ATHENA Recipients

The Greater Pittsburgh ATHENA Awards Program recognizes exceptional women who demonstrate excellence in their profession, contribute to their community, and help other women and/or girls to succeed through mentorship.

Award Recipients

2023 ATHENA Award Recipient

The Greater Pittsburgh ATHENA Award recognizes exceptional women who demonstrate excellence in their profession, contribute to their community, and help other women and/or girls to succeed through mentorship.

Beth Marcello
Senior Vice President & Director, Women’s Business Development, PNC Bank

As director of Women’s Business Development for PNC Bank, Beth Marcello is dedicated to accelerating women’s financial equality. Under her leadership, the bank trains, develops and supports a corps of more than 5,000 PNC-Certified Women’s Business Advocates – PNC employees of any gender who have voluntarily completed a proprietary education program, applied for the certification designation and are especially committed to supporting the achievement of women financial decision makers. The bank is also working to help close the economic gender gap through a program Marcello initiated, Project 257®: Accelerating Women’s Financial Equality, an initiative inspired by the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Gender Gap Report, which said that it would still take women 257 years to catch up to men economically if more wasn’t done to accelerate progress.

In addition, Marcello has been instrumental in the development of PNC’s Men As Allies program to accelerate women’s advancement, and serves on the working group of IB ForWARD (For Women’s Advancement, Recognition and Development), an initiative that supports early career women at PNC.

Marcello’s impassioned support for women’s leadership is evident in her extracurricular activities as well. She is a founding member of Pittsburgh’s first women-focused angel investment fund, Next Act Fund; a loan review committee member for InvestPGH, a Community Development Financial Institution; a board member and grant committee member of the Birmingham Foundation; and an Emeritus Board member of the multi-generational mentoring organization Strong Women, Strong Girls. Previously, as a longtime member of the Athena Pittsburgh Host Committee, she served as both chair and co-chair of the annual Athena Award programs and was a founding member of the Barbara McNees Spirit of Athena Scholarship committee, which awards scholarships to an emerging women leader in the Pittsburgh region to attend the Carnegie Mellon Executive Leadership Academy: Strategies for Advancing Women in Business.

Before joining PNC in 2006, Marcello was president of PRwriting, Inc., a Pittsburgh-based firm that for nearly 20 years provided communications expertise to numerous companies and nonprofits. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism & Communications from Point Park University and for nearly 20 years taught public and professional writing as an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

2023 ATHENA Young Professional Award Recipient

The Greater Pittsburgh ATHENA Young Professional Award recognizes an emerging leader age 35 or younger who demonstrates excellence in her profession and who dedicates her time and talent to helping other women and/or girls thrive.

Yaqi Wo
Global Product Manager, PPG

Yaqi Wo is a global product manager, in Automotive Refinish business at PPG Industries, a fortune 500 company in the paints and coatings industry. Yaqi was born and raised in Hebei, China, and came to United States to pursue her doctor degree in Chemistry. She has over 11 years of experience in the chemical and materials industry and her expertise includes material science and innovation, business and market development, strategic planning and segment management. Despite chemistry being her professional training, Yaqi made a purposeful change of her career direction at PPG, to become a leader in the global marketing team, with the goal to drive organic growth through innovation and market development for PPG.

Yaqi is passionate about equal rights and believes that it is everyone’s right to access to advanced professional training to address any knowledge gaps. She has created multiple global training programs, both in person and online, providing PPG employees with easy to access channels to learn more technical and intellectual property knowledge. She is also a leader in PPG’s newly established Asian Employee Resource Group, championing programs to promote a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture through the education of non-Asian employees of the broader AAPI culture. Yaqi has received multiple awards from PPG CEO, including a PPG Way Silver Star in 2022 and a Cultural Change Maker award in 2023.

Yaqi is also a new mother, and deeply understands the challenges new mothers face when returning to work. She proactively provides her support to other new moms at PPG, and mentor many younger female colleagues on issues including work life balance, how to advocate for their career development, and how to manage parental guilt, balance family needs, and career advancement.

In her free time, Yaqi has enjoyed contributing through community outreach activities. Yaqi has been recognized as a United Way of Southwestern PA as a Next Generation Spotlight Volunteer. She also volunteers at community food banks, high school career days, STEM career panel discussions, and translating for state officials during business trips, among others.

Yaqi holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Michigan and has multiple publications with >600 citations by other scholars globally. Yaqi currently lives in Pittsburgh with her husband David and daughter Emma, and enjoys mixology, exercising, and traveling. She is also a passionate cook and baker, who enjoys sharing her love with friends and neighbors through food.