The ERA Pledge recently announced that it is delighted to welcome new members to its Steering Committee after a recent refresh following the Pledge’s 3rd Anniversary in May 2019. The ERA Pledge Team looks forward with excitement to working with the new Steering Committee over the next three-year term to continue to break down the barriers to the fair representation of women in arbitration and build upon the success of the Pledge to date. The full press release issued by the ERA Pledge announcing this development is available here.
The new members of the Pledge Steering Committee include a number of ArbitralWomen members: Samaa Haridi, Brenda Horrigan, Lucy Martinez, Dana MacGrath, Emilia Onyema, Alison Pearsall, Olena Perepelynska, Noradèle Radjai, Sitpah Selveratnam, Gisele Stephens-Chu, May Tai, Anna-Maria Tamminen and Ana Carolina Weber.
“I am honoured to join the Pledge Steering Committee and look forward to contributing to its continued success,” commented ArbitralWomen President Dana MacGrath. “The Pledge has accelerated progress toward gender parity in arbitration by fostering dialogue about barriers to the advancement of women and identifying tangible goals for overcoming them. I am excited about the progress that ArbitralWomen and the ERA Pledge can achieve together to improve diversity in arbitration.”
The new Steering Committee will be co-chaired by ArbitralWomen member Sylvia Noury and Samantha Bakstad. Arbitralwomen member Wendy Miles QC has stepped down as co-chair but will continue to serve on the Pledge Steering Committee together with the following members of ArbitralWomen: Cecilia Carrara, Jo Delaney, Diana Droulers, Alice Fremuth-Wolf, Lucy Greenwood, Heidi Merikalla-Teir, Gabrielle Nater-Bass, Patrizia Netal, Sherina Petit, Mirèze Philippe, Caroline Richard and Deva Villanua Gomez.
ArbitralWomen member Erin Miller Rankin has stepped down from the Pledge Steering Committee at the end of a three-year term. ArbitralWomen joins the Pledge in thanking all Pledge Steering Committee members who are stepping down for their leadership and work to support diversity.
The full list of the Pledge Steering Committee members can be found here. Congratulations to the new members of the Pledge Steering Committee! We look forward to further progress toward gender parity in international dispute resolution.
ArbitralWomen members who have been appointed to the Pledge Steering Committee
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Samaa Haridi has been appointed to the Steering Committee of the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge with effect from July 2019. Based in New York, Samaa is a partner at Hogan Lovells LLP, and regularly sits as an arbitrator in international disputes. Samaa specialises in commercial and investment arbitration and is a member of the New York, California, and England & Wales bars. Samaa serves as a Vice Chair of the IBA Arbitration Committee, a Vice President of the LCIA Users’ Council and as an Executive Board member of ICDR Y&I. |
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Brenda Horrigan has been appointed to the Steering Committee of the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge with effect from July 2019. Brenda, a partner and Head of International Arbitration in Australia at Herbert Smith Freehills, specializes in international commercial and investor-state arbitration, with particular expertise in emerging markets, and sits as an arbitrator. Brenda is admitted in Washington, DC and an Australian registered foreign lawyer. She speaks fluent English, French and Russian and elementary Mandarin. Brenda became the first female President of the Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration in 2019 and served for several years as Global Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University Law School (Shanghai campus). |
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Dana MacGrath, President of the Board of ArbitralWomen, has been appointed to the Steering Committee of the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge. Based in New York, Dana is an Investment Manager and Legal Counsel at commercial litigation and arbitration funder Bentham IMF. She has extensive experience in the field of international arbitration both as counsel and arbitrator and is on the AAA Roster of Arbitrators. She is an adjunct professor of law at Brooklyn Law School and coaches the Brooklyn Vis Moot team. Dana is a member of the Council of the American Arbitration Association–International Centre for Dispute Resolution (AAA-ICDR) and the immediate past Chair of the Arbitration Committee of the New York City Bar Association. |
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Lucy Martinez has been appointed to the Steering Committee of the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge with effect from July 2019. Lucy acts as independent counsel and arbitrator at Martinez Arbitration. Based in Australia and the UK, Lucy has extensive experience advising private and sovereign parties in international commercial and investment treaty arbitrations, and acting as arbitrator in ICC, HKIAC, LCIA and SIAC disputes. She is admitted to the New York Bar and is a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland, Australia. Lucy is ecognized by the Legal 500 and Who’s Who: Arbitration (Future Leaders). |
