Letter from the President
Entering my second year as President of PWA Milan, I feel both enthusiasm for what we achieved in 2008 and the pressure to meet the expectations we have proposed for 2009.
The first year a new board takes charge usually begins with defining goals, making smaller or bigger changes, focusing on priorities and then starting to work. Sometimes the work phase is based on a “trial and error” approach.
The second year a board is in service; it has the moral obligation to show members that its work is starting to produce results.
Let’s quickly review the goals we set forth to achieve in 2009:
- The “Ready-for-board Women” project is now a reality: you will read about it in Il Sole 24ore’s special issue on women the first week of March, and it will be presented during the Sole 24ore Forum, “Leadership al Femminile”. The most important head hunters will support this initiative – Eric Salmon & Partners, Heidrick & Struggles, Key2people and Korn Ferry – and the results will be officially presented next autumn;
- The successful series of workshops we launched last year, thanks to the support and work of our PWA coaches, will be offered again. This year our coaches will present a series of skill-building workshops based on the corporate world;
- The first series of workshops will be completed by including workshops on entrepreneurship that will range from “Idea Evaluation” to “Public Funds for Women Entrepreneurs”;
- We will co-sponsor important initiatives and events, such as the Il Sole 24ore Forum, “Leadership al Femminile” (providing a special discount for PWA Milan members) and the second “Festival del Fund Raising”
- Introduce a round of speaker meetings, entitled “Women in …”, which will offer us the opportunity to learn from leading men and women and to better understand the key issues in specific sectors. This year we will focus on Finance, Technology and Fashion
- Offer our membership the opportunity to meet with other networks and widen their contact base, for example through the special networking aperitivo with the “Made in Italy and Luxury Goods” scheduled for March 25th.
We have finally launched our new website with some important improvements:
- more dynamic, thanks to regular weekly posts rather than a monthly newsletter;
- more interactive, giving our members and readers the possibility to communicate and share comments, thanks to the flexibility of wordpress
- immediate possibility to share with others interesting reports, articles and tools as soon as you find them
The new website’s features and flexibility will allow those of you who are more confident with Internet and the new media to fully experience the benefits of web 2.0. For those of you who prefer the old and comfortable e-mail, we will continue to send the usual monthly newsletter which will summarize and give you direct access to the most recent articles posted.
We strongly believe 2009 should represent a year of great achievements: we have gained the visibility we deserve and the time has come to make our voice heard. The Board alone cannot make a difference, but a network of smart, skilled and enthusiastic women supporting well-organized initiatives can achieve important goals. Today we already count more than 100 members for 2009, and the year has just begun!
Monica Pesce
PWA Milan Board President
Tags: Monica Pesce, PWA, women