Catchword is very proud to announce the launch of WomenLift Health, a new nonprofit that promotes and supports women in health-leadership positions around the world. The initiative, part of the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, features a name developed by Catchword.
“The Catchword team is thrilled and honored to be a part of this initiative, which will impact health across the planet,” said co-founder and principal Maria Cypher. Stanford Global Health approached Catchword to name the program last year.
In the announcement introducing the program, Stanford Global Health director Michele Barry cites shocking statistics that illustrate the problem WomenLift Health will address: “Women currently represent 70% of the world’s health workforce but only 25% of leadership positions. Only 27% of the world’s ministers of health are women and 16% are medical school deans in the US. Of the 27 companies comprising the health sector of the global Fortune 500, only one is led by a woman.”
WomenLift Health will catalyze sustained change by working particularly with mid-career women in lower-resourced regional settings to attain better health outcomes worldwide. The organization will invest in the leadership skills of these individual women as well as work to influence change in their work and community environments.
Because empowering more women in the health sector benefits not only these individuals and their families but the health and well-being of everyone in the community, Catchword sought a name that could express this broad impact. With its double meaning, WomenLift Health elegantly communicates both the elevation of women to leadership and the elevation of health by women.
As Stanford Global Health Director Barry said, “We know that when women lead, good health follows.” Catchword couldn’t agree more.
