Sovereign boss gets gong

Brewis-Weston, who is only the second New Zealand CEO chosen for the honour, received the 2015 Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEP) CEO Leadership Award at the UN headquarters in New York City yesterday, where Hilary Clinton provided the keynote address.

“While it’s humbling to have won this award, the truth is that I never set out to purposely create a diverse workforce. What I always want to achieve is a team that represents our customers, our community and has the skills to deliver amazing work,” said Brewis-Weston.

The WEP is a joint initiative of UN Women and the UN Global Compact aimed at empowering women to participate fully in economic life across all sectors. The awards recognise global business leaders who have demonstrated leadership on gender equality through the WEP.

“This year’s competition included extremely strong nominations from a substantial number of companies implementing strategic and innovative strategies to realise gender equality.  The competitive nominations made the assessment process very challenging. The nominations came from all regions of the world, representing diverse sectors and business sizes,” said WEP Special Advisor Joan Libby Hawk.