TCI Launches Extraordinary Women Advancing Healthcare Awards

Inaugural Awards Program Recognizes Emerging Women Leaders in Massachusetts Demonstrating Impact, Inspiration and Innovation in the Healthcare Industry 

The Commonwealth Institute (TCI), a non-profit organization devoted to advancing businesswomen in leadership positions, today announced the Extraordinary Women Advancing Healthcare in Massachusetts Awards.

Building on the success of TCI’s Top 100 Women-Led Businesses, the Extraordinary Women Advancing Healthcare (EWAH) Awards is the first award program to honor remarkable emerging women leaders from across Commonwealth of Massachusetts who demonstrate collaboration, mentorship, and commitment to diversity in healthcare.  Awardees will be recognized for the impact they demonstrate by advancing healthcare, the inspiration they’ve shown by inspiring, mentoring and sponsoring other women in healthcare, and innovation through their commitment to forward-thinking projects and needs that will advance healthcare.

“The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a global leader in the healthcare industry, so it is fitting that The Commonwealth Institute – an organization founded over 23 years ago to help women leaders succeed – would launch a signature program that celebrates emerging women leaders in the industry,” says Elizabeth Hailer, executive director of The Commonwealth Institute.  “Anyone may nominate a woman whom they feel is doing extraordinary things the across healthcare industry who is an emerging and not routinely-recognized leader.”

Speaking to the need to focus on advancing women and diverse leaders in healthcare, Travis McCready, a member of the EWAH Steering Committee and CEO of Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, points to the importance of health care and life science industries. “In Massachusetts, the life sciences are not just a sector, it is a culture. To build that culture, it takes more than a village—it takes an ecosystem comprised of government, academic, and industry stakeholders working together,” says McCready. “This cross-sector leadership will remain integral to continuing the important scientific and economic development being done here in the Commonwealth.”

Barri Blauvelt, CEO of Innovara, founder and co-chairperson of the Extraordinary Women Advancing Healthcare Awards, adds, “Women leaders and employees are critical to support the healthcare industry which is so vital to the Massachusetts economy. Yet in every healthcare sector, so many amazing women are overlooked and underrecognized. We need to work together to identify, celebrate and support these women, particularly the next generation of leaders who have a ‘miles to go’ mindset. After all, they are the Commonwealth’s, and even the nation’s, future in healthcare.”

On September 24, the Extraordinary Women Advancing Healthcare Awards will honor 10 finalists  at an awards event at Bentley University.  Awardees will be invited to join The Commonwealth Institute’s community of women leaders and to participate in its Strategies for Success leadership development program.

You can learn more about the program and the winners at http://commonwealthinstitute.org/programs-events/extraordinary-women-in-healthcare/