2009 is over – one of the toughest we have probably ever experienced in our times – and the new one has just begun, for which we already have high expectations.

Before introducing the objectives we would like to attain in 2010, let’s provide an overview of PWA Milan’s past year. We have reached a number of achievements that we are quite proud of:

• Increased our visibility and credibility as an international professional network focused on the development and enhancement of women’s careers: in 2009 PWA Milan was mentioned more than a dozen times in the media;
• Organized many successful events, such as “Women in Finance” in collaboration with Korn Ferry International with more than 150 participants, and the “Ready-for-Board Women” initiative with over 200 attendees; and
• Became a point of reference on issues related to women on boards of directors, as we were the pioneers in carrying out a promotional initiative entirely based on merit.

At the same time, we continued striving to improve our array of regular events. We introduced a more interactive and structured format for our networking aperitivi, to facilitate and increase the possibilities of making new connections. We offered a series of skill-building workshops facilitated by our PWA coaches, and sponsored many stimulating events, conferences and initiatives.

We have also created an important new page on our website, devoted to our members’ events. Members can promote their activities and events, and thanks to our newsletter mailing list, reach out to more than 600 women.

The concrete consequence of these activities and efforts is significant growth in membership: we ended 2009 with close to 200 members (+ 19 % compared to 2008). Further, we have increased the number of local corporate members – welcome and thank you to Accenture, and many thanks again to Sodexo and Latham & Watkins. Our most sincere congratulations go out to our Corporate Member Maria Cristina Storchi, Equity Partner of Latham & Watkins, for being listed in the first edition of the official Ready-for-Board Women directory.

As for 2010, the new Board has already begun its efforts to add more value and benefits to membership in PWA, and to increase PWA’s visibility to attract more members. The key projects the Board aims to focus on in 2010 are:

• Continue developing the Ready-for-Board Women initiative, with two fundamental goals: attain a higher number of PWA members in the directory, and support the growth of the number of women in general on Boards of Directors of companies in Italy;
• Launch the first-ever PWA Milan mentoring program, in response to the oft-cited need for today’s professional women to have access to more mentors and female role models in order to reach even higher levels;
• Define, share and begin the implementation of PWA Milan’s Strategic Plan, actively involving our membership in the process of shaping the future of the association.

We will also offer more structured networking events, to assist our members and guests in successfully building and widening their network. We are determined to organize beneficial and well-attended speaker meetings with inspiring presenters and panel members, thereby providing more occasions to learn new skills and share best practices.

In order to ensure the possibility of member involvement in developing PWA Milan and in sharing our objectives and actions, we will add two members-only, extra events (in addition to our General Assembly). These will represent the occasions to discuss the association’s Strategic Plan and, together, better plan for the future of PWA.

We hope you will support us in this challenging path: as individuals we have the possibility to make things change, but as a group we have the power and visibility to make things happen. Be part of it!

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 25^th.

 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

This year marked the eighth annual Women’s International Networking (WIN) Global Leadership Forum, held on 6-8 October in Geneva. Nearly 500 women and men convened on the subject of “Leadership for the Future”. PWA has been a partner network of WIN since the conference began in Milan in 1998.I am often asked what WIN is like, what it is all about. In the words of the WIN website <www.winconference.net>, the annual forums are “designed for women and men who want to be part of shaping the newly emerging paradigm of leading results through authentic action”.

But what does this really mean?

The interpretation of such a phrase would surely vary from one participant to the next. However, I think all would agree that the conference provides:

the possibility to gain relevant skills and knowledge via specialized workshops;
the chance to make new business, associational and personal contacts, and to renew existing ones, during the many networking occasions built into the programme;
and especially – and here is where the “shaping the newly emerging paradigm” comes in – the opportunity to gain inspiration, motivation and new ideas, through the plenary speaker sessions and debates.
This year, four key concepts threaded their way through the presentations, all essential components of successful leadership in the 21st century. These, in my view, represent the meaningful and inspiring core of the conference.

