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During a terrific eight years as the head of FRENDS Technology, a growing Finnish software company specialized in business process integration, Aino-Maija Fagerlund managed to both transform it from a business and organizational perspective and to shift its technology focus.

“One of the turning points was definitely in 2005, when I managed to convince our R&D department to build our own product on top of third-party technologies. It was a huge strategic decision for Frends”, explains Aino-Maija. Her decision to set this turning point led the business last year to a steady rise in customer and personnel satisfaction, and an overall growth of 50%, which is rather exceptional in the ICT field.

Aino-Maija is convinced that such examples can play a part in paving the way to entrepreneurship for other women, especially in a male-dominated sector such as ICT. Behind her success stands a clear vision of the qualities needed of an entrepreneur: “Before taking any steps towards becoming an entrepreneur, one must have an Idea and strong Belief in it, as well as a View of how it can be realized. Education and know-how will provide the required confidence – it’s very important that women acquire these qualifications.”

Besides her work as CEO for FRENDS Technology, Aino-Maija also serves as a board member of the Tekes Technology Program Fund, the main public funding organization for research, development and innovation in Finland, a responsibility which permits her to help other technological innovation-based businesses, as well as businesses led by other women

All these stories will be shared by Aino-Maija on September 29th, at our working breakfast in the European Parliament.

Last month, the EU Commission held a conference analyzing its roadmap for 2006-2010 for equality between men and women.

Belinda Pyke and Daniela Bankier, were involved in the discussions, which addressed equal treatment legislation, its integration into all EU activities (“gender mainstreaming”) and the ways to limit the effects of the economic crisis on women.

Ministries from the Czech Republic, Spain, Austria and UK, Commissioners Vladimir Spidla and Margot Wallström, social partners, experts as well as NGOs joined the event in an effort to push the gender roadmap forward as, after almost 3 years since its inception, women are still highly under-represented in economic decision-making and in European politics.

INSEAD and Unilever established a research fund in leadership and diversity with a gift of €3M in honour of its recently retired CEO, Patrick Cescau. The inaugural two-year study will explore ways to increase diversity at the top ladders of organisations.

The research will focus on experiences of men and women from diverse backgrounds as they prepare to move into more strategic leadership roles in the current uncertain economic context.

"Investing in gender diversity is a strategic decision for a company whose consumer base is 80% women", says Sandy Ogg, Chief HR Officer in Unilever. The company decided to address gender diversity as a key leadership issue when observing that, each year, 55% of the new hires were women but women only made up 8% of senior leadership positions in the following years.

Of the 736 MEPs elected, 35% are women. Thirteen of them are WiL members to which we send our best wishes. Be sure to count on our full support in addressing the “leaky pipeline” impeding many other women from moving up in their careers.

Jennifer Campbell, Secretary General of L’Oreal Corporate Foundation, and Beatrice Dautresme, VP Communications, have prepared their company’s centenary. In celebration, the company launched 100 citizen projects throughout the world.

WiL has met recently with Global WIN, a forum gathering several dozen of executive women of IT companies, with a strong support of US Congress Women.

GlobalWIN and WIL have agreed to welcome any WiL members traveling in Washington. They are constantly trying to bring together individuals and organizations with common interests, particularly in the area of technology, and also enable other women to step up and use their potential.

If any of you want to connect with the members of GlobalWIN and establish different initiatives with them, please contact Thaima.

A recent EU Commission report shows that men have been affected by the downturn more than women, as sectors hit hardest are predominantly male-oriented. As a result, the previously significant gender gap in unemployment rates has disappeared.

On 3rd of March, in celebration of International Women’s Day, the WiL network signed the Code of Best Practices for Women and ICT, launched by EU Commissioner Viviane Reding, under the umbrella of the Cyberellas initiative. Five other signatory company representatives participated, from Alcatel-Lucent, IMEC, Microsoft, Motorola and Orange FT.

Claudine Schmuck and Thaima Samman highlighted WiL as a supportive network for women’s careers, including those working in the ICT sector, through the mentoring framework put in action and its policy outreach actions.

Bringing together the best practices of industry, public organisations, academia, NGOs, the Code is developed as a web address-based tool where other entities are invited to consult, bring improvement suggestions and sign.

On February 4, 2009, Shivia Microfinance charity celebrated their launch at the House of Lords with the support of EFG Private Bank. Shivia Microfinance is focussed on reaching out to the poorest of the poor to help them access funds in order to set up micro businesses. The invite only event was attended by some 85 executives and high net worth individuals including a large number of Lords and Ladies who care about giving back at a grass roots level.

Shivia partner, Jayanta Ray came from Kolkata to speak about how local villagers, mostly women are impacted in a positive way by leveraging loans in order to alleviate themselves out of poverty. The women make saris (traditional Indian dress), jewellery, baskets and other items for sale. This week, the team will go to Gujarat to work in the slums with micro businesses. The goal is to incorporate the use of technology so that these businesses can be more efficient, scale and alleviate poverty in a meaningful way.

To learn more about Shivia Microfinance, please visit www.shivia.com and to bid on the online auction for a limited edition BEO Sound System 9000 donated by Bang and Olufsen click on the bottom left of the home page.