With the Engineer Powerwoman Award, Deutsche Messe honors female experts who have rendered outstanding services in the scientific and technical disciplines.

The career prize is being awarded for the eleventh time this year. The initiative is intended to encourage companies to honor and promote the performance and special commitment of their female employees in STEM professions even more.
The three nominees for the Engineer Powerwoman Award 2023 are (listed in alphabetical order)

• Dr. Cristina Alonso Alija is Head of Sustainability, Safety, Health and Environment at Bayer AG. She studied chemistry and engineering in Barcelona, Spain, where she also completed her doctorate in organic chemistry, before her international career took her to the Netherlands, Argentina, Mexico, the USA and finally to Germany. Dr. Cristina Alonso Alija is a passionate scientist and a role model for all women in STEM professions. Among other awards, she is the recipient of the Otto Bayer Medal for her research on soluble guanylate cyclase stimulators, which led to the introduction of the innovative drug 'Adempas' (Riociguat). She is also co-author of 19 scientific publications (including a Nature publication) in international journals and co-inventor on 38 patent applications. As a sponsor of various corporate initiatives, Christina is committed to equal opportunities for women and men, for colleagues with different sexual orientations and for people with and without disabilities.
• Dr. Christina Franke has been Head of Development in the Assembly Technology business unit at Bosch Rexroth in Stuttgart since June 2022. After studying design and production engineering at Saarland University and spending a year abroad in Sweden, she worked as a research assistant at the Chair of Production Engineering from 1999. In December 2003, Dr. Franke completed her dissertation in the field of 'Process Chain Planning in the Digital Factory' at Saarland University. In June 2004, she started her professional career at the Bosch Group as a trainee and quickly took on management tasks in production and quality management. From 2011 to 2015, she helped set up production at the Powertrain plant in Wuxi, China. This was followed by an assignment as a consultant to the Bosch Board of Management. In 2017, she took over as Head of Technical Project Purchasing Commercial and Offroad Vehicles for Powertrain Solutions in the Bosch Group's Central Purchasing department. From mid-2019, she was responsible for engineering in the Corporate Research and Advance Engineering division, where she led innovation work in the areas of Industry 4.0 and electromobility, among others.
• Zen-Zen Yen is an up-and-coming leader in the pharmaceutical industry. She holds a Master's degree in Biotechnology from TU Braunschweig and started her career at Bayer AG in 2015 as part of the International Future Leadership Program. Within the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE), Zen-Zen Yen was instrumental in establishing an 'Emerging Leader' group for early career professionals in the DACH region in 2016, as well as developing the global Women in Pharma (WIP) program and the regional 'Women in Pharma' group in 2018 to promote mentorship and career development among female professionals in the field. Since 2016, she has organized several highly successful networking events, hackathons and mentoring programs in Europe and North America. In doing so, she provided a forum for women to exchange ideas and strategies for building their careers in the pharmaceutical industry. In 2019, Zen-Zen Yen became the first woman to join the Advisory Board of ISPE D/A/CH, of which she is now Vice Chair. She is also the International Chair of ISPE Emerging Leaders.