Know your strengths and believe in yourself
Nearly all of the speakers emphasized this trait, in as many different ways: Know yourself, what makes you tick, what gives you energy. Find the environment that you thrive in and that is best for you. Know what you’re good at and like to do, and do it. Identify your distinctive competencies. Don’t try to improve from incompetence to mediocrity; it’s much easier to go from good to excellent. Draw on your gifts. Don’t submit to your fears and insecurities. Get out there and use 100% of your potential.

One woman’s story, that of Victoria Petrova, was particularly striking. Victoria followed her dream, trained as a doctor and became a cardiologist. However, she could not afford to remain in that profession. Since Russia’s centralized medical system paid so poorly, she could not come close to supporting herself and her family. Therefore, she became a secretary in the better-paying world of business. Victoria worked her way up step by step, believing in her abilities and persevering, despite difficult moments. She is now head of Human Resources at Rusal, the third largest aluminium company in the world.

Presenters repeatedly referred to the phenomenon that men think they are better than they really are, whereas women do not think they are as good as they truly are. One often-quoted statistic: men apply for a position and think they can do it well if they master 60% of the job, whereas women tend to do so only if they know 100% (or more!) of the job. According to Mr Alex Tosolini, a firm believer in the abilities of women – and, incidentally, General Manager of Procter & Gamble, Poland and the Baltic States – women need to learn to be arrogant in order to close further the gap with men in the corporate world. His reasoning: if women start learning to be arrogant, they might start realizing that they are better than they think … and it is unlikely that they will actually become arrogant in the process.

Know where you are going and make the right choices
The second prerequisite for effective leadership is being clear on your goals, setting the bar high, and pursuing them relentlessly: As long as you have the passion for it, you can do whatever you want. Stop talking about it and start making it happen. Go after opportunities when they arise. But don’t choose the easier roles. If you don’t push, stretch and challenge yourself, you will be contributing to that infamous glass ceiling by inadvertently limiting your possibilities for advancement. Rediscover the courageous person that you are. Take risks!

Women are more and more assertively choosing their priorities these days. This may be considered as making sacrifices, yet it really boils down to making strategic choices and accepting them. Women are taking control of their lives, not letting outside factors control them. Work-life balance, anyone?

Food for thought, on the subject of choices: Alex Tosolini, originally from the Turin area, knowingly chose to work for a company that rewards performance (Procter & Gamble), rather than working for the main local Italian employer … because of the high levels of nepotism that still exist in Italy.

Build bridges, make connections
In today’s world it is becoming increasingly necessary to establish connections – between individuals, departments, companies, cities, governments, and so on. The world is becoming “inter-reliant”. Good leaders “create a common platform”, have “cross-boundary rotations”, and “encourage open collaboration between eco-systems”. In short, they network effectively. The ability to build bridges, relationships and partnerships is crucial to achieving success.

Women, as it turns out, are better at relationship-building than men. Women excel at working well in groups and have higher levels of social intelligence, i.e. the ability to communicate with, motivate, understand and leverage the skills of others.

As one presenter quoted, “It’s time to realize, brethren, that a woman is not just a female man” (Ogden Nash). Women are capitalizing on their differences, differences which are major strengths in today’s bridge-building world. Hence the inevitable conclusion drawn: the future is for women.

Believe in the future and your impact on it
Yes, the future is indeed for women, and it is also unpredictable in other ways. Consider the following titbit of data: 80% of the technology that will be used in the next 10 years has yet to be invented. The future is not traced out. Bottom line: we can all have an impact, no matter how big or small. Effective leaders believe so, and live and lead accordingly.

“No person can make a greater mistake than [s]he who did nothing because [s]he could only do a little.”
(adapted from Edmund Burke)

***
As every year, there were a number of accomplished leaders at the WIN conference – leaders from the business world, from academia and think tanks, from NGOs and non-profit institutions. They were of varying nationalities and ages, some men, mostly women, different in many respects. Yet there was a clear common denominator: all of these leaders displayed the traits mentioned above. They “walked the talk”, as it were. Confidence in their abilities, passion, enthusiasm and determination in pursuing their goals and belief that they could indeed make a difference brought them to where they are today. May they be a model for us all.

See you at WIN 2006!

