IQAir North America - Female Thought Leader of the Year

Company: IQAir North America
Company Description: IQAir is a Swiss-based air quality technology company empowering individuals, organizations and communities to breathe clean air through information and collaboration. Since its founding in 1963, IQAir has been a global leader and operates in more than 100 countries worldwide.
Nomination Category: Thought Leadership Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Female Thought Leader of the Year - Consumer Services

Nomination Title: Glory Dolphin Hammes

Glory Dolphin Hammes has been at the forefront of the air quality industry for over 20 years. Her career began at IQAir’s Swiss headquarters, and shortly after she launched IQAir’s presence in the North American market, fulfilling the role of CEO, IQAir North America. Under Glory’s guidance, the brand has become the gold standard in air quality and air filtration technology.

Glory’s role as CEO has also allowed her to pursue her passion for environmental justice. A strong believer that absolutely everyone should have the basic right to breathe clean air, Glory established the IQAir Foundation, on behalf of IQAir North America. The Foundation works directly with frontline communities, including community groups and schools, that are most affected by air pollution to educate them on the health impacts of air pollution. To date, IQAir Foundation has helped tens of thousands of children breathe cleaner air in school and has partnered with environmental groups to provide state-of-the-art air filtration technology for vulnerable members of the community.

As a result of COVID-19, air quality received heightened attention from media and consumers. The pandemic created a foundational understanding amongst the public that the air you breathe has a direct impact on your overall health. This awareness went into overdrive during wildfire season as the west coast battled a devastating season from August – December.

Thus, Glory become a go-to expert for media on air quality education and air filtrations products. The platform allowed her to educate on the different particles floating in the air that are harmful, the importance of replacing filters in HVAC systems and investing in air filtration, as well bringing attention to helpful resources like air quality apps.

In the past year, Glory has been quoted as an expert in CBS This Morning, CNBC, Fast Company, FOX LA, Rolling Stone, Real Simple, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today etc.

In addition to Glory’s media success, her visibility in the past year allowed her to join the International Well Building Institute’s Health Equity Advisory. In her Advisory role, Glory will continue her work on ensuring that all people have access to air quality education and places that are safe.

While many other competitors were focused on seizing the unexpected demand for air purifiers and air filtration products and making sells, Glory leveraged her wealth of knowledge and the company’s air quality database. A strong believer that humans do have the power to effect positive change on air quality and the environment, the pandemic lockdowns were the perfect experiment. With commuting drastically reduced, major cities experienced some of the cleanest air. In fact, Los Angeles, notorious for gridlock and smoggy skies, had the cleanest air in the world in April. IQAir distributed this data to news outlets and it began Glory’s campaign to educate the public on air quality – how human actions impact air quality, educating them on the effects of poor air quality, introducing air quality resources such as air quality monitoring app.

Once wildfire season began, IQAir was the go-to source for live air quality updates which lead to a spike of millions of new users to IQAir’s air quality monitoring pages for the states of California, Oregon and Washington.

While other competitors were telling stories about their brand growth, Glory was adding much needed context to an unusual year, and information to educational and informative air quality stories.