Who We Are - Founder Profiles

Polly Ng

Founder & Chairman& Global CEO of GWC

Polly is a seasoned business management professional with extensive experience across Greater China and Asia Pacific. Prior to her current position, she was the Asia Pacific Regional Business Director and Worldwide Sales Operations Director of Kodak.

Polly is a passionate contributor to make a better society. In addition to GWC, she is also the co-founder and vice chair of Hong Kong Youth Service Leader Award, and Board Director of OneMBA Alumni Association Asia. Polly holds BBA degree and Global EMBA master degree (in Dean’s list for outstanding performance) from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is also a visiting speaker to the university. Currently Polly is based in Shanghai.

Kristi L Swartz

Co-Founder of Hong Kong SAR Chapter

Kristi Swartz is a partner at DLA Piper’s Intellectual Property and Technology Practice. She is an experienced fintech lawyer and has been instrumental in developing Hong Kong’s fintech ecosystem. She advises clients on various matters, including structuring, licensing, and corporate governance. She provides advice on digital assets, stablecoins, payments / alternative payments, and the licensing and development of equity crowdfunding, robo-advisory and the running of compliant crypto exchanges, to name just a few. She has a strong track record of successful SFC license applications.

Kristi has practiced in Hong Kong for over 20 years. She is recognized by Legal 500 as a “Leading Individual”, and clients have described her as a “Fintech Superman”. Kristi cares deeply about our community and sits on the board of directors of the Faith In Love Foundation Limited (a Hong Kong-registered charity) and is a founding member of the 30% Club’s Hong Kong chapter. Kristi also serves on The Women’s Foundation’s Fundraising Committee and is an active Ambassador.

Jackie Robb

Co-Founder of Australia Chapter

Jackie has vast and deep management experience as she excelled in several senior executive roles like President, VP Supply Chain, Chief Information Officer, Chief Financial Officer at listed organizations like Sigma Healthcare and Staples Greater China (division of Staples Inc). Her qualifications include Senior EMBA, FCPA, GAICD and MBS.

Relocating to Shanghai for more than 5 years, Jackie turned around the Greater China businesses, where she delivered tremendous improvement exceeding Staples’ expectations. Jackie was awarded the Shanghai Silver Magnolia award by the Shanghai Municipality in 2016 and won the Australian China Alumni Association 2016 Women in Leadership award. Jackie joined Chemist Warehouse in Australia as the Chief Operating Officer in December 2018.

Jackie is passionate about promoting the welfare and progress of women in the work place, actively acting as a mentor/coach for women in leadership whilst leading the set-up of the GWC Australian affiliate.

Ana Queipo Rodríguez

Co-Founder of Europe Chapter

There is an extraordinary breadth of experiences in Ana’s international executive career. She was China Country manager for a Spanish commercial airline and Asia Pacific Manager for a food additives company before being awarded a full tuition scholarship to complete her MBA at INSEAD. After graduation she worked for Avon Cosmetics where she was Country Manager in Vietnam and later moved to London to join the leadership team at onefinestay — a start-up that redefined the paradigm of hospitality and was successfully acquired by Accor hotels. She has also joined the team at the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London.

Ana joins GWC at the start of her journey as leadership coach where she is partnering with companies willing to achieve outstanding results thorough measurable leadership growth. She believes there is plenty of know-how regarding the challenges of woman in leadership but not enough show-how and is therefore excited to join our community of mentors and create a positive impact in the lives of our mentees.

Laurence Anjoras

Co-Founder of Europe Chapter

Laurence is the Founder of ANN EVA, named after her two daughters (Annabelle and Eva) as for “heritage and continuity”. ANN EVA is a Dutch boutique consulting firm focused on advising and coaching global manufacturing organizations to shift their products and management processes towards positive impact.

Laurence is leveraging three decades of strong business acumen and people management to lead the change, translate complex sustainability issues into understandable concepts and actionable plans, transforming the company from the inside. She has experience of leading remote multi-cultural and functional teams in the Chemical industry. She has worked as a Corporate Sustainability advisor and fulfilled also global functions mainly in Sales and Marketing of ingredients for use in Life Sciences.

Laurence - French by birth - currently lives in The Netherlands, holds a Global Executive MBA from the Rotterdam School of Management/Erasmus University in The Netherlands. As a mother of two young girls, she strongly believes in women economic empowerment as a social stability factor and enjoys sharing the journey with women willing to discover and unleash their potential. She joined GWC in October 2016 as the Secretary General and is also Co-Founder of the Chapter Europe.

Martin Kolkman

Co-Founder of Europe Chapter

Martin is a passionate leader and pioneer with 20+ years of experience in leading companies and organizations around the world under dynamic contexts of cultures, organization levels, and genders. He has a great enthusiasm for inspiring people develop their missions and leadership potential. Born in The Netherlands and lives in Dubai, UAE, Martin values his family and the people around him. He connects the world around him based on respect, trust, and appreciation.

Being a global mentor since the inception of GWC, Martin believes "seeing, listening, sharing and connecting the dots" are the key fundaments that support the development of GWC as a global platform for all female leaders to advance. He takes a co-founding lead in the regional chapter of GWC along with other co-founders to strengthen local positioning and visibility while connecting the dots with the GWC global platform. Martin endeavors a "GLOCAL" approach to enable the full potential of (female) leaders and an inclusive world. In his opinion, "GWC is a great initiative, organization, people and inspiring platform that offers new insights and continuous learning opportunities for female leaders to overcome challenges, pursue their dreams and get hold of their lives."

ABOUT US

FOUNDERS

Kindly meet our founders below.

Polly Ng

Kristi L Swartz

Jackie Robb

Ana Queipo Rodríguez

Laurence Anjoras

Martin Kolkman

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