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Emilia Onyema has been appointed to the Steering Committee of the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge with effect from July 2019. Emilia is a Reader in International Commercial Law at SOAS University of London and sits as an arbitrator. She is admitted to the Bar of Nigeria and is a non-practising solicitor of England and Wales. Emilia obtained her PhD from Queen Mary University of London and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. Her appointments include serving as a member of the Board of Directors of the Africa Arbitration Association and of the Board of Advisors to the Association of Young Arbitrators. |
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Alison Pearsall, a member of the Board of ArbitralWomen, and co-director for the ArbitralWomen Mentorship Program, has been appointed to the Steering Committee of the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge with effect from July 2019. The Pledge currently has 3,500 signatories (including 672 organisations), from over 110 countries. As Senior Group Counsel for Veolia Environment, based in Paris, Alison is responsible for litigation strategy development in complex arbitration and international litigation cases in Northern Europe, North America and Australia. Alison is a Member of the ICC Commission on Arbitration and a former Member of the Court of the London Court International Arbitration. |
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Olena Perepelynska has been appointed to the Steering Committee of the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge with effect from July 2019. Olena is a partner and Head of the CIS Arbitration Practice at INTEGRITES and sits as an arbitrator. Her practice focuses on international commercial arbitration, litigation and international trade. Olena speaks English, German, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian. Olena is recognised for her expertise by Chambers & Partners, the Legal 500 and Who’s Who Legal: Arbitration. |
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Sitpah Selvaratnam has been appointed to the Global Steering Committee of the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge with effect from July 2019. Sitpah is co-founder of and a consultant at the law firm Tommy Thomas in Malaysia and regularly acts as arbitrator. She is well known for her expertise in maritime and corporate insolvency matters and is recognised by Chambers Asia and the Asia Pacific Legal 500. Sitpah is a member of the ICC International Court of Arbitration, the founding President of the International Malaysian Society of Maritime Law which is affiliated with Comite Maritime International. Sitpah is admitted to the Malaysian Bar and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. |
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Gisèle Stephens-Chu has been appointed to the Steering Committee of the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge with effect from July 2019. Gisèle is a Counsel at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. She specialises in international commercial and investor-state arbitration across a variety of sectors, with particular expertise in the energy sector. Admitted in England and France, Gisèle is based in Paris and speaks English, French and Spanish. Gisèle was listed as a future leader in Who’s Who Legal: Arbitration 2018 and 2019. |
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May Tai has been appointed to the Steering Committee of the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge with effect from July 2019. Based in Hong Kong, May is Managing Partner of Herbert Smith Freehills’ Greater China Practice and specialises in cross-border China-related and regional Asian disputes and contentious regulatory matters. May is qualified as a solicitor of England and Wales and Hong Kong and speaks Bahasa (Malaysian and Indonesian), Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) and English. She is a member of the LCIA Court. |
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Ana Carolina Weber, a former member of the Board of ArbitralWomen, has been appointed to the Steering Committee of the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge with effect from July 2019. Based in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo), Ana Carolina is a partner at Eizirik Advogados and a PhD candidate in corporate law at University of São Paulo Law School (USP). She acts as an arbitrator, tribunal secretary and counsel in arbitral proceedings in Brazil and abroad. Ana Carolina serves as Co-Chair of the Latin American Subcommittee of the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge and served as an ICC YAF representative in Brazil until June 2019. |