Women's Bond Club Honors Thomson's Walton, Girls Who Code's Saujani

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The Women's Bond Club, the first organization in New York to focus on women in finance, announced that Debra Walton and Reshma Saujani have received the organization's two most prestigious awards.

Both women were recognized at the Women's Bond Club's annual gala, the Merit Award Dinner, held on April 21. The dinner was hosted by Citi at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

The list of winners was headlined by Walton, chief content officer, financial & risk at Thomson Reuters, and Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code. The 47 other winners included Rachael McDonald, vice president and senior analyst in the public finance group at Moody's Investors Service and Stephanie Larosiliere, senior client portfolio manager for Invesco municipal bond team, who both won 'rising star' awards.

"Citi views diversity as a source of strength," said James Forese, co-president of Citigroup and head of Citi's institutional clients group, the keynote speaker. "Attracting, developing, advancing and retaining female talent at all levels within Citi is very important to us. We are proud to partner with the Women's Bond Club to honor Debra and Reshma, along with all of the Club's Rising Stars on their well-deserved recognition."

Walton received the merit award, which recognizes outstanding professional contributions in financial services. Ms. Walton leads a group of nearly 4,000 people with end-to-end responsibility for setting the strategy and managing Thomson Reuter's information and analytics offerings.

Saujani received the Isabel Benham Award, which recognizes exceptional dedication to the advancement of women. Girls Who Code is a national non-profit organization working to close the gender gap in technology and prepare young women for jobs of the future.

"The Women's Bond Club, since its inception over 90 years ago, has made the advancement of women in finance its primary focus," Forese said. "Their engagement with Citi has inspired us to develop and foster our own company-wide women's programs, which, we are proud to say, have been very successful in connecting our female employees from all areas of the company and at all levels, and has had meaningful impact to both our employees and our client base. So thank you to the Women's Bond Club, for helping to motivate us."

The Women's Bond Club, founded in 1921, is a community of experienced women across a wide range of financial services and related industries. It has more than 850 members and counts over 40 of the leading financial services firms among its corporate sponsors.

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