Congratulations to the 2020 Women Leadership Awards Winners!
On June 5th, IPWS hosted the Women Leadership Awards Ceremony at Cotton’s, in the heart of Shanghai. At the event, we finally announced and celebrated the winners of the 14th annual Women Leadership Awards (WLA), one of the longest running international awards for women leaders in China.
This year, IPWS received over 60 nominations for the seven categories of the 2020 Women Leadership Awards. The independent WLA Jury generously volunteered a significant portion of their time to review every 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 or called in from abroad for a 20 minute interview.
This Friday, the winners were finally announced at the 2020 Women Leadership Awards Ceremony. We were saddened that some of this year’s winners were not able to travel to China in order to receive the award in person. However, more than ever, we felt like a community of friends and like-minded individuals, and the awards were accepted on each winner’s behalf.
Our warmest congratulations to all the winners, whose successes we celebrated!
2020 Women Leadership Award Winners
Business Leader of the Year:
Joanna Hutchins
Global CEO, Cowan
Entrepreneur of the Year:
Taiwing Tian
Co-founder & Managing Director, Switching-Time
Innovator of the Year:
Renata Thiébaut
Partner, Head of Research & Business Intelligence, Web2asia Ltd.
Social Contributor of the Year:
Evelyne Bischof
Associate Professor; Guest Editor, Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences, University of Basel, IJERPH Scientific Journal
Young Business Leader of the Year:
Olivia Cotes-James
Founder & CEO, LUÜNA Naturals
HeforShe Man of the Year:
Thibault Genaitay
General Manager, China, Le Wagon
Lifetime Achievement Award:
Peggy Liu
Chairperson, JUCCCE
(Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy)
Business Leader of the Year:
Joanna Hutchins
Global CEO, Cowan
Joanna Hutchins is currently the Global CEO at Cowan brand and design consultancy. As an Asia Pacific branding pioneer, Joanna has helped global, regional and local brands realize potential in the ever-evolving Asia context, the fastest-growing consumer markets in the world.
In her 25-year long career, Joanna has accumulated extensive experience in innovation, brand development, brand strategy, brand design, and advertising communications. She joined Cowan in 2018, having worked previously at Dragon Rouge as CEO, Greater China for 5 years and at Unilever for 12 years as Global Brand Director in overseeing skincare new product development and brand marketing across more than 38 countries.
Joanna is American and spent the first 10 years of her career in advertising in NYC, working at Ogilvy, Grey & Publicis. In her current role, Joanna leads Cowan’s 7 offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Vietnam, Sydney, Melbourne and London and personally stewards Cowan’s long-term partnerships with ambitious consumer branding companies including Nestle, Procter & Gamble, Danone, Vitasoy, Unilever, Vinda, Yili Dairy, The Coca Cola Company and Johnson & Johnson.
Further, in the span of her career, thanks to her strategic acumen, purposeful creativity, and inspirational leadership, Joanna has led award-winning brand communication and design teams to take home Cannes awards, Pentawards, Brand Marking Awards and brand AMA EFFIES. In 2013, Joanna was named as one of “China’s 50 Top Marketing Leaders” by the ANA and the Internationalist Magazine. Joanna holds degrees in Journalism and Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has an MBA from New York University Stern School of Business and in January 2020, completed a Masters in Strategy and Innovation and Oxford University’s Said Business School.
Entrepreneur of the Year:
Taiwing Tian
Co-founder & Managing Director, Switching-Time
Taiwing Tian is the Managing Director and co-founder of PR agency Switching-Time, China’s premier PR and Communications Agency within Fashion, Lifestyle, Luxury and Beauty, with marquee clients like LVMH, Pernod-Ricard, adidas, L’Oreal Group and Victoria’s Secret. End 2019, the agency was appointed Greater China PR-Agency of the Year by Campaign.
