Celebrating International Women’s Day with Sandie Okoro
Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world
Women stand at the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis, as health care workers, caregivers, innovators, community organizers and as some of the most exemplary and effective national leaders in combating the pandemic. The crisis has highlighted both the centrality of the contributions and the disproportionate burdens that women carry. Women leaders and women's organizations have demonstrated their skills, knowledge and networks to effectively lead in COVID-19 response and recovery efforts. Today there is more acceptance than ever before that women bring different experiences, perspectives and skills to the table, and make irreplaceable contributions to decisions, policies and laws that work better for all.
Dechert's Global Women's Initiative is honored to welcome Sandie Okoro for a conversation exploring leadership, inclusion, equity and mentorship as well as the role that lawyers can play to address gender bias and inequity.
About Our Speaker:
Sandie Okoro is Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the World Bank Group, and Vice President for Compliance at the World Bank, the first British national and first black woman to hold this role. As principal advisor and spokesperson on all legal matters for the world’s leading development finance institution, she heads the Legal Vice Presidency Unit, where international development legal experts provide legal services essential to World Bank activities and operations. Ms. Okoro also heads the Compliance Vice Presidency that is responsible for developing and overseeing the World Bank data privacy framework that is based on the World Bank Group Policy on Personal Data Privacy.
An ardent champion for women's empowerment, gender equality and justice for all, Ms. Okoro uses her voice to spark personal and community-based development and push the envelope in tackling gender-based inequalities, particularly among minority groups and women. She is an Honorary Bencher of Middle Temple in the United Kingdom (2018) and has been recognized as one of the Upstanding 100 Leading Ethnic Minority Executives (2016), as a Top 20 Global General Counsel (2019) by the Financial Times and as Britain’s 5th most influential person of African and African Caribbean heritage by Powerlist (2018). Her many honors include the Howard University 2019 Vanguard Women Award, the Beyond the Glass Ceiling Award presented by the Leadership Institute for Women of Color Attorneys (2019), the Chambers 100 Outstanding Global General Counsel award (2019) and Harvard Law’s 7th Annual International Women’s Day Portrait Exhibit (2020).