Valerie Ryder
President

A big welcome back to all of you who spent your summer holidays elsewhere, as well as those who, like me, enjoyed the gloriously empty Milan of August.As the new PWA board is officially in place and working toward organizing events for the term, I’d like to point out a couple of changes – compared with the last PWA year – that are based on feedback received from members throughout the year as well at the General Assembly held in May. Looking at our calendar, you will see that we’ve returned to the practice of scheduling events on the first and third Wednesdays of each month, except where bank holidays interfere and in the month of September, when we have traditionally delayed the first meeting after August so that as many members as possible are back from wherever summer took them.

The speaker meetings held at the Starhotel Rosa will be held on the third Wednesday of each month, while the networking aperitivi will be held on the first Wednesday. This year, the aperitivi will be held at one central location every month at Centro Svizzero, Via Palestro 2, off of Piazza Cavour in the bar on the fourth floor, La Terrazza.

Soon we will be sending out a survey asking you for your opinions on PWA events. Please take the time to answer, as we will be taking into account your opinions as we continue to tailor our program.

One objective we as the board agree upon unanimously – we’d like to motivate our members to personally participate in helping PWA deliver what matters most to all of us. What part will you play?

Maria Lassila
President, PWA

September, like January, is a month of new beginnings, but why? Is it because children start a new year at school and we feel like we want a new start too? Is it because we’ve had the opportunity to spend time away from work, away from the usual routine, and end up reflecting on ourselves, our life and work? Whatever the driver, I’d like to reflect on the first nine months of 2008 and then share future plans.First, I have to say congratulations! Over the past nine months we’ve achieved some great things, including:

• Being cited on Il Mondo as one of the leading women’s networks in Italy
• The phenomenally successful coaching series – over 60 women have actively participated and all sessions have sold out quickly;
• The “Women on Boards – Moving Mountains” event brought more than 170 people together to learn what’s happening across Europe and identify ways we can improve the horrible Italian situation;
• Hosting the WIN Mobilizing Women Tour where we heard inspiring women share their stories and got to know new people better.

And what’s more, all of these are on top of our regular activities: networking aperitivi, speaker meetings and our monthly newsletter. Thank you, PWA members, for your active contribution to these achievements.

So what does the rest of the year have in store and what are we planning?

• In October we’ll have another special event with a top class panel of speakers. All I can say now is that it will be open to men and I promise you’ll get all the information very soon
• We are also currently developing a unique and breakthrough project around Women on Boards in partnership with Rosanna D’Antona and Laboratorio Armonia. If you want to take part or contribute, either talk to one of the board or contact me directly at president@pwa-milan.org
• Members only: please reserve 29 October in your agendas for the PWA General Assembly. The assembly is where we will discuss what we’ve achieved in 2007/08, review our financial situation and give 2009 board candidates the opportunity to present themselves.

That last sentence may have caught you by surprise but we’ll soon be having our annual elections for the 2009 PWA Milan Board. If you are a PWA Milan member, start thinking about whether you’d like to be on the board and keep an eye on the website in the coming weeks to read about the positions available.

I look forward to sharing more on our initiatives in the next months and announcing some important partnerships. Please continue to share you thoughts, suggestions and energy with us so that together we make PWA Milan an open environment for the free exchange of ideas, advice and support.

I wish you all a great new beginning,

Monica Pesce
President, PWA

First of all, we would like to thank SDA Bocconi for supporting this initiative and hosting this event.The first day was devoted to analysing the past year’s results: membership evolution, new networks, website features and updates, think tank groups’ news, corporate sponsors and financial results.

We would like to welcome our three new networks launched in Germany in 2008: Berlin, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf. This brings EuropeanPWN to 17 networks all over Europe and more are expected in 2008. The enlargement of our network gives us the opportunity to get directly in touch with more countries and hence more professionals, providing us all with the possibility to network on a European level. Despite different cultures, we all realized that the challenges we are facing are very much the same: from increasing membership so that members have a powerful network and can compare experiences; to the need to have more members actively involved in our activities. The only way to make concrete change is to act.

