Meet our Panelists

Diana Gutierrez is the Manager of the Global Programme on Business for Gender Equality for UNDP. With a decade of experience with the United Nations including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Colombia as the Inclusive Economic Development Project Manager, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as Expert in Project Formulation and Finances in the design and implementation of the Colombia’s Food Security Observatory and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), as Economic Adviser for the M&E system of alternative development programs. She received her M.D. from the University of Birmingham in the UK in Poverty Reduction and Development Management, she is also specialist in International Cooperation and Development Projects Management and a Professional in Finances and International Relations. She is passionate about finding innovative solutions to address poverty and inequality, focusing on economic development, private sector engagement, gender equality, financial inclusion, Corporate Social Responsibility CSR, shared value building, social and entrepreneurial innovation, as the means to achieve human development with equality and opportunities for all.

Aneta Petrovska-Rusomaroski is Head of Human Resources and Organization Department at EVN Macedonia. Working for EVN since 2006, her previous positions in the company include National Compliance Officer and Head of Internal Audit Function. She has attended and completed a Georgetown University McDonough School of Business Gender Equity Executive Leadership Program and is Employer´s representative in the Multi-Stakeholder National Group for Equal Opportunities for Man and Women. As Project Manager of the Project 202020 , which has established EVN Macedonia as a leading company taking part in VET and Work Based Learning reforms in the country, she is appointed as Member of the National Work Group for Work Based Learning, VET Financing Expert Group and Regional VET Centers Work Group established by the Ministry of Education and Science of North Macedonia. On state level, she holds several other positions including Member of the Management Board of Employers Association, Secretary of the Energy Association at the Macedonian Employers Association and Member of the State Economic Social Council.

Arancha Díaz-LLadó has a double degree in Business from the European Business Programme in France and Spain. She also holds a Master’s Degree on Development Studies by the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE, London). Since January 2016, Arancha is Director of Sustainable Innovation & Diversity at Telefónica S.A. Before that, she was Director of Public Affairs and held different positions in Telefonica Latin America, at the President’s office, at the strategic planning department and at the financial and management control area. She began her professional career in the United Nations system, where she worked for short periods in different agencies (UNESCO, UNICEF, UNIDO). After that, she worked as a consultant for the Commercial Office of the Spanish Embassy in Sydney (Australia) and at the Institute of Management Resources (IMR, France). She joined the Telefonica Group in 2000.

Luciana Aguiar is Programme manager for Business Call to Action. She holds a PhD degree in Social Sciences from Cornell University. For the last four years, she was the Private Sector in Development and Innovation Specialist for the United Nations Development Program in Brazil where she has developed innovative solutions on inclusive business, finance for development and private social investment. She has acted as a visiting professor at São Paulo University, FGV/EASP and Fundação Dom Cabral. Social Entrepreneur and founding partner of a Benefit company. She was a senior Partner of PlanoCDE, a company that produces and applies value-added knowledge for companies working with the base of the pyramid. PlanoCDE helps companies and organizations to enhance their presence and social impact on lower income populations, helping to develop products, serves and new business models. For 15 years, Ms. Aguiar has been developing strategies to serve the people living at base of the socio-economic pyramid for institutions such as IDB, CGAP (World Bank) and national and international foundations. Together with corporations, she worked on knowledge management, impact assessment and innovation projects in the areas of financial inclusion, education, health, technology, mass consumer goods, retail and communication.

Sophia Grinvalds holds a BA in Environment and Development from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She co-founded AFRIpads, the world’s leading social enterprise manufacturing reusable sanitary pads, in 2010 with her husband Paul, and currently serves as a Director to the company. Sophia is also the Co-Lead on the African Coalition for MHM (ACMHM) Taskforce on Products, Standards and Value Chain.

