BWAW will hold its fifth edition from 4 to 6 March at DFactory Barcelona

• The Barcelona Woman Acceleration Week (BWAW) will be reaffirmed in its fifth edition in 2025 as the event of reference to promote gender equality in business.

• In its commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda, more specifically SDG 5, the CZFB invites once again to reflect on the visibility of women in key economic sectors.

Barcelona, 23 January 2025 – Barcelona Woman Acceleration Week (BWAW) will hold its fifth edition at DFactory Barcelona from 4 to 6 March 2025, reaffirming itself as the benchmark event for promoting gender equality in the business world, inviting reflection on the visibility of women in key sectors of the economy. The event, organized by the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona (CZFB), is once again organized in collaboration with the Incyde Foundation of the Spanish Chambers of Commerce and contributes to making Barcelona visible as a key city for the development of the new economy and committed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda.

The special delegate of the State at the CZFB, Pere Navarro, points out that ‘BWAW has become a loudspeaker for men and women who work in favor of promoting gender equality in the business world, sharing knowledge, contributing ideas and bringing to the table the reality of public and private companies, as well as the good practices they carry out with the aim of achieving real equality in their workforces’.

For her part, the general director of the CZFB, Blanca Sorigué, stresses that ‘in the previous four years, we have heard the testimony of female and male managers, as well as representatives of administrations, who have shared their experiences, explained their long paths to reach the positions they occupy today and also the frustrations that have challenged them to continue advancing. BWAW will continue to give a voice in this fifth edition to those professionals who want to continue sharing with us with the aim of advancing towards real equality of gender opportunities in the business world’.

 Barcelona Woman Acceleration Week is a clear example of CZFB’s commitment to the SDGs, more specifically SDG 5: Gender equality. Along the same lines, the organization has other initiatives such as the ZF Women’s Council, which now has 26 members and carries out projects such as Feel the ZP Power, to bring school-age children closer to the companies in the ecosystem without gender bias, raising awareness of their contribution to society and promoting interest in STEM training at an early stage.

Some conclusions from the last edition of BWAW

Among the conclusions of the last edition, the progress made in recent years stands out, especially in the public sector, where the presence of women now exceeds 50%, although it is true that only 30% of them hold managerial positions. Paradoxical figures considering that, in the same conclusions, it is stated that when women are in top management positions, the economic profits of companies can increase by up to 60%.

Likewise, as reflected in the conclusions of the last edition of BWAW, there is a marked gender disparity in entrepreneurship and in the Spanish technology sector, where most of the founding teams in technology companies are made up of men, which limits the opportunities for women. More specifically, in terms of new professions, such as those related to AI, there is also an under-representation, with only 22% of women working in Artificial Intelligence.

All in all, and despite the advances, the fourth edition of BWAW closed with a clear message: a significant gender pay gap persists in Spain, with women earning 17% less than men for the same job.