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The SustainabilityX® Magazine Global 50 Women In Sustainability Awards 2022: #RedefiningPower - Helle Bank Jorgensen, Founder & CEO, Competent Boards, Canada
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"Women's leadership in today's society is everything. Not just because 50% of humans on this planet are women, but because women have shown how to preserve the values society is built on, while creating value for their family and society. Many women are natural stewards of the future." - Helle Bank Jorgensen, Founder & CEO, Competent Boards
Helle Bank Jorgensen is the CEO and founder of Competent Boards*, offering online climate and ESG programs that draw on the experience of more than 180 renowned board members, business leaders, and investors. Hundreds of directors and senior executives have enrolled in these programs to transform their careers and companies.
In addition to her extraordinary work at Competent Boards, Helle serves at the Nasdaq Center for Board Excellence’s Sustainability & ESG Insights Council and at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Expert Network for Corporate Governance, Leadership, and Emerging Multinationals. Her Amazon bestseller, Stewards of the Future: A Guide for Competent Boards**, was published in 2022. The book gives invaluable guidance on what boards must do, if the businesses they guide are to respond successfully to today’s enormous economic, environmental, and social challenges.
She is an internationally recognized expert on sustainable business practices, with a 30-year record of turning environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks into innovative and profitable business opportunities. She created the world’s first “green account” and the first integrated annual report that combines ESG with financial performance. Helle trained as a business lawyer and state-authorized public accountant (CPA) in Denmark, and holds a master’s degree in business administration and auditing. She is a former PwC audit and advisory partner in Denmark and the United States, where she led the firm’s sustainability and climate practices.
In 2020 she was awarded the Global Impact Award and named one of “5 people in ESG to look out for”.
The SustainabilityX® Magazine had the honour to learn more about her thoughts on women in sustainability and the current state of women in leadership helping lead the much-needed sustainability transition. Here's what she had to say:
Q: What is the importance of women's leadership in today's society plagued by the triple crises of COVID, Climate, and Conflict, and their deadly consequences?
It's everything. Not just because 50% of humans on this planet are women, but because women have shown how to preserve the values society is built on, while creating value for their family and society. Many women are natural stewards of the future.
Q: What role do you believe women in leadership positions have to play in helping companies and brands transition towards sustainability and circularity, and why is this important?
Women are often the catalyst utilizing an integrated mindset to achieve a successful sustainable result for the team and company. As traditional caregivers, women often ensure they have a broader understanding of issues and consequences of actions. This makes women natural leaders in a transition towards sustainability and circularity.
Q: What can be done to improve women’s participation in corporate and leadership positions? How do we achieve this?
Just do it! We need to stop talking and start acting so we can achieve the financial and societal benefits of having diversity at work. Ensuring that both parents are on maternity/paternity leave and stop asking women what they made in their last job and instead look at the value they will create in their new role is a good way to start.
Q: What does this award mean to you and what significance does it hold to you personally and/or professionally, and your company?
I'm very honoured and grateful that the work Competent Boards and I do to train board members, and business leaders is being recognized. I will share the award with my 'Team Incredible', our faculty of over 180 global board members, leaders and experts, and our many ESG and Climate Designation and Certificate alumni.
*Competent Boards offers world-class ESG and climate certificate and designation training for board directors and senior leaders around the world. The programs are built on the knowledge and expertise of 180-plus world-renowned experts that enable participants to gain the mindset and confidence to adapt and transition to the new global business reality, including the transition to a low-carbon economy. The Good Governance Academy has endorsed the courses, and the exceptional value of the programs is reflected in the many testimonials from Alumni. Learn more.
**Stewards of the Future: A Guide for Competent Boards demonstrates that for long-term profits and sustainability, boards must have the insight to ask the right questions on a wide range of complex environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, including climate change, corruption, cybersecurity, human trafficking, supply-chain resilience and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). This book is a must-have guide for board members and senior executives, showing how they can build thriving, future-fit organizations. Learn more.