Taiwing founded the agency in 2012 after an impressive career in international agencies. Taiwing has quitely and consistently delivered strong results and built the trust with her team and her clients in every single role she ever took on. She started at wellknown local PR agency Liquid Element, where she quickly was promoted to Account Director. She left for French top experiencial marketing agency Auditoire in 2008, where she swiftly rose through the ranks, being promtoted to Business Director and then General Manager in 2010, a position she held for two years with strong results. She then left to found Switching-Time together with one other business partner. Taiwing was educated in Switzerland with a major of hospitality where she learnt the best of what service is. Her personal interests include fashion, traveling, skiing and spending time with her many friends.
Innovator of the Year:
Renata Thiébaut
Partner, Head of Research & Business Intelligence, Web2asia Ltd.
Dr. Renata Thiebaut has lived in China for 14 years where she implements and enhances e-commerce strategies for global brands as well as advising governments on digital transformation. In addition, having deep legal knowledge enabled Renata to provide with better
solutions especially within the cross-border e-commerce business, always prizing for transparency and international standards required by her clients. She is also engaged in mentoring masters students. She joined Harvard University (Leadership and Development Lab) in 2018, and teaches at Alibaba Business School and Emlyon.
Social Contributor of the Year:
Evelyne Bischof
Associate Professor; Guest Editor, Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences, University of Basel, IJERPH Scientific Journal
“Evelyne Bischof, specialist in internal medicine, AI, digital health, with a research focus on oncology, preventative and precision medicine, biogerontology, and gerontooncology. Deeply passionate about next-generation medical technology, and the applications of AI for biomedical research and practice, digital health and innovative technology. Practicing medicine and performing translational research in Switzerland, the US, and China. A Harvard- and Columbia-trained physician, author of over 40 peer-reviewed papers and frequent speaker at scientific and medical conferences, with a demonstrated history of working in the medical practice industry on international and cross-cultural level. Author of over 75 peer-reviewed papers, speaker at scientific and medical conferences (over 100 so far).” But behind all this, here is a personal biography which is as much important, as it has shaped who I am and helped me engage in the social and volunteering work, as well as has shaped me as an empathic doctor and mentor. I was born in poor conditions, as an only child, to Polish, hard-working parents (father was a simple tailor, mother was a help to accountant) who did not have the benefit of enjoying education. Both sides’ grandparents were farmers. I would spend most of my summers in the village, without running water and a toilet in the woods. And I would not have it any other way. To this day, returning to these villages reminds me of the humbleness and importance of simplicity and modesty.
Young Business Leader of the Year:
Olivia Cotes-James
Founder & CEO, LUÜNA Naturals
Olivia Cotes-James was born in New Zealand, but raised in Britain, after graduating from the University of Leeds in 2013, she decided to pursue a career in Hong Kong, starting work at a luxury marketing agency. Like many Western women, she was disconcerted by the lack of availability of tampons in HK. She discovered that many local women preferred pads but had many questions about tampons. Olivia started to run informal sessions for her network, a way to share information and bust myths.
In 2016 she relocated to Shanghai and continued holding informal gatherings, she also began to research the ingredients used to make period care. It was then Olivia discovered something that would change not just her professional journey, but her relationship with her own body. Olivia had always suffered from irritation during her period, but she had put this down to something “normal”, given it happened every month, regarding these symptoms as part of how her body behaved during menstruation. But through research Olivia discovered that the majority of big brand period care is made with non-organic cotton, grown with aggressive chemical pesticides and fertilizers, which are not removed during manufacturing. Equipped with this knowledge, Olivia switched to organic and the change was instantaneous. The irritation disappeared immediately. For Olivia, the path was clear- educating women on tampons wasn’t enough, she wanted to develop and launch a brand of organic cotton period care that is actually good for our bodies as women and equips us with knowledge so we can make informed choices about our menstrual health. And so LUÜNA was born! Olivia has quit her job, founded the company, sourced & brought to four markets a range of organic cotton products and a reusable cup, fundraised a seed round of 1million USD from investors, donated over 10,000 period products to women and girls in need and held over 500 events in Mandarin, English & Cantonese, aimed at breaking the taboos on menstrual health and equipping women with a new understanding of our bodies.
