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WIL member Delphine Ernotte was appointed Executive Vice-president of Orange France by Stéphane Richard, newly appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of France Telecom – Orange. She was previously acting as Deputy Executive Vice President for operations in France alongside Stéphane Richard.

Delphine Ernotte graduated a renowned French engineering school, Ecole Centrale Paris. She joined France Telecom - Orange in 1989 to take up various operational positions, in research and development in particular. She then continued her career in sales management as Director of the Retail Distribution Network and as Regional Director for Centre Val de Loire. She became Director of Communications and Sponsorship for France in 2006 and was appointed Sales Director for operations in France in 2008.

In 2010, Orange France maintained its position as leader on the Internet and mobile markets with over 46% market share. At the end of 2010, Orange France had close to 80,000 employees and reported sales of 23 billion euros.

To meet the objectives set-out in the Conquests 2015 strategic plan, Orange France will set-up a new organisational model that is designed to bring together staff well-being and commitment, economic performance and customer satisfaction with the overall aim of positioning Orange as the leading operator in terms of customer experience in France.

Although many researches from the past few years looked at the reasons behind the leaky pipeline of women in ICT, the reality is that women are still a diminishing minority in ICT professions.

WIL member Cecilia Castaño, together with Juliet Webster and Rachel Palmen, hosted an international conference at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institut (IN3) in Barcelona which assembled researchers from 11 countries, who are examining traditional forms of gender discrimination through a lifecycle approach.

Given the fact that women are confronted with different challenges and opportunities at different life stages, the main lines of research looked at emerging forms of social exclusion associated with gender in the ICT sector and the solutions to deal with it. Among the practices discussed:

a comparative analysis of policies for gender equality in science in Europe

a UK/Spain comparative analysis of women in ICT throughout the lifecycle

workforce mobility in science and technology

women in computer sciences and telecommunications higher education in Spain

secondary school students and their study choice

gender at the interface of art, science and technology.

The presentations can be found on the website of the conference here.

The forthcoming 6th European conference on Gender and ICT will be held in Sweden, March 8th – 10th.

Cecilia Castaño is professor of Applied Economics at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and director of a Masters Program on Gender Equality. She is also the Director of a Research Program on Gender and ICT at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institut (IN3, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona). Visiting Professor at MIT, UC Berkeley and Harvard University.

WIL Board members Edit Herczog and Antonyia Parvanova and WIL member Edite Estrela were recognized for their outstanding work in the European Parliament at the MEP Awards Gala 2010 organized by the Parliament Magazine. Each year the magazine recognizes those members of the European Parliament who have MEPs they feel have done exceptionally good work in their policy area.

Edith Herczog

Edit Herczog was awarded for her efforts in the area of Justice & Civil Liberties, particularly for her fight against counterfeiting and piracy. Throughout her activity, Edit has been actively raising the public awareness upon the consequences of using counterfeit products for the economy and job creation. She is an active advocate for the protection of intellectual property online and is driving initiatives in the area from her role as governor of the European Internet Foundation.

Antonyia Parvanova

The MEP Award for Health was received by WIL Board member Antonyia Parvanova, who notably initiated a campaign on Patients' Rights in Europe in 2007 and has been actively involved ever since in pushing for healthcare policies that take into consideration the European demographic challenge and the need to cut health costs in the long-term, by investing in the current infrastructure. She is also campaigning for a standalone Health and Food Safety Committee in the Parliament, to address these issues more efficiently.

Edite Estrela

Awarded for her work in the policy area of Employment and Social Affairs, WIL Member Edite Estrela dedicated this prize to all European women. She has driven actions to ensure that gender equality is reflected in any legislation concerning Europeans’ professional and personal lives, particularly advocating for the right to paternity leave and the extension of maternity leave from 14 to 20 weeks.

Brussels is committing itself to boost investment in research by building on the strengths of the single market. This month, Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Máire Geoghegan-Quinn launched the "Innovation Union" flagship initiative for the Europe 2020 strategy, an initiative built together with Vice-President for Industry and Entrepreneurship of the European Commission Antonio Tajani.

