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Two founders encountered
in 2002 - Dream of fostering female leaders
GEWEL (Global Enhancement of
Women’s Executive Leadership) started
from an encounter between two energetic female founders.
One woman is Ann Sado. She was impressed when she attended
the Global Summit of Women late in the 1990’s, an event
she learned about from her friend who was a director of
the summit. Since then, she had been thinking about establishing
an organization to help Japanese women get promoted to more
responsible positions in organizations and corporations
and play more active roles in the world.
The other woman is Kimiko Hori. She had a long-held dream
to teach necessary skills to future generations of young
women to become leaders in organizations by utilizing her
experience as a senior manager at Avon, a foreign affiliated
company in Japan. As she learned about the harsh reality
of the status of women in Japanese corporations, she decided
that women must increase their awareness about their work
and become competent to perform their work before changing
Japanese corporations. She believed that it was necessary
to establish an organization specializing in such objectives.
Horii and Sado met through the Women and Work Research Center
in October 2002 and shared their desire to establish an
organization to work toward fulfilling their dreams.
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President
Kimiko Horii |
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Vice
President
Ann Sado-Honjyo |
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The third founder joined in 2003 -
Idea generated in N.Y. & L.A.
In January 2003, Horii and Konishi, a colleague of Horii’s
from Avon (and the third founder of GEWEL),
visited organizations and consultants in New York and Los
Angeles, and they became familiar with various programs in
the U.S. They agreed that they could contribute to the society
by introducing similar programs to Japan, working with overseas
business organizations.
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Director
Hitomi Konishi |
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Foundation of GEWEL in April, 2003
- Supporting women to sparkle like jewelry.
In April 2003, the concept and name of the organization were
decided. Global
Enhancement of Women's
Executive Leadership,
abbreviated GEWEL, was selected.
The name reflects the word “JEWEL” to help women
sparkle like jewelry.
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Official foundation of GEWEL in July
2003
The following members also joined GEWEL
responding to the invitation by the three directors.
GEWEL founding members :
Kimiko
HORI, Ann SADO-HONJO, Hitomi KONISHI, Hiroko TATEBE, Rieko
ICHIYA, Mizue UNNO, Hiroko KAWASE, Maki KIMURA, Kyoko SAKUMA,
Maki SASAKI
For brief background of additional founding members, please
access to Introduction of Directors and
Advisors.
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Registration as a NPO in December
2003
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GEWEL as an official NPO in January
2004
GEWEL was
officially registered as NPO in January 2004. |
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