With Margaret Milan cited as one of the top 10 “women driving change” in Europe; Mirella Visser nominated for European Campaigner of the Year 2007 for her work on promoting women’s growth; our BoardMonitor on FT; our membership of over 3.500 across Europe; and the 500+ events we organise every year, EuropeanPWN is recognized as a visible, powerful and influential International network in Europe. Our internationalism is one of our shared values and differentiates us from all the others in Europe. Now that we are becoming a point of reference, the time has come to lead change in business and politics.
The EuropeanPWN online platform has been updated with new features, such as the Business Xchange tool, that enables every member to promote her activity and competencies and provide members with special offers. Online participation, through the forum in particular, is growing and usage of the internal directory that enables you to search within the 17 networks categorically (name, industry, company name, local network, etc), has incredibly increased. This gives me the opportunity to underline once again the importance of creating, feeding and updating your online profile, in order to exploit completely the benefits of this powerful tool.

Think Tank Groups, after their launch 18 months ago, have been effective at surveys, knowledge sharing and tools creation. A new TTG on networking was launched at the beginning of the year and the first outcome expected is a book on how women network, that should be published this autumn. The MATRIX, as this self-coaching tool on “Your first 100 days in your job”, is online now for you all to test it.

We have had an evolution within corporate sponsors, with Deloitte still our platinum sponsor, now together with Orange. We are proud to announce that Sodexò and Coca Cola are now EuropeanPWN corporate sponsors too, together with IBM, Mercer, Mexx, Aon, Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco.

We also had the official presentation of the BoardMonitor 2008 data during a press conference kindly hosted by Egon Zehnder in their wonderful location, who have partnered with EuropeanPWN on this research project since the very beginning in 2004.

As it is a tradition to offer a small gift to the visiting Presidents, we reflected a lot on what we would have liked to have given as a gift and in the end our decision was to offer them a present to people in need. We donated the sum devoted to our Presidents’ gift to Siticibo to support their useful initiative.

The Saturday morning meeting was devoted to sharing best practices. From how to attract corporate sponsors to how to motivate network volunteers, from creating events and activities that appeal to our corporate partners to how to plan and implement a mentoring program. These 4 hours offered all the Presidents a concrete opportunity to learn from other networks experiences, and to share ideas and create new projects and initiatives and, most important of all, create awareness that we are all sharing the same ambitious goals and facing the same challenges.

As PWA Milan the success story I presented was the Coaching Program, that has attracted 48 women up to now, with each single workshop sold out within a couple of days from the launch with long waiting lists, that have convinced us that we should keep offering such opportunities to our members and enlarge the scope of workshops offering some new ones on topics different from coaching.

In conclusion, the EuropeanPWN Annual General Meeting has been a great opportunity to share experiences and best practices with other networks, making us all aware that, despite differences in names, history, network origin and roots, membership size and of course country, we are willing to grow together and to reach great achievements.

Monica Pesce

A month and a half has passed since our adventure as a board started and many things have happened in the meanwhile.
I would like to take the opportunity to say some thanks, and ask for your support for our many future projects and activities.I would like to thank all board members and their assistants for the passion and energy they show every single day; this is what you need to overcome difficulties and obstacles.
I would like to thank in particular Viviana for her determination and passion which made our first press appearance in Il Mondo possible and I am sure this is only the beginning.
I would also like to thank Rebecca for having put in place a members-only mailing list available that makes direct communication to members possible. If you feel like you need support on how to use it and would like to learn more, please write an e-mail Rebecca to at webmistress@pwa-milan.org or ask any of the board members during our next events.

On a personal basis, I would like to thank Nancy Fina for having activated her contacts to help me find a professional photographer for a corporate picture I needed within 2 days. The following day I was at Sabrina Tanzi’s studio for an incredibly funny and very professional shooting, the result of which is in front of you on the magazine. This is just an example of the power of a network: you can easily find high profile professionals in almost any field that are willing to support and help you find the answer to your needs.

Moving to an exciting project and the topic of the next event -coaching. This truly represents an example of what we would like PWA Milan to be When Vered called Antonia to let her know that she was unable to come in February as planned, Cristina Gianotti was already starting to plan an event on coaching. To us it was natural to ask her to take on the February event.
The wonderful thing that followed was the enthusiasms of all our PWA coaches towards the idea of a PWA Coaching Project, a project that will see our coaches provide workshops on specific topics of interest throughout the year. If you have ideas about future initiatives that you would like to work on and if your company is willing to provide meeting rooms for our workshops, please write to president@pwa-milan.org or to speakers@pwa-milan.org.

