PWN Bilbao: Building a Collaborative Practice to Advance Gender Equality in the Business Environment
Three years ago, PWN Bilbao set out to build an ecosystem of companies and organisations that would actively result in a cultural shift to accelerate equity and gender balance within organisations. The idea was to create a collaborative workspace that would define priorities while also providing knowledge, tools, and feedback on results. This "Gender Balance Lab" was designed to help understand the realities of companies, and enable them to tackle the challenge of equality from their own perspective.
“Collaboration isn’t just strategy—it’s the catalyst. When companies join forces, they ignite a cultural shift that accelerates equity and gender balance, transforming organizations from the inside out”, Ana Anduza, Presidenta, PWN Bilbao
Key Success Factors
Our strategy has proven to be extremely successful, and driven by several key factors, and we wanted to share it with our sister networks and other potential PWN Corporate Partners around the world:
- Engagement of top management: To achieve profound change, it is essential to involve senior leadership. Only in this way can the benefits of a more gender-balanced company, which fully leverages all available talent, be truly internalized.
- An innovative approach: Our relationship with partners was not just about securing funding for our project; it was about engaging businesses in a new paradigm of social impact. Our collaboration model is based on strategic alliances, identifying and sharing best practices. Companies should see PWN Bilbao as an effective, agile, and expert tool to guide their businesses toward a more inclusive model.
- Creation of a new language: It was important that we developed a non-imposing, unbiased discourse that fosters trusted dialogue environments. Equality is a complex issue involving education and personal priorities, so it is crucial to listen, build empathy, and engage even the most sceptical individuals.
How we implemented our strategy
To develop this model, PWN Bilbao worked with patience and dedication, focusing on several important aspects:
- Building a strong team within PWN Bilbao: A committed group capable of engaging with CEOs.
- Excellence in all our actions: Becoming a reliable and professional benchmark, ensuring that companies want to associate with PWN Bilbao initiatives.
- Enhancing communication and branding: Creating a recognizable identity with a long-term vision and solid work lines.
- Designing innovative proposals: Developing initiatives that respond to companies' real needs, considering the challenges they face and proposing joint work programmes, including training, expert guidance, and discussions on best practices, with ambitious goals.
Encouraged by our results?
Since the outset of the programme, PWN Bilbao has secured the participation of 24 partners, incorporating 69 new corporate members with specific needs that we address through:
- A female talent training programme, highly valued by corporate members and HR and talent managers.
- A thematic breakfast programme, based on networking techniques but designed to discuss specific issues that hinder women's professional development, featuring well-prepared presentations by experts on these topics.
Gender-balanced Leadership Think Tank
One key driver of our success is the launch of the PWN Think Tank programme, with active participation from the CEOs of the 24 partner companies, aimed at jointly addressing strategies, policies, and tools that promote equal opportunities in businesses. This initiative has the backing and commitment of top executives, ensuring the implementation of the measures we design.
The first project within this Think Tank group has been the Design of a Gender Balance Scorecard, which will assess organisations' maturity levels and share best practices for gender-balanced leadership, within the business and industrial environment.
PWN Bilbao’s proposal aims to create IMPACT, and we firmly believe that this strategy will enable us to mobilize corporate resources in our environment more effectively. Through this collaborative effort, we continue to advance toward a more equal and inclusive organizational culture, promoting change from within companies to the broader society.
Quotes from our Partners
Of course, we are delighted with the impact that our activities are creating in Bilbao and beyond, especially given that this is a volunteer-led environment. However, we're not the only ones to advocate for this approach. Check out what our participating Corporate Partners are saying:
"If we approach equality in the company only from a compliance perspective, we will not see real change. We must learn to recognize inequalities in order to transform them. PWN Bilbao is a valuable companion on this journey”, Maria Gómez. Chief Marketing and Sustainability Officer, Gorlan Group.
"Working together with PWN for the same common goal has helped us a lot to continue advancing in equality, gender-balanced leadership and culture evolution, with the same values of justice, respect and empathy", Cristina Ordoñez, Chief Compliance and Sustainability Officer, Arteche
“Tecnalia has a strong social commitment, and our partnership with PWN reinforces this commitment through the sharing of experiences and mutual learning, placing gender equality as a priority for our organization”, Jesús Valero, General Director, Tecnalia Research & Innovation.
What can you do to get involved?
The work done by PWN Bilbao with their corporate partners in Spain has proven to deliver real impact in advancing gender-balanced leadership in a sustainable manner. We believe that we can replicate this model across our entire PWN Global network to amplify the impact around the world.
If you are responsible for driving sustainable change relating to gender-balanced leadership in your organisation, we would love to hear from you to explore potential collaborations.
Writer: Ana Andueza, Presidenta de PWN Bilbao
Copy Editor: Rebecca Fountain, Marketing Consultant, PWN Global
Published: April 2025