San Francisco Bay Area Leaders Extend Support for Women's Higher Education in Asia and the Middle East

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Corporate leaders from Salesforce, Google, PayPal, VISA, BlackRock, Cisco, Adobe, Horizon Therapeutics, KPMG and others, all serving in their personal capacity, have volunteered to come together to support the work of the Asian University for Women (AUW) located in Chittagong, Bangladesh.

The AUW Bay Area Advisory Board is entrusted with raising awareness of the urgent need to enhance opportunities for women's higher education and leadership development; facilitating partnerships between Bay Area universities and companies and AUW to improve teaching and learning at the University; and fundraising for student scholarships and other needs at the University from individuals, philanthropies, and businesses. It is part of a global network of Advisory Boards that support AUW, including in Tokyo, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, and Singapore.

Ritu Bhargava, a Senior Vice President at Salesforce, Chairs the Advisory Board.  "I went to an all-women's college in India," said Bhargava. "I was inspired and learned that a woman can dream of the unimaginable and achieve it.  I want to let the young women of AUW know that it is possible for them, too. And I want to help them get there." Bhargava, who is the head of Engineering for Sales Cloud, is also mentoring a current student at AUW.  This mentorship relationship is one of the core responsibilities of all Bay Area Advisory Board members.

Another Advisory Board member, Stacey Taylor, a Vice President at VISA, commented, "I'm excited to be a part of AUW, supporting women to advance their education and careers.  I have taken to heart the wisdom that Gail Evans shared in her book, She Wins, You Win, and believe that if we help women succeed through AUW, we are opening doors to women everywhere to make a bigger contribution on the world." Taylor leads the Bay Area Advisory Board as Chair of its Events & Advocacy Committee.

The Advisory Board is organized into three committees: a Partnerships Committee, chaired by Dr. Srini Ramanathan, Group Vice President of Development Sciences at Horizon Therapeutics; an Events & Advocacy Committee, chaired by Stacey Taylor; and a Scholarship Support Committee, co-chaired by Marcy Campbell, Vice President of Sales for the North American and Australian Markets at PayPal and Alexander Craddock, Managing Director and Chief Marketing Officer, iShares, BlackRock.

The Advisory Board has been meeting regularly since it came together in early September and is currently hosting a week-long virtual film festival called, HERSTORY: Women's Empowerment Through Her Lens. The film festival will showcase a number of films directed and produced by prominent South Asian women. It will be accompanied by an exclusive director's panel featuring acclaimed film directors Smriti Mundhra, Alka Raghuram, Alankrita Shrivastava, and others; and a live discussion featuring AUW student Nazifa Rafa; and Dr. Tiffany Cone, an AUW faculty member, anthropologist, and filmmaker. The event aims to raise $100,000 for student scholarships to AUW.

The Chancellor of Asian University for Women, Cherie Blair, a prominent human rights lawyer and wife of the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, attended an initial Advisory Board meeting. "What impressed me most about the Bay Area Advisory Board," she commented, "was the creativity, energy, and deep concern among all of its members for the issues that AUW addresses on the ground in educating and empowering women."

"On my many visits to AUW's campus, I had palpably felt the inspiration and optimism shared by AUW students. At this time of the global pandemic, it is heartening to see others also similarly inspired and helping sustain our mission in such a positive and constructive manner. These women and men who have come together to make a positive impact for changing the lives of women are also our heroes," she added.

The AUW Bay Area Advisory Board is composed of the following individuals:

Ritu Bhargava, Senior Vice President, Salesforce (Board Chair)
Srini Ramanathan, Group Vice President of Development Sciences, Horizon Therapeutics (Chair, Partnerships Committee)
Stacey Taylor, Vice President, Systems Strategy and Operational Excellence, VISA (Chair, Events & Advocacy Committee)
Alex Craddock, Managing Director and Chief Marketing Officer, iShares, BlackRock (Co-Chair, Scholarship Support Committee)
Marcy Campbell, Vice President, Sales for the North American and Australian Markets, PayPal (Co-Chair, Scholarship Support Committee)
Shomit Ghose, Partner, ONSET Ventures
Brian Greenen, Independent Consultant; Former Vice President, North American Sales, Oracle
Dave Kleidermacher, Vice President of Engineering for Android Security & Privacy, Google
Grace Kloba, Senior Engineering Director for Android, Google
Purnima Kochikar, Vice President of Business Development, Google Play
Raj Krishna, Vice President of Strategy & Planning, the Cloud Networking Group, Cisco
Simon Longbottom, Vice President, Creative Cloud and Document Cloud, Adobe
Ariel Spivak, Managing Director, Auto, TV, and IoT Partnerships, Google
Vijay Subramanyam, Managing Director, Transformation Delivery, KPMG

About Asian University for Women (AUW):
Founded in 2008 and located in Chittagong, Bangladesh, AUW is the first of its kind: a regional institution dedicated to women's education and leadership development through liberal arts and sciences education.  It is international in outlook but rooted in the contexts and aspirations of the people of Asia. Chartered by the Parliament of Bangladesh, AUW exists solely to support a rising network of women leaders, entrepreneurs, and changemakers from across the region. It seeks out women who show significant academic achievement and potential, demonstrate courage and a sense of outrage at injustice, and are empathic to the woes of other people.

900 students from 18 countries currently attend AUW: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Palestine, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Syria, Timor Leste, Vietnam, and Yemen. More than 85% of AUW students are on full or near-full scholarships funded by supporters from around the world. The University has graduated over a thousand students to date. A majority of AUW graduates secure employment in the private and public sectors in their home countries while about 25% go on to pursue graduate studies at other institutions of higher learning including Oxford, Cambridge, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Columbia, Duke, Brandeis and Tufts, among others. To learn more about Asian University for Women, please visit https://asian-university.org.

SOURCE Asian University for Women Support Foundation