Katja Freiwald leads the UN Women Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) and Migration portfolios in Asia and the Pacific. She oversees UN Women’s work on gender-inclusive entrepreneurship, transformative work on the care-economy and works towards strengthening gender-responsive business conduct to build an ecosystem that supports women's empowerment and gender equality in the world of work. She led the recently completed multi-country, multi-stakeholder three-year programme ‘WeEmpowerAsia’, a UN Women programme funded by and in partnership with the European Union that sought to increase the number of women who lead and participate in businesses in China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam. A key component of the programme mobilized private sector companies of all sizes and across sectors to commit to and implement the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), a set of 7 principles guiding businesses to become more gender-responsive across their value chains.
Katja worked in the private sector for more than 15 years in multiple roles spanning from marketing to sales and was Unilever’s Director of Global Partnerships and Advocacy for Women’s Economic Empowerment and Inclusive Business Development before joining UN Women. Katja frequently serves as a speaker, panelist, and member of several advisory boards, including Amfori, a global business association for open and sustainable trade.