...as seen by an insider

When I first decided to see what PWA was all about four years ago, I had not the slightest idea of what it would be like. I arrived at my first meeting with an open mind; concepts such as "networking", "coaching" and "mentoring" were utterly foreign to me. I had never belonged to a group of women, other than my group of girl scouts quite a long time ago! Upon the recommendation of a friend, I attended PWA in the hopes of meeting professional women, including some from abroad like myself, who had issues similar to mine. I was more than pleasantly surprised with my discovery.

Since that decisive Wednesday evening, I have made some solid professional and social contacts, learnt new skills and made great strides in English. I eventually accepted a position on PWA's Board of Directors - and have not stopped serving on the Board since. This is my third term. Driving my decision to continue this year was my realization of the importance of building upon the work done up until now.

The Board's main focus last season was to improve PWA's professional services, benefits and status, and at the same time increase membership. With this in mind, a number of longer-term projects were set in motion. For example, PWA joined the European Professional Women's Network (EuropeanPWN) in January 2005 (more on this below), but only in September were we able to implement some of its features, such as online registration and payments. Additionally, last year's Board laid the groundwork for an improved Career Services function, with easy access to further career and business opportunities. We began to reinforce PWA's professional image and identity by revamping the website and other aspects of visual communication.

It was (and is) important to me, and to other Board members who continued on from last year, that we keep the momentum going, in order to see through to fruition some of the many projects in the works; hence our desire to continue serving on the Board.

Being a member of the Board, and belonging to PWA in general, has contributed greatly to both my personal and professional development. It has reinforced my convictions and put a name on certain concepts that I intuitively knew were important: openness to others; generosity as applied to professional growth; and total sharing of information. I have developed my ability to question continually my work methods, discovering new and better ways in the process. Moreover, I have been able to develop systematically my own network of contacts.

Building one's network is fundamental today, whether it be professional or social. A well-organized network saves time, allows one to acquire professional visibility and facilitates rapid information exchange. Our era is characterized by the ultra-rapid development of means of communication. If we do not jump on that train, we shall be left by the wayside, reduced to simple spectators of the times.

PWA was one of the pioneers in formalizing and developing women's networking in Italy. PWA has now made yet another step forward by federating with similar associations across Europe through its membership in EuropeanPWN. It is about creating synergy, the principle of which is by putting one and one together you obtain more than the sum of its parts. By federating, PWA acquires strength, credibility and visibility. And, especially, PWA and its members enrich their European network of contacts, a network constituted of professional profiles that are rich and varied, all available to be contacted via a simple click.

What is more, PWA is developing new ties with other organizations based in Italy: Manageritalia through their Women Manager Group, for example, and the International Women's Forum of Bologna, always with the goal of continued growth and development. PWA, as a partner network of the Milan-born Women's International Networking (WIN), participates actively in the annual conference (see WIN Conference 2005, this issue).

All of these changes - which I would prefer to call evolutions, since they seem so natural - have been carried out transparently and in accordance with the democratic principles that govern the association. They are the result of the reflection, choices and hard work of the PWA Board of Directors over the past months and years. Joining PWA was one of the best things I have done in terms of my career advancement; I am confident that these ongoing evolutions will continue to contribute to my professional development, as well as to that of all members.

Axelle Brown-Videau
Orientation Director

FAQs

Coming soon - new section on the website

A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section on the PWA website with answers to questions you may have on PWA benefits, administrative aspects, differences compared with last year, and more, will be launched in November 2005.

Raising the visibility of PWA members and their businesses

PWA is extremely fortunate to have represented within the group an exceptional pool of high-quality professional skills and services. Your attention is thus drawn to two new opportunities, which aim to raise the visibility of your own skills or business enterprise, at the same time helping other PWA members.