The SustainabilityX® Magazine Global 50 Women In Sustainability Awards 2022
The SustainabilityX® Magazine proudly announced the release of The SustainabilityX® Magazine’s inaugural Global 50 Women In Sustainability Awards™ 2022 on Oct 4th, 2022, an inaugural annual list celebrating the powerful work of women in sustainability leadership around the world.
The non-profit digital magazine’s Global 50 Women In Sustainability Awards™ high-level, invite-only program graciously sponsored by the award-winning Canadian construction and engineering firm Belnor Engineering Inc., recognizes achievements of the world’s powerful, groundbreaking female sustainability leaders who’re bridging the gender gap by breaking barriers, shattering traditional stereotypes, and taking the world of sustainability by storm. This campaign is in line with the magazine’s third pillar of sustainability upon which SustainabilityX® is based: social inclusion, which involves marginalized populations and vulnerable communities such as women, persons with disabilities, unemployed youth, LGBTQ+, the elderly, and BIPOC minorities.
“As both a female and one of Canada’s Top 30 Under 30 In Sustainability Leadership myself, I know how important this is,” says Supriya Verma, founder of The SustainabilityX® Magazine. “The number of women in positions of leadership – from business to politics – are relatively few. With society plagued by the triple crises of COVID, climate, conflict, and their deadly consequences, how can the world advance and achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals without having women in decision-making positions at major organizations, political parties, and academic institutions?”
In The SustainabilityX® Magazine’s quest to ‘redefine power’, this is the first international power-list bringing together women around the world involved in sustainability celebrating the power of their work – not their position. This list brings together a diverse group of accomplished women across business, entertainment, academia, law, politics, and beyond ranging from some of the world's leading companies, to independent unsung heroes with one thing in common: using their power with purpose –the power to create change and influence lives to make the world a better place. After all, that's what sustainability is all about. The meaning, or ‘the power’ of one’s work matters, not one’s position in a corporate hierarchy, particularly during this crucial era.
View the full list: The SustainabilityX® Magazine Global 50 Women In Sustainability Awards 2022
About The SustainabilityX® Magazine
The SustainabilityX® Magazine is an award-winning, digital, female-founded, and female-led non-profit initiative bringing the environment and economy together for a sustainable future through dialogue. Founded on May 8, 2016 and inspired by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by Canada’s Top 30 Under 30 in Sustainability Leadership awardee, Supriya Verma, the digital media initiative focuses on approaching the world’s most pressing challenges with a holistic, integrated, systems-based perspective as opposed to the traditional and ineffective siloed approach with a single lens on interdisciplinary topics like climate and energy. This initiative ultimately seeks to explore how to effectively bring the environment and economy together through intellectual, insightful dialogue and thought-provoking discussion amongst individuals across sectors taking an interdisciplinary and integrated approach to untangling the intricate web of sustainability.
The SustainabilityX® Magazine is based upon the four pillars of sustainability: Environmental Stewardship which emphasizes improved environmental health, Economic Prosperity which emphasizes economic growth without the element of capitalism, Social Inclusion which emphasizes EDI for BIPOC and LGBTQ communities and marginalized, vulnerable populations, and Just Governance which emphasizes the equal rule of law via responsible political leadership to create fair systems for all. Identifying the diverse factors involved in sustainability, how they interact and how the disciplines are interconnected will help accelerate local, national, and international sustainability goals – in simpler words, aligning with The SustainabilityX® Magazine’s mission of bringing the environment and economy together for a sustainable future through dialogue for a sustainable future. Whether you have a background in science, engineering, business, law, politics, media and entertainment, or beyond, your voice matters.
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The SustainabilityX® Magazine is a proud member of the Sustainable Journalism Partnership, serves as a cause-based media partner for various events such as Circular City Week New York, and officially delivers remarks at international conferences such as UNESCO’s annual World Press Freedom Day Conference. SustainabilityX® is a brand of the non-profit social business SPSX Group.
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