Award-winners, clockwise from upper left, John Simon, Legacy Award Winner Ted Childs, Mayor Ed Lee, Rick King, Antonio Lucio, Bill Fitzsimmons, and Steve Dunmore

Three cheers (or more!) for our Guys Who Get It Award-winners. These are male C-level executives of top companies/governments/organizations who are successfully establishing gender equality as a cultural norm in their workplaces. Their teams demonstrate that Gender Partnership™ at work is not only possible, but is already in place in their organizations – and with impressive results.

To celebrate and share the best practices of these powerful allies in the Gender Partnership™ movement, the Institute for Women’s Leadership is presenting the winners with Guys Who Get It Awards in San Francisco on January 26. Seats for this gala luncheon are still available.

Thank you all for being early and determined adopters of Gender Partnership!

Our Legacy Awardee is:

• Ted Childs, who retired from IBM in 2006 with a distinguished 39-year career as a member of the IBM corporate Human Resources team. He has dedicated his career to diversity and inclusion.

The Guys Who Get It awardees are:

• Astellas Pharma – Bill Fitzsimmons, EVP of Regulatory Affairs, Clinical & Research Quality Assurance
• City of San Francisco – Ed Lee, mayor
• HP Inc. – Antonio Lucio, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer
• PG&E – John Simon, EVP of Corporate Services & Human Resources
• Sodexo Inc. – Steve Dunmore, CEO of Schools, North America
• Thomson Reuters – Rick King, EVP & CIO Tech & Ops

These honorees have been selected based on the impact of their leadership on gender equality, their track record working toward advancing female leaders for at least five years, and because their leadership teams are above industry standard for female team membership, ranging from 28 to 40 percent.

The event also includes an Honorable Guy award for top executives who have been working toward gender equality for fewer than five years, but with substantial success.

• Accenture – Paul Daugherty, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer
• Bank of the West – Donald Duggan, Head of Banking Services & Chief Diversity Officer,  Sr. Executive Vice President
• Blue Shield of California – Michael Mathias, Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer
• Cardinal Health at Home – Steve Mason, President
• Dropbox – Dennis Woodside, Chief Operating Officer
• Ericsson – Prince Kohli, SVP Engineering & Head of Development Unit, Cloud & IT
• Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Bill Davidovich, Director of Human Resources
• KPMG LLP  – Tim Zanni, Chair, Global & U.S. Technology, Media & Telecommunications
• Mercer UK – Robert Baker, Senior Partner & Client Director
• Parexel – Ulf Schneider, Senior VP & Chief Administrative Officer, Corporate CAO
• SGI – Jorge Titinger, CEO
• United Religions Initiative – The Rev. Victor Kazanjian, Executive Director,
• Visa Europe – Bill Ingham, VP Global Human Resources

Gender equality is not only a social issue, it also provides a competitive edge. All of our awardees have recognized that with women making 80 percent of consumer buying decisions – including in the automotive and computer sectors – gender equality across all levels of their companies makes good business sense.

These awards showcase the fact that gender parity is not only possible but already being done with great results. A substantial list of awardees’ personal best practices and additional best practices across industries will be distributed to all attendees and posted on the Guys Who Get It Awards website on Jan. 26.