Women’s Economic Empowerment in the Private Sector

On Friday, October 2, 2020, Meridian hosted a corporate panel highlighting the Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative with representatives from Mastercard, Microsoft, and Walmart, moderated by Ms. Natalie Jones, Senior Vice President of External Affairs and Diplomatic Engagement at Meridian.

Prior to the panel, representatives from the U.S. Government spoke about the importance of women's economic empowerment and engagement as a means to expand opportunities for their economic, educational, and social wellbeing. Additionally, Assistant Secretary of Education and Cultural Affairs, The Honorable Marie Royce spoke with two International Visitor Leadership Program participants who gave perspective on their experiences with the W-GDP program and the value it brought them when they returned to their home country.

During the panel, Sarah Thorn of Walmart, Ann Cairns of Mastercard, and Vickie Robinson of Microsoft described their companies' individual campaigns to bring economic empowerment to women. In additional, each spoke to the issue of making the case for supporting economic development at their respective companies. The consensus seemed to be that once data proved that supporting women-led businesses made economic sense their Board and C-suite felt energized by the prospect of supporting these initiatives.