Women Corporate Directors Education and Development Foundation, Inc. (WCD) is calling for nominations for the 2025 WCD Visionary Awards.

WCD’s Visionary Awards recognize the transformational strengths that make companies and individuals leaders among their peers and have been consistently working to promote and enhance diversity, with a commitment to strong corporate governance, diversity, inclusion, and a healthy financial track record.

Companies and leaders from all over the world and any sectors are welcome to be nominated

2025 WCD Visionary Awards include:

• Visionary Award for ESG Leadership
• Visionary Award for Leadership and Governance of a Private Company
• Visionary Award for Leadership and Governance of a Public Company
• Visionary Award for Strategic Leadership

WCD is the world’s largest membership organization and community of women corporate board directors. A 501(c)(3) foundation, WCD is a trusted community of directors serving on more than 8,500 public and private boards around the world. WCD supports its thousands of global members in connecting with peers and advancing visionary corporate governance. Over the past 20 years, WCD has been instrumental in training women for board service, providing board opportunities, and facilitating introductions to nominating committee chairs around the world. 

To nominate a candidate, please review and complete the 2025 WCD Visionary Awards nomination form below which includes specific criteria for each award. 

Only completed nominations submitted via this form will be considered.

Please submit the following information if it is NOT publicly available online:

Supporting materials:
Please attach any supporting materials including financials and relevant press clippings.

Submitted by:

Guidelines

The Visionary Awards are given annually to companies and individuals that consistently demonstrate a commitment to workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion, best-in-class governance, and consistently strong long-term financial performance. Each company must also have female representation of at least 30% on their board and 20% or more female executives on their executive leadership team.

To be considered for a Visionary Award, a company is required to have at least the equivalent of $200 million (in USD) annual revenue and be in business operation for more than five years. The company further demonstrates a commitment to mentoring and promoting women to leadership positions and on its board of directors.

Local operations alone are not sufficient to comply with the criteria guidelines. The Committee will evaluate a nominee’s parent company (if relevant) along with its operations and subsidiaries in various markets to determine whether it meets Visionary Awards requirements.

For Awardees, the expectation is that the company CEO or individual will be available to accept the Award. If the company CEO is unavailable then a female board member may accept the award on behalf of the CEO. 

Methodology

The Visionary Awards Selection Committee (the Committee) carefully reviews and discusses a variety of quantitative and qualitative information and benchmarks provided by third-party sources including company websites, SEC and/or other regulatory documents, public third-party financial databases, research analyst reports, and press clippings.

In addition, nominees are assigned to individual committee members who conduct deeper due diligence research and objectively present their findings. 

Information obtained by committee members includes access to their network and other knowledgeable sources used to evaluate candidates and select awardees. The Committee has created the following criteria for each category:

Criteria

WCD Visionary Awards for Leadership and Governance recognizes one public company and one private company

• The company in each category is a recognized industry leader and/or innovator that has consistently generated strong long-term financial performance while successfully balancing the needs of all its stakeholders including shareholders, employees, customers, and the communities in which its business operates.
• The company’s corporate culture has addressed gender inequality, particularly by facilitating women’s empowerment in the C-suite, boardroom and throughout its management ranks, as well as, in its charitable giving, community involvement, and outside recognition of employee benefits.
• The company proactively manages its impact on the environment with measurable success.

WCD Visionary Award for ESG Leadership

• The company is proactive, future-focused and demonstrates sustainable performance and impressive results with a track record of leadership in overall ESG performance based on published ESG statistics and/or is recognized for its innovative and measurable impactful programs.

WCD Visionary Award for Strategic Leadership

• The nominee must be a current female CEO or female board chair who demonstrates leadership through innovation, board and management team diversity and the successful pursuit of long-term strategic growth.
• The CEO has developed programs to mentor and promote female employees in leadership team positions with measurable success.
• The CEO and her company play a meaningful role in contributing to their community.