PWN: HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox is one of the women who began speaking about gender balance long before it became part of mainstream corporate strategy. In 1996, while on maternity leave with her third child in Paris, she founded what would later become PWN Global — a network that started as a small community for professional women and eventually grew into an international organization connecting thousands of members across different countries.

Years before “diversity” became a standard business term, Avivah was already advising companies such as Nestlé, Unilever, and Bayer on leadership and gender balance. She was among the first to argue that businesses would eventually need to rethink not only the role of women, but also the entire structure of careers, ageing, and leadership itself.

Born in Canada to Holocaust-survivor parents, Avivah studied both Computer Science and Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto before completing an MBA at INSEAD. That unusual combination of analytical and humanistic thinking later became central to her work and philosophy.

Today, Avivah is widely known not only as the founder of PWN, but also as one of the leading voices on longevity and the future of work. Her research focuses on how societies and companies must adapt to a world where people increasingly live to 90 or even 100 years old.

She argues that modern life is still built around an outdated model: education, career, retirement. In reality, she believes women over 50 are often entering one of the most influential and productive chapters of their lives.

She describes this idea through her concept of the “Four Quarters” of life: learning, building, reinventing, and mentoring. According to Avivah, the third quarter — roughly between the ages of 50 and 75 — is not a period of decline, but a time of freedom, experience, and renewed ambition.

Alongside her consulting work, Avivah lectures internationally, writes for Forbes and Harvard Business Review, and has authored books including Why Women Mean Business and Thriving to 100.

The story of PWN reflects Avivah’s core belief that professional growth does not happen in isolation. From the very beginning, the network was built around collaboration, international connection, and the idea that women rise stronger when they support one another across industries, countries, and generations.