Karen Smith is the Programme Coordinator for the Connecting Business initiative (CBi) which is jointly supported by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). CBi is a multi-stakeholder initiative transforming the way business networks engage before, during and after natural and manmade disasters and humanitarian crises to create more resilient communities, increase local capacity and alleviate human suffering. In 2019 CBi networks responded to 31 emergencies. (More information is available at www.connectingbusiness.org) Karen previously worked with OCHA as a Business Partnership Advisor working with companies to improve humanitarian effectiveness. Karen has also worked with the OCHA Central Emergency Response Fund as the lead for the Rapid Response Window managing the allocation of US$300 million in projects a year. Prior to working with OCHA she worked with the UN Department of Peacekeeping in variety of positions in Kosovo, Sudan and headquarters. In addition to working with the UN she’s held management positions with a number of NGOs, a decentralized fund for the Canadian International Development Agency and as Director of CSR Projects for Business for Social Responsibility.

Rudaba Zehra Nasir is the Global Lead for Employment and Childcare in IFC’s Gender Business Group. Rudaba’s work helps companies across regions and sectors to close gender gaps in recruitment, retention, and promotion and achieve better business outcomes. In this regard, Rudaba leads IFC's Global Tackling Childcare (TC) Advisory Program for companies to create family-friendly workplaces and advance women’s employment. The Program operationalizes at the firm, market, and policy levels IFC's research on the business case for employer-supported childcare, which Rudaba helped produce. Rudaba manages IFC’s Global TC Working Group of more than 30 organizations that launched a guide for employer-supported childcare and a guide for tackling childcare in the COVID-19 era, and she oversees IFC and Pakistan Business Council’s TC Pakistan, a peer-learning collaboration with 14 companies committed to implementing family-friendly workplace policies such a childcare and paid leave. Rudaba also co-managed IFC’s SheWorks Partnership, which advanced job opportunities for more than 300,000 women. Rudaba previously worked with UNICEF and USAID on gender assessments and program management in Africa, Latin America, Middle East, and South Asia. Prior to that, Rudaba managed client relationships as part of one of Pakistan’s largest corporate banking groups, UBL. Follow Tweets @RudabaNasir.

BE Electrical & Electronics – 1983 – VNIT, Nagpur, India – Gold Medalist & Top Ranker Electrical branch. Vinita Paunikar is the Vice President – Release Engineering and Release Management for Oracle Corp since April 2005. Previously worked as the Program Manager VMWARE (Nov 2004 to March 2005). Vinita Paunikar was ranked #14 at Business Insider’s USA’s “26 of the most powerful female engineers of 2016”. Appeared on EE (Electronics Engineering) Times column on “Celebrating Women in Elecronics” amongst 6 Women Engineers across USA holding Executive positions. Invited by United Nations(UNDP) to speak as a panelist in the Conference “4th Global Forum: Business for Gender Equality: The Future of Work and the 2030 Agenda.” Hosted by United Nations and Government of Chile and was inaugurated by President of Chile Michelle Bachelet. Spoke on panels: Innovation, Big Data Analytics and People Analytics to advance gender equality, Women in all Industries: Redrawing the balance in the business world. Vinita has been invited as a key note speaker at Technology Conference called AXIS-2020 to give inaugural speech at NIT, Nagpur, India Feb-2020 and has previously been a keynote speaker at Technology Conference called Tryst 2017 at IIT Delhi India and InfoCamp 2016, technology conference organized by U.C. Berkeley, CA, USA. Vinita has been invited as a guest Speaker to speak with Women in Technology at GoogleX & Netskope, USA; as well as a guest Speaker by Sacramento, CA, USA Maharashtra Mandal to speak on topic “Career in Technology.” She has conducted multiple session for women in technology at Oracle America and Oracle India and has been involved greatly in volunteer work: American Heart Association(AHA) – Working as a Coach for last 4 years to raise funds for Heart Disease Research, Recognized as Top Coach in a letter to sent to Oracle CEO Mark Hurd and Safra Cartz by AHA for fund raising work done in September 2017, Tie (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Volunteer - Volunteering for conference TieCon for last 12 years. This conference helps entrepreneurs to start their business. Recognized as best volunteer multiple years

Impact of Work:

1. Huge contribution in the field of Hardware, Software & Cloud computing.

2. Mentored many young women engineers, locally in US as well as international.

3. Strong supporter of girls in STEM

4. Helping American Heart Association in research by providing support in fund raising