Barbara Annis is an author and CEO of Annis and Associates. There are women throughout the world whose actions, efforts and inspiration truly do make a World of Difference" in supporting the advancement of women. Whether it is a small village project in a developing country that has ripple effects throughout the community, or an event or initiative n a global scale, the TIAW World of Difference Award recognizes the power within every individual to change the world we live in for the betterment of women. TIAW is honored to recognize Barbara as the 2009 TIAW World of Difference Lifetime Achievement Award Winner.
"One of the things that I find, both men and women in senior positions have a blind spot, they assume that men and women are similar in the workplace. But we are not the same. When a problem occurs in the workplace, the way women tackle it is very different than men. And if we don´t know that, we end up blaming each other for our differences.”
For the past 20 years, Barbara Annis has been advocating with passion on a critically important point in the advancement of women, and sharing her insights with organizations of every size, to the smallest non-profits to the highest echelons of government and the world’s most established blue chip companies. Barbara believes it is vitally important to understand, acknowledge and accept the differences in the way women and men think, that those differences must be leveraged to improve productivity and remove barriers to women’s career advancement. In addition to a gruelling schedule of speaking engagements, Barbara has written two best-selling books: Same Words, Different Language, which offers groundbreaking insights to create win-win relationships between the genders and break through gender barriers. Her latest book, Leadership and the Sexes, co-authored with Michael Gurian in 2009, reveals the latest brain-based research on gender differences in leadership, and shows how to maximize the innate talents of both genders in the workplace and in the world.
Her company, Barbara Annis & Associates, has facilitated over 3,000 corporate workshops, keynotes, and executive coaching sessions on Gender Intelligent Leadership to Fortune 500 Corporations, including Deloitte & Touche, IBM, Smith Barney Citigroup, UBS, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Intel.
Barbara is the Chair-elect of the Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Her extensive studies have included work with exceptional thinkers such as linguist Dr. Fernando Flores at University of California at Berkeley, neuroscientist Ruben Gur at the University of Pennsylvania, psychologist Virginia Satir, Dr. W. E. Deming, and Dr. Willis Harman, Founder of the Noetic Sciences Foundation and The World Business Academy.
Barbara has been involved in a wide range of organizations including: Member of the Gender Leadership Team, Deloitte & Touche; Co-Chair of the Advisory Board for the Task Force of an Inclusive Public Service, Treasury Board; Co-Chair, World Business Academy; Subject Matter Expert and Member of the Advisory Board, Social Context & Gender Equality Initiative, Department of Justice; Member of the Advisory Board, Gender Integration Project, Department of National Defense; President, Canadian Women Entrepreneurs.