HeforShe Man of the Year:
Thibault Genaitay
General Manager, China, Le Wagon
Le Wagon China is the global leading coding school for creative people and entrepreneurs with branches in Shanghai, Chengdu and Shenzhen. Thibault Genaitay launched Le Wagon China in 2016 with the aim to help students, business executives, and people from all walks of life turn their creative ideas into tech products, start their own companies or work for fast growing companies.
Thibault Genaitay is a programmer, mentor, tech enthusiast, and has 15 years of experience in digital marketing and software development. He is also a constant guest speaker at universities like Tongji University, Conde Nast Center, ESSCA Shanghai, etc.
Lifetime Achievement Award:
Peggy Liu
Chairperson, JUCCCE (Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy)
Peggy is a Chairperson of JUCCCE. She has been at the heart of the greening of China since 2007. She has dedicated her life to personal and planetary health. Named the “Green Goddess of China” by Chinese press, she travels the world to consult companies and governments on how to catalyze societal-scale change, scale sustainable innovation, and collaborate with China. Peggy’s superpower is bringing people together across borders and industries to change the world for the better. Peggy works across policy, economic, technical, and spiritual realms.
Peggy led JUCCCE in these China-wide changes: (1) Organized the MIT Forum on the Future of Energy in China from which JUCCCE was formed. This forum was the first public dialogue between US and Chinese government officials on clean energy in China, just as China was just starting to look seriously at greening itself. (2) Introduced Smart Grid to China and catalyzed the revolution of electricity distribution to allow for renewable energies and energy efficiency at scale. (3) Educated 1000 Chinese government leaders (mayors and central government) on how to build sustainable cities. These trainings helped shape eco-city trends in China. (4) Catalysed China’s change from incandescent lighting to energy efficient lighting, the largest leverage point in saving energy. (5) Created the China Dream initiative in 2010 to reimagine prosperity for sustainable consumerism. This became China’s national slogan. Environmental protection is now embedded into the national priority and identity of China. (6) Launched Food Heroes, teaching young kids and parents to eat in a way that is good for themselves and the planet.
Peggy keynotes around the world on lessons from how China is tackling the world’s toughest challenges: pollution, urbanization, epidemics, drought, obesity and diabetes. What can other societies can learn without becoming China? How can one person change the world?
Peggy is the best-selling author of “Mesmerize the Media: Maximize Your Impact With more Press.” She coaches women leaders on personal branding and transformational speaking. She brings about the rise of the Divine Feminine by strengthening the voices of women in the media.
Peggy is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. She was awarded the “Nobel” of climate change, the “Hillary Step”. The Economist called her “one of the most innovative thinkers in Asia.” Previously, she was a venture capitalist and founded one of the earliest ecommerce companies in Silicon Valley. Red Herring cover story dubbed her an “Internet Pioneer”.
Some photos from the evening:
About the Women Leadership Awards
As a non-profit organization run by a volunteer Board of Directors, IPWS strives to bring high-value, professional development events to women in Shanghai.
In addition to organizing nearly two events per month, IPWS is committed to recognizing women in the community who have made an impact and created change within their industry or for the community, as well as male leaders who empower women.
By recognizing and celebrating these women and men, we hope it inspires and encourages others to create change and forge new paths.
The WLA is the longest running international award in China for women leaders, and was the only such award for over a decade.
The award recognizes professional women who have emerged as leaders in their field. As leaders, these inspiring women – and since 2016, men supporting women – have made a marked difference in our community and have forged paths for others to follow.
2020 marks the 14th year of the Women Leadership Awards.
Women Leadership Awards Partners & Sponsors