The PWA Coaching Project represents one of the many projects that are starting within PWA: we are now defining the EuropeanPWN President’s Meeting Project, we are starting to dialogue with SDA Bocconi and Laboratorio Armonia to develop a partnership within the EuropeanPWN MBA Initiative, we have foreign women networks constantly getting in touch with us to start special initiatives, just to mention the most important ones.
Any support from members is more than welcome and we believe it would be a great opportunity to get involved in organizing events and projects.

The most positive feelings I get through these first months as President of PWA Milan, are energy and passion. I see women willing to contribute and to bring their personal experience and professional competencies for the benefit of us all, a flow of ideas and enthusiasm that encourages us to do more.

Monica Pesce
President, PWA

Promises are only as good as the actions that follow up on them. When I and my fellow board members asked for your vote, we talked about our perception of PWA’s mission and how we felt we could best serve it. Now I’d like to confirm our plans for the upcoming year.

EuropeanPWN – One of our primary goals is to strengthen our relationship with EuropeanPWN and maximize our benefits of membership. Our first action was to offer to host the EPWN annual Presidents’ Meeting here in Milan and I am glad to announce that it is confirmed for June 27 and 28. It will be a great opportunity for PWA members to meet presidents from other networks, and we will be adding a special event for PWA members and EPWN presidents to meet and compare experiences in person with issues, strategies and activities on Thursday, June 26. In addition, it will draw local media attention and raise visibility of our association, as well as offer the opportunity for those of you who would like to get involved in organizing the event. If you are willing to support us on this project, please email me at president@pwa-milan.org.

Events - We will continue to hold one speaker meeting and one networking aperitivo per month, while our two annual parties will be held in July and December. Based on your feedback, we will also be reintroducing networking dinners throughout the year, to allow you to spend a relaxing evening for more in-depth conversation over a good meal. Mark your calendar for February 27, details to follow soon.

Speaker meeting venue – As you can see from our calendar, our next speaker events will be held at the Starhotel Rosa, located near Piazza Duomo. Centro Svizzero will be closed for reconstruction in January and has yet to confirm when the new incoming restaurant management will be in place. As it happens, Starhotel Rosa will close for major renovations in April. We’re currently looking at the other location options for the latter part of 2008 and will keep you updated. If you have any suggestions, please email me at president@pwa-milan.org.

Networking aperitivo venues – Based on member comments, we will be varying the networking aperitivo locations during the year. We’ll be selecting centrally-located spots that are convenient to mezzi, provide a comfortable space conducive to conversation, and offer good quality drinks and appetizers. Check the websites for updates, and if you have a suggestion, contact Maria at networking@pwa-milan.org.

Workshops - We are planning to add workshops to allow more in-depth exploration on topics of special interest. These might last several hours or a full-day, will have limited number of participants and will be available at a nominal fee. Many members have already offered their expertise in various areas for this format; if you have ideas or requests, please speak up! Marketing? Communication? Legal issues? We want to offer you what you are looking for in PWA.

These are our plans for the upcoming year, but before ending my letter I would like to share with you some of the reflections that I went through before deciding to stand for President.
One of the things I found most inspiring about the two WIN conferences that I attended was the constant call to action: it is always nice to spend time together talking about our life experiences, but it is not enough. If we truly want to shape the future, if we want to take charge of our lives and make things happen, we need to concentrate on action. The world we live in is not going to change if we don’t become aware of our power to influence as individuals and act upon it. Everyone of us is a role model to somebody else, whether it be partners, friends, colleagues, or members of the community.

I believe a primary duty of the board is to provide members with an open environment to encourage the free exchange of ideas, advice and support. Please work with us to shape it and make it the best that it can be.

I do believe we, PWA, are ready for action. We are ready to make our voices heard and make things happen. Start this journey with us, because together we can move mountains!

I look forward to a successful 2008 with your help.

Monica Pesce
President, PWA