Among its critical priorities, Innovation Union aims at creating a European Research Area (ERA) framework without obstacles to the cross border flow of people, ideas and funding as well as easing the access to finance, particularly for innovative start-ups and SMEs, by simplifying the funding procedures and encouraging private investments.

While business circles broadly advocate the need for a single innovation market, there are still several steps to pass until an agreement on the Community patent is reached. Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn has thus made it a key priority to hasten the pace towards reaching agreement and is also supporting the idea of a European market for patents and licensing, following good practices in France and Denmark.

Beatrice Covassi moves forward to the Delegation of the EU in Washington as the Digital Agenda Counselor, a newly created post which indicates the importance that ICT has today in the Transatlantic marketplace.

On November 9, in Washington, in the context of the session hosted by WIL at the Global Forum, Beatrice will share with us her views on how the EU and the US can work together on building a transatlantic digital market and increasing women’s participation in it.

More, she will be participating in the opening of the Forum, on behalf of Director-general for Information Society and Media Robert Madelin, and she will deliver a keynote speech on ICT for an empowered society at the opening session of the second day.

"I am thrilled to be the first EU Digital Agenda Counselor in DC and I am strongly committed to strengthen EU-US relations on all the pillars of the Digital Agenda. ICT offers powerful means to face some of today's global challenges such as reducing energy consumption, supporting an ageing population, strengthening health services, and delivering better public services”, says Beatrice.

ICT is a hot topic in the political debates, as shown by the relevance of net neutrality and broadband policies on the US side, and the launch of the Digital Agenda by the EU Commission, the first flagship of its 2020 Strategy. Beatrice is expecting that key topics, such as e-Health, are addressed at the highest political level during the EU-US summit in November.

Well acquainted with the US private and public environments, having previously worked as policy analyst specialized in telecom issues for a major US law firm, Beatrice believes that closer EU-US dialogue on ICT matters can trigger a mentality change on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe, this would be much needed in areas such as increasing private investments in ICT research and boosting up ICT venture capital.

How about women in ICT? The Commission’s Cyberellas project, which offered to girls the possibility to shadow women with successful careers in ICT, or the recently launched TechWomen Program by Hillary Clinton, are positive examples of initiatives to encourage women to participate as leaders in the new digital economy.

We wish her a successful term in Washington DC!

Marina Niforos was one of the co-founding partners of WIL while she was at INSEAD, and will be assuming new responsibilities as Managing Director at American Chamber of Commerce in France as of September 6th, 2010. Marina will be responsible for running the operations of the business association on a day-to-day basis.

“My ambition for the AmCham is to refocus this great brand along the changing needs of the 21st century, providing our members with concrete business development opportunities, access to value-added economic intelligence, policy decision-makers and visibility through marketing platforms and high-level events. I encourage you to take maximum advantage of our dynamic organization, and its outstanding services. It uses its voice to create awareness of the key issues impacting business and by providing a forum where ideas and information can be shared. We provide them rs of more than 70 major multinationals participate in our Advisory Board.”

The American Chamber of Commerce is the primary collective voice of US companies located in France, with a very long history (founded in 1894). More than 80 multinationals participate in its advisory board. Its main mission is to proactively promote a constructive business dialogue between the US and France and to underline the importance of the economic transatlantic relationship.

“AmCham is still dedicated to its original mission, which consists in being the main conduit between the public authorities and the private enterprises on both sides of the Atlantic” says Marina.

Immediately before joining the Chamber, Marina served as Director for the Diversity and Leadership Center of Excellence at INSEAD, where she created and developed the Center’s academic and outreach activities, negotiated strategic partnerships, including with the World Economic Forum and the World Bank, Microsoft and Unilever, and successfully conducted fundraising for the Center. Before that, she had spent several years working for the Pechiney Group in corporate strategy and corporate venturing functions of the Group. Prior to coming to France in 1998, Marina spent five years with the World Bank Group in Washington, DC, managing the relationship with the country borrowers. Her responsibilities included management of country strategy and sizable investment portfolios (+1.6 billion USD) for Latin American countries, the last two years notably as Country Officer for Colombia, where she received the Award for Excellence by President Wolfensohn for assisting borrowers with sovereign debt management.

