On May 19th, Sunita Bajaj of MetLife hosted the launch of the International Women’s Entrepreneurial Challenge Foundation.  Sponsored by UPS, six IWEC past awardees from the NYC area joined 60 attendees to celebrate the official launch of the IWEC Foundation, a 501c(3) non-profit headquartered now in NYC.  The event was part of World Trade Week NYC and was attended by NY District Export Council’s Chairman, Joe Schoonmaker.

Each awardee introduced themselves and their companies and IWEC’s Executive Director, Nancy Ploeger, presented an overview of IWEC’s history and future goals.  Awardees included were Vigdis Eriksen, Eriksen Translations; Ann Kayman, NY Grant Company.; Kalpana Patel, UCINY Corp.; Bonnie Schnitta, Soundsense; Wendy Shen, FLOMO-USA and Sandi Webster, Consultants-2-Go; 

UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, Cristina Gallach, also attended and said a few words about the UN’s sustainable goals which include women’s economic empowerment.  A terrific evening of networking and connecting!

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