Members' Area: Services Board
The Career Services Directors, Ann Marinelli and Karmen Simic Raimondi, invite members to promote, free of charge, their business activity or the professional service they offer on the Services Board within the members' area of the PWA website. To participate, simply submit a brief description (max. 100 words) of the activity/service offered, together with a website link, to careers@pwa-milan.org for approval. Appointments may also be made with either Ann or Karmen during any one of PWA's events held at the StarHotel Rosa to discuss details prior to posting on the website.

Business networking
A Professional Services table will be available at PWA meetings from now on where members may put their brochures, flyers, business cards, etc., and indeed browse the professional literature that fellow members leave there.

Make the most of PWA's strong networking community and make it work better for you via these valuable, new benefits of membership!

The Board

Speaker Event

Speaker Meeting - All professional women welcome whether members or guests

What are the pros and cons of being a female war correspondent who has chosen to work independently? How does one cope with potentially life-threatening situations all alone, far away from home? Lucia Vastano will present her first-hand report, providing insight in to what lies behind the information presented by the media and in to her personal approach to work.

Lucia started travelling the world when she was a teenager and has visited many countries, including the USA, a country of which she is very fond. She has a degree in Political Sciences and started her journalistic career in 1982, working for various Italian and international publications and press agencies. She started working independently in 1987, and has since reported directly from many frontlines: Lebanon, Salvador, the Balkans, the Gulf, and, more recently, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Lucia has recorded her extensive travel experiences in several publications and has interviewed people like Yasser Arafat, Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Gandhi. She has written four books inspired by her professional experiences, the latest of which, Tutta un'altra musica in casa Buz, will be presented during the meeting.

Cocktails 7 p.m./Presentation 8-9.30 p.m.
StarHotel Rosa, via Pattari 5 (MM Duomo)
Free for members, €20 for guests payable in cash or by cheque at the event.

Members, please register your attendance now in the calendar section of the EuropeanPWN website <www.europeanpwn.net>

For guest reservations, and for more information in general, please contact speakers@pwa-milan.org

Speaker Event

Special Speaker Meeting - Conference Update

Such is the theme of the debate that PWA and the Gruppo Donne Manager of Manageritalia Milano, in a joint collaboration, have programmed for the second half of January.

A study undertaken by the Universita' Bicocca of Milan upon the request of Manageritalia has shown that face-time in the workplace - i.e. staying in the office beyond the "normal" work hours - is viewed positively by the top management of Italian companies. On the contrary, women managers who tend to work intensely during the day and leave earlier than their male counterparts, typically motivated by family obligations, are judged negatively. This represents a further discriminating factor against women managers and their careers, one that impacts many of PWA's members directly.

The objective of this conference is to set the stage for implementing change by sensitizing both women and men managers to the importance of having a beneficial balance between time dedicated to work and that reserved for one's private life.

Success Story

Aligned planets ... or applied persistence?

Like many Americans, after my first trip to Italy about 15 years ago, I fell in love with the country and dreamed of living here. Fortunately, my dream was in synch with Destiny and the Universe, and I arrived in Milan on 22 April 2004.

Following several years as a civil litigation (trial) attorney, I was hired as a Small Claims Court and Traffic Court Judge for the City and County of San Francisco. Four years later, the dream of moving to Italy began to compel me to take certain concrete steps toward its realization. During this period, I studied Italian and continued to visit my friends in Milan twice a year. And, in 2003, I started a 12-month programme at the University of California, Berkeley, to obtain a certificate to teach English as a Second Language (ESL). Just as my temporary job as a staff attorney for the State Compensation Insurance Fund came to an end, I graduated with the certificate in January 2004.

On 21 April 2004 I was on a flight from San Francisco to Milan-Malpensa. Although I had no immediate prospects of employment when I arrived in Milan, I did have the good fortune of immediately finding a great place to live. However, I did not arrive in Italy unprepared. I knew exactly what I had to do and how I was to do it.

The first step I took was to join the American Chamber of Commerce in Milan. I had business cards printed, presenting myself as an insegnante inglese giuridico e commercio. By June 2004, I was working as an English teacher, specializing in legal English, with Monroe Languages (now called More Languages) of Rome. A few months later, I attended a networking party at the American Chamber of Commerce and met a woman, who subsequently recommended me as a Visiting Professor to teach business English for 2 months at the University of Milan-Bicocca.