Marina also serves at the European Advisory Board of the Healthcare Business Women’s Association.

Marina is a summa cum laude graduate of Cornell University in Government and International Relations. She also holds a Masters in Government Administration from the University of Pennsylvania and a Diploma in International Relations and European Studies from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. In 1999, Marina obtained her MBA from INSEAD.

French economic newspaper La Tribune recently launched an award recognizing women shaping the French business environment. WIL is honoured to have two outstanding members selected by La Tribune.

Out of the 42 candidates, fifteen successful women will be distinguished for their successes and will be profiled in the September editions of the newspaper, before the jury and the public make their final choices.

WIL Members Catherine Ladousse and Béatrice de Clermont Tonnerre have been nominated in the category Emerging Markets, respectively Technology & Media.

Catherine Ladousse is vice-president corporate marketing & communications for Lenovo EMEA. From 1995 to 2005, she has been director for communications at IBM. When Lenovo bought IBM’s PC division in 2005, she took over the responsibilities for internal and executive communications for Lenovo EMEA and in 2008 she was entrusted with leading Corporate Marketing & Communications for Lenovo EMEA. At both IBM and Lenovo, she has launched several women’s initiatives, such as InterElles, a network gathering women from the technological sector, or the Women in Lenovo Leadership network. The nomination in the Emerging Markets category comes as recognition of her contribution to tightening the business relationships between France and the Asian countries.

Béatrice de Clermont Tonnerre is vice-president business development for Lagardère, an important French media conglomerate. After graduating from Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (BA in Politics) and the Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales (MBA), Béatrice started working as a radio journalist. She moved on further to Matra, a French company producing high-technology, which became a subsidiary of the Lagardère group in 1995. In 2001, Béatrice joined CanalSatellite as Head of Interactive Television, signing the first IPTV program deals in France. She rejoined Lagardère in 2005 as head of Business Development and co-head of Investor Relations.

Vote their profiles here.

With the sponsorship of Christine Lagarde, French Minister of Economy, Industry and Employment, Wimadame.com held the first European Female Entrepreneur Gala, at the no less prestigious location than the European Parliament.

Together with six other outstanding women across Europe, Isabella Lenarduzzi has been awarded for her entrepreneurial skills and for promoting women in leadership through her editorial in the Belgian magazine Elle. Isabella is a successful serial entrepreneur, and is currently organizing one of the most known forums dedicated to professional women across Europe, the JUMP Forum.

Katherine Corich’s company, Sysdoc won a well-deserved award for having created a work culture embracing flexibility, championed from the very top of the organization. The prize is all the more important, given the status of the other nominated companies, KPMG and National Grid.

As Sysdoc was moving its original operations from Australasia to UK, it needed to attract loyal customers who would recommend and repeatedly use its services. How? By attracting a previously untapped pool of management consultancy talent which supports the operations. However, while the consultancy sector is generally male-dominated, at Sysdoc, 50% of consultants and 60% of its board members are women with child caring responsibilities.

By creating a flat organizational structure, which brings career evolution opportunities, Sysdoc encouraged a more flexible working schedule, removing the stigma of part­time working by offering it to all employees, even senior executives and actively encourages individuals to consider both work and life aspirations.

Many of today’s achievements of women in business receive scant media coverage. However, globally three quarters of the employment opportunities created between 1990 and 2006 have been taken by women and, as Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen stated: ‘Women are the most powerful vector of economic and social change’.

The French newspaper La Tribune, in partnership with Women Equity for Growth, run by Dunya Bouhacene, is kicking off a campaign aimed at recognizing women’s leadership abilities and enhancing the status of women in the business environment, either as business executives or entrepreneurs.

The application is open to any women who, through their work, have brought their contribution to the development and transformation of France. La Tribune will publish weekly the profiles of each of the nominees so as to promote and showcase their achievements.

On the 8th of November, during the “La Tribune Women’s Award” ceremony in Paris, five of the nominated women will be awarded in the categories: Finance, Green Business, Technology & Media, The Luxury Industry, Developing Countries.