey with The Walt Disney Company began, over 25 years ago at the bottom rung of a corporate ladder which at that times was a fairly male dominated industry, and climbing into roles with continued expanding leadership, and living the values of Walt Disney: to Dream, to Create, to Inspire.
As Theresa developed her leadership style, she quickly learned that relationships with her clients and how she treated her employees was the tipping point and critical success factor in achieving not only her goals but the goals of the overall organization. At her core … she was at what is now known as a “Servant Leader.”
In 2005, Theresa jumped at the chance to build a team in Hong Kong for the Grand Opening of Hong Kong Disneyland, bringing those Disney values into a new environment and culture. With an even greater appreciation of relationships returning to US, Theresa focused on key strategies involving employee engagement and retention. After a few years, she realized that she missed working internationally. Encouraging, developing and motivating employees in their Disney Career became her passion.
In 2009, she returned to Hong Kong Disneyland to build, develop and sustain a high performing team that not only supported the business but employees as well. In 2013, she raised her hand to be part of the opening team at Shanghai Disneyland Resort. Theresa knew that she could bring key learnings (positive and negative) from other sites and build an organization unique not only to Shanghai but all of China market.
In this leadership role at the Shanghai Disney Resort, Theresa continued to build on the Disney values, and was honored with a lifetime achievement award: The Walt Disney Legacy Award. Through this career, Theresa has lived these 7 core values of leadership for success at Disney: Openness, Honesty, Integrity, Diversity, Creativity, Respect, and Balance. Living these values has led to Theresa’s ability to create magic for Guests, inspire her teams and fellow coworkers, drive effective business decisions, and deliver business results.
WLA Nominations Sponsor
For the third year in a row IT Consultis is the exclusive sponsor of the WLA Nominations.
We are delighted to work with the IT Consultis team who has gone above and beyond to ensure a smooth experience for all applicants. IT Consultis will manage the technical side of the entire nomination process, right up until the announcement of the winners at the IPWS Summit, on May 31st.
IT Consultis is an independent digital production company, empowering the most ambitious brands on their digital transformation in China and across other Asian markets. With a team of 70 experts in three countries, ITC leverages martech, e-commerce and omnichannel solutions to maximize client’s ROI.
IT Consultis was established in 2011 and in only 8 years, it has rapidly expanded to 3 offices in Shanghai, Singapore, and Ho Chi Minh City, while working with some of the largest brands in the world including GAP, Zara, Porsche, Decathlon, Budweiser, Leica and many more.
ITC invests every year into selected NGOs to help them make a difference and was proud to help IPWS during the nomination process for the Women Leadership Awards in 2017, 2018, and is delighted to support IPWS again in 2019.
Visit it-consultis.com to learn more about the IT Consultis team and their services.
