These days (and it’s long overdue), we are consistently hearing a lot about the many ways women are treated unfairly at work. At the same time the men at the top who have been stepping up to the plate to stop this discrimination rarely get the recognition they deserve.

I’ve had the privilege of knowing a number of them personally and had many discussions on how to eliminate bias and advance women. Then I’ve stepped back to enjoy watching them run with it – and eventually establish gender equality as a cultural norm in their organizations.

Some of these unsung trailblazers are C-level guys who have been active in advancing women’s leadership for at least 5 years, who have taken a public stance within their industry supporting gender equality in the workplace, who have a minimum of 35% women on their leadership teams, and who have made a significant impact in their companies around developing and advancing women leaders.

In short, these are guys who get it! They get that their companies – some of the biggest and most influential in the country – will be more profitable, more innovative, and more able to retain their top talent, as they increase the number of women they have at every level of leadership.

To me, they are heroes. They started sticking their necks out for women way before the rest of the pack, and I think they need to be congratulated in a very public way.

That’s why our Institute for Women’s Leadership is hosting the first annual “Guys Who Get It Awards” on January 26, 2017 in San Francisco. We will be honoring and sharing their best practices and giving the audience a chance to meet and network with them at a lavish luncheon. We expect that they will be accompanied by the other men (and women) in their companies whom they’ve engaged in the effort to eliminate gender bias and actively help women rise through the ranks.

These male award winners are the movers and shakers of the business world, and when they hire and promote women within their organizations, they not only attract top-level talent of both genders, they also inspire smaller companies to follow suit.

Celebrating these outstanding men is especially satisfying for me because I have been working with male leaders for over 25 years, training them how to be equal partners at work with women. Now the ball I saw slowly bumping its way down the hill in the mid-’90s is starting to snowball, and I couldn’t be more proud of the guys who are leading the charge!

I hope you will join us to congratulate them and hear about their wonderful work!

P.S. I’ll even give you a discount code — MKTG — to encourage you to register!