2021 Canada’s Most Powerful Women

Waterloo celebrates six recipients on this year's Women's Executive Network list. Six women from the University of Waterloo were named among the top 100 most powerful women in Canada in the annual rankings released by the Women's Executive Network  (WXN). This year's list includes Clarice Ward, Jacqueline Beckford-Henriques, Suzanne Kearns, Anita Layton, Carolyn Ren and Pearl Sullivan (in memoriam). WXN rankings are widely seen as a measure of exceptional impact for leadership in business, research, the arts, public administration and community advocacy. Past winners include the novelist Margaret Atwood, Canada's first woman astronaut Roberta Bondar and former governor general Michaëlle Jean, who is now chancellor of St. Paul's University College. Although the WXN rankings designate the most powerful women in Canada, the organization takes a somewhat unconventional approach to defining power. Whereas other rankings may understand power as a measure of wealth, status or physical strength, WXN sees power as grounded in compassion, humility and the promotion of collective wellbeing.