WPIC Awarded Best Company for the Advancement of Women

WPIC Marketing + Technologies, APAC’s leading e-commerce consultancy, is thrilled to announce that it has been named the Best Company for the Advancement of Women (SME) at the Women Empowerment Awards in China 2022, a testament to the company’s commitment to support women in the workforce and in the communities where the firm operates.

“WPIC has a commendable track record of investing in the career development of their female employees,” said Su Cheng Harris-Simpson, Founder of the Women Empowerment Council (WEC), which runs the Women Empowerment Awards in China.

“Our panel of judges pointed out that WPIC has an impressive 67% representation of women in its workforce, and a stellar 87.5% ratio of women in its leadership team, demonstrating that the company actively identifies, nurtures, and promotes female talent,” she said.

“We’re especially proud of those figures because we operate in a traditionally male-dominated sector,” said Jacob Cooke, WPIC Co-founder and CEO, during a speech at the awards ceremony. 

Created by the WEC, the awards seek to recognize trailblazing individuals and innovative companies that have demonstrated a robust commitment to promoting women in the workforce and taking actions to effectively advance gender equality which can drive stronger business outcomes. The WEC is a network of China-based executives that aims to advance gender equality in businesses in China and beyond.

“At WPIC, our HR policies are designed to promote gender equality across our organization and position our female staff for success,” said Mr. Cooke. “We celebrate our female leaders in company communications, and support women’s-focused charities in areas where we operate, like Educating Girls of Rural China (EGRC) and Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre.”

“It’s an honor to be included amongst such fantastic fellow nominees, so we’d like to extend our gratitude to the Women’s Empowerment Council—and we’re happy to see so many other organizations in China committed to empowering women,” he added.

“This award celebrates what we hold true at WPIC: connected, informed, and educated professionals, most of whom are female, working together to change the world. Congratulations to all our female employees, who are crucial to our firm’s success and future growth,” said Jessie Jin, Chief Operating Officer at WPIC.

Since its founding, WPIC has been committed to empowering its female employees, prioritizing retention of female staff and offering women clear paths to career development within the company. This has resulted in strong representation of women among the leadership group and throughout the organization.

By The Numbers

• 67% female workforce for four consecutive years
• 75% of China c-suite are women, including the COO, CTO, and CFO
• Seven of the eight highest ranking WPIC executives in China are women
• 90% retention rate of female staff

As WPIC grew into a larger operation and founder Jacob Cooke decided to expand the c-suite, the first two people added were women already working at the company: Jessie Jin, the current Chief Operating Officer, and Funa Fu, the current Chief Technology Officer. Similarly, all four vice presidents were promoted from within the company to their current roles. Maggie Zhang was recently appointed China Chief Financial Officer. Beyond the C-suite, WPIC’s product and services divisions are also led by exceptionally talented women: Vice President of Data Sciences Sang Si, Vice President of Logistics Laura Wang, and Vice President of Marketing Hilary Li (who also was just recognized with her 10-year tenure award at WPIC).

It is notable that WPIC’s business units—e-commerce, IT infrastructure, data analytics, and logistics—are all lead by women, which runs against the norm in China in these male-dominated sectors.

These female leaders provide mentorship and guidance to new female employees at WPIC and invest extra resources in developing the careers of their female direct reports, which has contributed to employee retention and a 2:1 female-male ratio of employees.

The company empowers women and tackles gender equality issues through both specific policies and a commitment to a women-friendly, inclusive culture. WPIC offers new parents flexible working hours (and remote work for most roles), so that new parents can spend time at home with their child if they wish. While WPIC encourages young fathers to take time off to be with young families, the organization recognizes that there are gendered expectations around parenthood and mothers are often tasked with the bulk of childcare. The company’s policy is designed to ensure that new mothers can balance their work with the demands of motherhood, without them feeling that they need to sacrifice one or the other.

To counter systemic bias in promotion decisions, WPIC explicitly recognizes that a young mother’s time off or flexible work arrangements should not affect her candidacy, and instead only evaluates workplace achievements and capabilities. WPIC also has an explicit policy against overtime work.

Each of these policies, along with the high percentage of women in positions of leadership and throughout the organization, contributes to a culture that is inclusive and women-friendly. The retention rate of female staff has fluctuated between 80% to 90% in the last three years.

Outside of its own workforce, WPIC has been increasingly investing in social responsibility initiatives, with women’s issues one of the core focuses of the firm’s corporate social responsibility strategy.

To mark International Women’s Day 2022, WPIC donated to Educating Girls of Rural China (EGRC), a charity that provides young rural women in China access to education through financial sponsorship. The donation will enable several girls to attend high school in the coming year. Over the past 12 months, WPIC has also supported the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre as well as Atira Women’s Rescue Society, which are located near its office in Vancouver’s Gastown neighborhood, with a sizeable cash and in-kind donation.