Meet Avivah Wittenberg-Cox
Pioneering New Perspectives in Gender and Generational Balance
As a thought leader in gender and generational balance, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox stands at the forefront of the future of work, the longevity economy, and the transformative potential of 60-year careers. With over two decades of experience as the CEO of 20-first, Avivah has become a trusted advisor to global CEOs, leadership teams, and executive committees in over 40 countries. Her expertise spans various sectors, from FMCG and financial services to pharmaceuticals and tech, helping organisations navigate the inter-related complexities of gender, generations and culture in the 21st century. Avivah serves on the Boards of the UK National Innovation Centre for Ageing (NICA) and the Chartered Management Institute’s Everyone Economy. She is an Ambassador for the Stanford Center on Longevity and the Global Peter Drucker Forum in Vienna, and an Adjunct Professor at DePaul University in Chicago. In 2023, she earned a place in the prestigious Thinkers50 Hall of Fame.
Writer, Speaker, Podcaster
Avivah’s voice resonates globally through her contributions to Forbes and the Harvard Business Review. As the host of the longevity-focused podcast 4-Quarter Lives, she explores the multiple impacts of our new era of longevity. Avivah is a Visiting Lecturer at Oxford’s Saïd Business School, INSEAD, and Catolica Lisbon (where she co-directs the innovative Longevity Leadership Programme). A three-time TEDx speaker, she regularly captivates audiences at international conferences, including The Economist Conferences, The Drucker Forum, WIN, The Silver Marketing Summit, and The Women in Finance Summit.
Her books, such as Why Women Mean Business and Seven Steps to Leading Gender-Balanced Businesses, tackle strategic leadership issues, while her graphic series for managers, including 5 Steps to Longevity Leadership and Thriving to 100, offer practical insights for navigating the future of work. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award for Gender Balanced Leadership by PWN Global, was named one of the world’s 40 Most Inspiring Women Over 40 and was featured by the Financial Times on how women are changing the future of management.
A Personal Note
Avivah believes that the personal and professional are deeply intertwined. In 2022, she completed a year at Harvard as an Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow, where she researched and wrote about the new demographics and their wide-ranging impacts on countries, companies, careers, consumers, and couples. This work highlights the unique opportunities available to individuals in their third quarter of life, the 25 years after age 50.
Avivah’s journey began in Canada, where she studied Computer Science and Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. Her one-year stint in Paris turned into a 30-year adventure, during which she completed an MBA at INSEAD. A tri-national (Canadian, French, and Swiss), Avivah resides in London with her sculptor/consultant husband and enjoys visiting her gender-balanced children, a son and daughter, in Dakar and New York. She is tracking her path through what the 60s feels like today in Sunday substack, called elderberries.
the team
Martha Christie
Client Relationship Manager
OUR GLOBAL GENDER BALANCE ECOSYSTEM
our advisory board
The Americas
Europe, Middle East & Africa
Asia Pacific
our partner firms
our values
Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something – Thomas Edison
- Don’t look to the past for answers, don’t benchmark ‘best practices’ that don’t work. Innovate forward. Invent, rethink, design the future.
If you’re not confused, you’re not paying attention – Tom Peters
- Gender is a topic that we are all in the midst of learning about. Embrace, understand and empathise with everyone’s confusion, especially if they are men.
There is little success where there is little laughter – Andrew Carnegie
- Let’s laugh at ourselves, at the world and at the extraordinary, wonderful, absurd things we hear said, almost every day.
Only that day dawns to which we are awake – Henry David Thoreau
- The world has not yet awoken to the importance of gender at every level – country, company and couple. We will have the patience to tell it (and repeat it and repeat it) from the mountain.
Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them – Buckminster Fuller
- We hire genius – and then trust you to shine.
If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves – Thomas Edison
- We believe in introspection, self-awareness and proactive communication aimed at getting us to go deeper, higher and better – together. Radical honesty. With ourselves, and others.
Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you’re right – Henry Ford
- We dream big and deliver stylishly, with a distinct leaning towards optimism.
It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project – Napoleon Hill
- Gender balance doesn’t happen naturally. It takes leadership will and skill. Anyone can learn, but few today know how. Our goal is to get male feminists ‘out of the closet’ and influence other men, and ally with women to build powerful coalitions for change.
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