Avivah Wittenberg-Cox

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox is recognized for her expertise in gender and generational balance in business. As CEO of 20-first, a global consulting firm, she collaborates with companies seeking to enhance gender, nationality, and generational diversity to drive business performance. Wittenberg-Cox has advised CEOs, executive committees, and management teams at multinational organizations, including Nestlé, Unilever, Schlumberger, and Bayer, on leadership, customer engagement, and talent management strategies.

Wittenberg-Cox began her career as a coach for women professionals in Europe and led the Paris Professional Women's Network. She became the first female columnist for Manager Magazine, published by Der Spiegel.

She is the author of seven books on gender, leadership, and longevity, including "Why Women Mean Business: Understanding the Emergence of Our Next Economic Revolution," "How Women Mean Business," and "Seven Steps to Leading Gender-Balanced Businesses." "Why Women Mean Business" received the Manpower Business Book of the Year Award and was recognized by The Conference Board. Her work in longevity includes "Thriving to 100," which explores life development across four quarters rather than three traditional stages.

Wittenberg-Cox's thought leadership appears in The New York Times, BBC, Le Monde, Financial Times, and Der Spiegel, and she contributes regularly to Harvard Business Review and Forbes. She hosts the podcast "4-Quarter Lives" and publishes the Substack newsletter "Elderberries." She has served as a visiting lecturer at Oxford Saïd Business School, INSEAD, and Católica Lisbon, where she co-directs a Longevity Leadership Programme. Wittenberg-Cox has delivered talks at international conferences such as The Economist Conferences, Drucker Forum, and The Women's Forum.

She is a Harvard Advanced Leadership Fellow, focusing on longevity, gender differences in aging, and management of multigenerational teams. Wittenberg-Cox serves on the boards of the UK National Innovation Centre for Ageing and the Chartered Management Institute's Everyone Economy, and is an ambassador for the Stanford Center on Longevity and the Global Peter Drucker Forum. She has been inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame and recognized by ELLE Magazine and PWN Global for her contributions to gender-balanced leadership.