We are pleased to announce that Etsuko Tsugihara, founder and President of SUNNY SIDE UP GROUP, commended the “IPRA President’s Award 2022” to the “30% Club”, a global campaign with a goal to increase the percentage of women on corporate boards to beyond 30% (and ultimately 50%), as the President of IPRA (International Public Relations Association) 2022.
For the award, Etsuko comments: “I am pleased to recognize the 30% Club with the IPRA President’s Award. Their campaign has achieved consistent results globally since its start in the UK in 2010 and I found the process of involving diverse stakeholders such as institutional investors, media, government, and educational institutions as well as companies to be inspired. I hope that this goal, as well as its more recent focus on executive committees, will further accelerate diversity and inclusion, including the promotion of women’s activities, throughout the world.”
Ann Cairns, global chair of the 30% Club, said: “We are delighted to receive the IPRA President’s Award in recognition of the impact of our global campaign to make inclusion a core business objective. In these turbulent economic times, it is important to ensure all talent can thrive throughout corporations. That’s what makes business, economies and societies stronger. We are pleased to have had a chapter of the 30% Club in Japan since 2019 and to have seen the percentage of women on the boards of the TOPIX100 rise to 17.2%* from 10.5% at launch. We hope to see further progress towards 30% in the coming years.”
The IPRA President’s Award was founded in 1977 and is presented annually to an organization or individual to recognize an “outstanding contribution to better world understanding”. Previous recipients of the award include Zeit Online, The International Red Cross, The Nobel Foundation, UNESCO, Amnesty International, Transparency International, WWF, The Economist and The National Geographic Society.
For 2023, Anne-Gret Iturriaga Abarzua inaugurated the IPRA President and Etsuko Tsugihara will continue to serve the association as post-president and a board member.
■Background to 30% Club
The 30% Club is a global campaign to increase gender diversity at board and executive-committee levels. With the goal of increasing the percentage of women on corporate boards to beyond 30% and ultimately to parity, the leadership of the Club has engaged with CEOs and chairs of listed companies internationally, created the world’s biggest cross-company mentoring programme and worked with institutional investors to help achieve its goals in the UK and other countries. The campaign operates across more than 20 countries and continues to expand its international footprint across the G20. For more information please visit: https://30percentclub.org
■Background to IPRA
IPRA (founded in 1955, headquartered in Britain) is a global PR organization that is recognized as an international non-governmental organization by the United Nations system. Currently, members consist of public relations practitioners from over the 100 countries around the world, and is considered the most representative international network of top-level professionals in the field.