Women and business: Women Value Company 2023 awards assigned
Intesa Sanpaolo presented the prizes to the winners of the Women Value Company award, which, as a special category of the Marisa Bellisario Prize, aims to support and promote women business leaders of SMEs.
The awards in the 2023 edition:
- Intesa Sanpaolo Women Value Company "Mela d'Oro" National Award: assigned to Nunzia Giunta, CEO of UOMO E AMBIENTE (Small Enterprise category), and to Sabrina Paola Secli, CEO of SPS Manifatture (Medium Enterprise category).
In addition:
- "Women for Innovation" special mention: assigned to Relief, Ohoskin, SPlastica
- "Women for International" special mention: assigned to Dino Paoli Srl and Santagata 1907 SpA
- "Women for Social" special mention: assigned to La Gardenia and Alice Social Cooperative
The Intesa Sanpaolo Women Value Company Awards, launched in March 2023 and now in its seventh edition, considered over 1,200 candidate firms, from which the 100 winners were selected: to celebrate their example and vision, Intesa Sanpaolo and Fondazione Marisa Bellisario dedicated them three events – in Florence, Naples and Milan.
Intesa Sanpaolo provides €1bln in support of women entrepreneurs
Intesa Sanpaolo stands with women entrepreneurs who champion gender equality, talent and merit as key to the success of their companies: it has set aside €1 billion in credit for these SMEs to maximise women's contribution to Italy's economic and social development.
More specifically, the support is intended for:
- women entrepreneurs who start up a new business
- women entrepreneurs who invest in growing their businesses
with a focus on areas such as digitalisation, innovation and skill enhancement.
The proposal comes in addition to instruments such as the S-Loan Diversity, which rewards companies with a lower interest rate for their efforts in the areas of gender equality, the development of welfare programmes, and the hiring of women employees: to date, 97 disbursements have been made, for a total of €120 million.
The distinctive features of the 100 SME winners of the Women Value Company Award
The 100 winning SMEs are 70% small enterprises and 30% medium-sized enterprises, based 37% in Northern Italy, 38% in the Centre and 25% in the South. In 91% of cases, they have launched initiatives to reconcile employees' professional and personal lives (remote work, daycare, flexibility, canteens, leave and transport benefits). In 80% of cases, they have implemented initiatives to increase employee welfare (bonuses, benefits, health care, leisure and parenting benefits). Fifteen SMEs have already obtained or applied for gender equality certification.
The Award also confirms that investing in people and their well-being, welfare and training helps create a favourable environment for company and business growth: 96% estimated their turnover to be increasing or stable (YoY); 62% have started and/or consolidated export and internationalisation activities; more than half (53%) are SMEs established since 2000 (including 19 start-ups or new companies); the most represented sectors are manufacturing, healthcare, trade and services.
An analysis by the Intesa Sanpaolo Research Department showed that in 2022 Italy ranked last among European countries in terms of the female participation rate (56.4%, 13 points below the EU27 average): if Italy were to align itself with the European average female participation value, it would register an increase of 2.4 million in the workforce (+10%), with positive effects on GDP growth.
Last updated 11 December 2023 at 08:20:05
