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Biannual Meeting keynoted by Commissioner Vladimir Spidla
Posted in WIL event reports
11 June 2008 - Brussels
The highlight of the working dinner was a keynote address by the European Commissioner for Employment, Equal Opportunities and Social Affairs Vladimir Spidla, who eloquently spoke about the critical issues facing women in the workplace. However, the presentations of other speakers and particularly the lively discussion that followed have proven equally important valuable. We are still in a “work in progress” mode but the level of interest of successful women in positions of power clearly demonstrates a need and an existence of a vacuum when it comes to organizations like the Women in Leadership and Information Society Network, especially at the European level.
Thaima Samman, Associate General Counsel Microsoft spoke about the main achievements of the network thus far. One particular initiative she highlighted was the creation of the website, designed as a tool to keep the members of the network in touch between the meetings.
Aude Zieseniss De Thuin, founder of Women’s Forum in Economy and Society, explained her reasoning behind the creation of the Women’s Forum and its successes, giving an overview of the difficulties she experienced as a woman in business. She highlighted a particular initiative of the Women’s Forum, the Sci-Tech Girls, which aims to encourage young women and girls to enter into science professions by bringing them in contact with the women in this field.
Pamela Passman, Microsoft’s Global Vice President responsible for Corporate Affairs, followed with a presentation on the importance of skills and training for empowerment, independence and opportunity for women of all backgrounds. She particularly highlighted the role of skills and training as a vital bridge between education, entrepreneurship and leadership, at all levels of society and at all stages of an individual’s life. Pamela also spoke about the role of ICT for empowerment of both women and men today. She stressed the need for cooperation with both the public sector and the civil society to achieve concrete and meaningful results and gave as an example the Microsoft Community Technology Learning Centres, which are run in partnership with over 400 NGOs across the EU. They, for instance, provide services such as IT training courses for immigrant and refugee women, ensuring they can integrate them into their adopted societies.
Eugenia Bieto, Corporate Deputy Director General of the business school ESADE, gave a thought-provoking presentation upon a study on behavior patterns and success rates of men and women in the business environment. She stressed onexperience, education and role models as areas where men currently have a significant advantage. Eugenia went on to talk about role models and social connections in particular as the one area, where men have developed a greater depth of networks. “Networks play a very important role”, Eugenia pointed out. “There are many women’s networks out there, but they are rather insular, when in fact they need to be connected with other networks, male and female, to be effective”. In addition, she mentioned that the goal of the society should be to foster the entrepreneurship culture, in women in particular, as well as helping women to scale their businesse.
The keynote of the European Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs Vladimir Spidla, was the highlight of the evening. The Commissioner spoke about the importance of equality between men and women, in particular at the workplace, but also beyond. He put this in the broader context of social and economic benefits of equal employment for the society at large. He then outlined the European Commission’s existing and future policy outlook in regards to the advancement of women. The Commission’s primary target in the current 2006-2010 action plan for fostering women’s participation in employment is to reach the 60% employment rate for women by 2010 across the EU27. However, the main responsibility for this policy area remains at the Member State level. The Commissioner therefore stressed the importance of the latter ones to take a leading role and develop policies that offer a workable compromise between work and private life and offers women the right tools to compete and advance in their careers. Finally, he acknowledged that: “We all have a responsibility to act to improve the situation of women. All actors in the society need to come together if we want to successfully close this gap”.
Pascale Joannin, Director General of the Robert Schuman Foundation, briefly talked about the Foundation and the ideals it stands for. She highlighted the “Femmes, Passer Elles d’Europe” programme, which promotes gender equality in Europe. She also presented the statistics her organization collects on the role and number of women in positions of power, especially when it comes to the public sector and government. Pascale finished her presentation with an overview of all that has been done for women in Europe, highlighting the role and importance of European Institutions.
Finally, the women also highlighted a number of upcoming events, which constituted good opportunities for a follow up meeting. The very next day, Microsoft organized a roundtable for women and entrepreneurship, which the majority of members attended. The group was also invited to attend Microsoft’s Imagine Cup Finals in Paris and in particular the panel discussion with the European Commissioner for Education Jan Figel around the theme of promoting the interest of young women in science and information technology.
The Robert Schuman Foundation highlighted a conference taking place under the patronage on the French Presidency, “Women for Europe". Finally, Catherine Trautmann drew attention to an online petition (http://www.femalesinfront.eu) which calls on the European Commission to appoint a woman to one of the top positions it will be looking to fill in 2009.
A dynamic discussion took place, with ideas and opinions sometimes even bursting out during the presentations. Commissioner Spidla, seemingly not intimidated by being the sole man in the room, stayed for most of the evening, clearly enjoying the opportunity to call upon the individual expertise of the members. The dinner was a great occasion for the members of the network to meet again and discuss individual initiatives with fellow women of similar stature. On the other hand, it had provided more information and impetus to the new members, who left intrigued and excited to do more.
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