DRIVING CHANGE
FROM
THE TOP.

Our Story

We are building an international community of women executives to bridge the gender gap on corporate boards.

Our Mission

We are empowering women to be catalysts for progress for generations to come.

Our Commitment

We are changing the face of leadership, one woman at a time.

Our Members

Our members include C-level executives from the largest companies internationally, across different industries and with the experience and expertise required to become successful board members.

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The Boardroom strategically lays the foundations to create a strong international network of upwardly mobile women in positions of power.

FOUNDER

Diana Markaki

Founder & Group CEO

Diana is an International Lawyer with extensive experience in asset management, capital markets and M&A.

Having worked and lived in New York, London, Athens and Milan, she moved to Zurich in 2014. In 2021, she founded the Boardroom, as a personal business case at Harvard Business School, where she currently serves as Group CEO, leading the company’s expansion across Europe, with the clear mission to increase the number of qualified women on corporate boards.

Currently, she serves on the Board of Directors of 5G Ventures S.A. that manages a multi-million mutual fund investing in 5G technology, where she is also elected Chair of the Audit Committee, and is a Partner at international investment firm Venero Capital, advising on ESG and Impact Investing.

She has also served as an independent board member of Ellaktor Group, a publicly traded international construction group, where she was also appointed on the Nomination and Compensation Committee. Before that, she was Global Director, Group Head of Asset Management at gategroup, a global leader in airline services headquartered in Zurich, responsible for the group’s assets in 60 countries around the globe. She has been also a member of the leadership team at the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) Project in Switzerland, Europe’s largest energy infrastructure project, where she was leading the pre-construction activities along the pipeline route. Moreover, she has served as Group General Counsel in an international energy group, after a successful legal career in M&A and Capital Markets at international law firms in Europe and the US.

Diana holds a law degree and LLM in international law from Athens Law School, and an Executive MBA from Harvard Business School.

GLOBAL CHAIRS

Jacqueline Hess

Chair

Swiss Chapter

Jacqueline Hess is a board member and business growth strategist with a tax, trade and regulatory background. She has spent her entire year career leading and advising heavily regulated businesses with strong connectivity to the Swiss-US business corridor. Jacqueline has over 25 years of Big 4 international advisory experience predominately in the life sciences space and 10 years executive management experience in professional services and most recently in wealth management. This includes her roles as CEO of Vontobel Swiss Wealth Advisors and as Managing Partner Deloitte Tax & Legal in Switzerland.

Libby Vincent

Chair

British Chapter

Libby is a dynamic force in the world of leadership and technology. Ex Barclays, Tui, and Just Eat Takeaway, in 2022, she channelled her passion and expertise into founding Hodology, a consultancy reshaping leadership in the modern workplace. With a rich background in leadership and community building, Libby brings a unique perspective to organisational development. Her insights are further honed through her roles as a Non-Executive Director for a cutting-edge Tech SaaS startup and the Institute of Recruitment in the UK.

Elena Papadonikolaki

Chair

Greek Chapter

Elena is a Hospitality Executive with more than 20 years of demonstrated experience in Sales, Marketing & Business Development. She developed the essence of hospitality from a very early age, through her family hotel business.

After falling in love with the industry, Elena continued her studies in Hotel Management and Business Administration in Strasbourg and in Paris. She has worked in executive positions Internationally at multiple hotel brands, such as Accor, Hilton, Starwood and Marriott Intl.

Elena moved back from London to Greece in 2009 and after a successful career and a long-lasting relationship with her favorite of all, the Hotel Grande Bretagne, she recently decided to step out of her comfort zone and focus on more entrepreneurial challenges.

Helle Wehl

Chair

Danish Chapter

Helle is a Partner, Attorney-at-Law, MBA at Accura Advokatpartnerselskab. She specialises in business transfers and investments (M&A), transaction-related stock exchange law, company law, and general commercial law.

Helle advises Danish and foreign private equity and venture funds, industrial clients, financial undertakings and owner managers on business transfers and investments, including through corporate structuring, auction processes and minority investments.

Helle has extensive experience in planning M&A transactions, negotiating and concluding shareholders’, investment, and transfer agreements and in conducting diligence reviews.

Audrey Clegg

Chair

French Chapter

Audrey Clegg, Chief Talent Officer at Sanofi, drives bottom line results at multinationals by getting the right people in the right place at the right time. With 25 years’ experience in talent management, career development, leadership and recruitment at ABB, Coca-Cola and Wolseley, she’s an agile leader, able to navigate today’s era of ‘disruption as normal’.

She is a passionate advocate for the power of diverse and inclusive teams to drive innovation and productivity, and for the power of business to create a more equal and more sustainable world.

Audrey is a Board Member of the Global Alliance of Management Schools (CEMS) and ESADE Business School. She also sits on the Advisory Council for the Vedica Women’s Alliance.

Audrey Derveloy

Chair

French Chapter

Since September 2022, Audrey Derveloy has been coordinating all of Sanofi’s activities in France, representing the company to various stakeholders, and leading the Sanofi France Strategic Committee and the Country Council. A physician by training, she began her career in public hospitals in Paris, then worked as a researcher at the Pasteur Research Center of Hong Kong University and as a Scientific Expert at Salusmed in Hong Kong. She later joined Pfizer in France, specializing in medical affairs within Endocrinology, Transplant, and Rheumatology, and then progressed in her career at Novartis, ultimately becoming the Business Franchise Head for Ophthalmology.

Starting in January 2020, Audrey Derveloy served as the President of Novartis in Ireland, where she was also a member of the strategic council of the IPHA (Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association) and a French Foreign Trade Advisor. Currently, she sits on the Board of Directors of Leem (Les Entreprises du Médicament) and serves as the chair of the French Federation of Health Industries (FEFIS) and the Comité Stratégique de Filière – Industries et technologies de santé.

Megan Browne

Chair

Belgian Chapter

Megan is a Silicon Valley native and dual national (USA/Ireland) with over 30 years of global management experience with blue-chip corporations such as Levi Strauss and Proximus. Her deep knowledge of the European Union has come from over a decade of work on European projects with Comunicazione and other players in the Brussels bubble. As a seasoned manager and strategic consultant, she has advised at C-suite/Board level on change management, business process re-engineering, turnarounds & general governance in the USA, Europe and South America. Megan holds a BAs in Political Science and Spanish Literature from UC Berkeley and an MBA from IMD in Lausanne.

Megan brings a wealth of business knowledge and an extensive network of global contacts to the Boardroom Brussels.