WPEO honors members, gains partnership

Three hundred members and sponsors of the Women Presidents’ Educational Organization celebrated their corporate and public entity partnerships on Jan. 24 at the Haworth showroom in Manhattan, N.Y. The WPEO honored more than 50 corporations, government agencies and nonprofit organizations committed to advancing workplace diversity and inclusion.

The WPEO also announced a new partnership with New York State,which allows WPEO-certified women’s business enterprises to fast track their state certification. Michael Jones-Bey, director of Empire State Development, attended to co-sign the Memorandum of Understanding with WPEO President and Founder Marsha Firestone, Ph.D. The WPEO currently maintains a similar relationship with the City of New York.

Among those honored were Altria Group;AT&T; Avaya;Avis Budget Group, Inc.;AXA Equitable; BAE Systems; Baker Botts LLP; Bank of America; Capital One;Citigroup;City of New York;Colgate-Palmolive; Con Edison; Contemporary Graphics; Cornell University; Deutsche Bank; Eckert, Seamans, Cherin & Mellott LLC; Enterprise Rent-A-Car; Ernst & Young; Exxon Mobil Corp.; Goldman Sachs; HIP; IBM; Johnson & Johnson; JP Morgan Chase & Co.; Lehman Brothers; Macy’s East/Bloomingdale’s; Major League Baseball; MasterCard; Merck; Merrill Lynch; MetLife; Microsoft; Morgan Stanley; NBC Universal; New York Life; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp.; PepsiCo; Pfizer, Inc.; Pitney Bowes; Price Waterhouse Coopers; Prudential; Public Service Enterprise Group; Schering- Plough; The Hertz Corp.;Time Warner; University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; UPS; Verizon; Wachovia; Weil, Gotshal & Manges; and Wyndham Worldwide.

For more information on the WPEO, visit www.wpeo.us.