The second important step I took was to join the Professional Women's Association of Milan (PWA). A dear friend of mine, Marina Gastaldo Erwin, told me about the group, and we both attended a Speaker Meeting in early 2005. We decided to join.

It is often said that if you do not put yourself out there, no one will know that you exist. This is certainly true in every important aspect of life. During one of PWA's networking events, I met Susannah Lord and Karmen Simic Raimondi. I discussed my legal background with them and told them about my work experience as a language teacher in Milan.

The planets must have been perfectly aligned for me. A law firm in Milan, seeking an attorney who was also an ESL teacher, had contacted PWA. Karmen referred me to the firm. I sent my curriculum vitae with an email that same Wednesday evening to the law firm's contact person. The next day, I was called to come in for an interview. By the following week I was hired as a member of the firm's English Improvement Department.

To say that I am thrilled to be in my present position with Bonelli Erede Pappalardo is a huge understatement. When the right person is matched to the right job, life is simply wonderful; but when that "right person" is you, life is like drinking the perfect wine. My job entails the development and implementation of English language programmes for the law firm's one hundred plus attorneys in Milan, Genoa and Rome. Besides basic English classes, I have also developed several legal writing courses and oral communication classes. My years of experience as an ESL teacher, an appellate attorney, a jurist, an actress and a trial attorney have given me an extremely strong background in legal writing and public speaking.

The law firm is one of a growing number of large businesses that have created an in-house language department. English is the primary language of the global financial market. As Italy develops its commercial ties with countries in the Far East, such as China, Japan and Korea, as well as with the Eastern Bloc countries, such as the Ukraine, English becomes increasingly more important as the medium for business communications. I am honoured and excited to be a facilitator in this regard.

I am keenly aware that not everyone who comes to Italy or joins PWA has my admittedly unique employment background. However, I am only one of many people who have cast a huge net into the universe of dreams. I think the lesson is that, regardless of your employment history, age, gender or race, it is important to hold on tightly to your dreams. If the timing is right, take the bold steps to realize these dreams. When we leave this life, what we have to look back on is how we lived it.

Adele Fenstermacher
PWA Member

Networking Event

Why Laughter Is a Serious Thing...

Following Mr Gianni Ferrario's novel presentation at October's Speaker Dinner event, Anna Robertson reveals the science behind laughter therapy.

According to a recent article in The Sunday Times ("What you think", 2005), while a burgeoning happiness industry has recently published 3,000 papers, set up a Journal of Happiness Studies and created a World Database of Happiness in the last few years, a more official clout to such developments is being given by academic and scientific initiatives. This summer, the Royal Institution in London hosted a series of talks on the theme "Happiness, the science behind your smile". At almost the same time, at the London School of Economics, Dr Raj Persaud and the economist Lord Layard were debating the politics of happiness.

Recent scientific research is also showing that we can fight increasing levels of stress and depression by submitting ourselves to new kinds of therapies that increase positive emotion. Why is it that happy people are healthier, more successful, harder working, more caring and more socially active? Martin Seligman, an American Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, is the author of recent bestseller Authentic Happiness and its related website <www.authentichappiness.org>. What Dr Seligman is trying to establish is called the "biology of joy". He has in fact traced our tendency to negativity back to our evolutionary past: our brain evolved in the Pleistocene era, a time of ice, flood and famine, and it has thus learnt to look for what is wrong in the struggle to survive. Hence, the possibility to "train" our brains to produce happy feelings through a series of exercises.

Happiness and laughter are also important for our physical wellbeing: laughter increases blood pressure and heart beat but, unlike stress, reduces the levels of cortisol and adrenaline circulating in our bodies. We all probably acknowledge the fact that we could do with a bit more happiness in our lives. What's new is that being positive and happy are abilities that can be learnt and can help us in the workplace: just think of those frustrating meetings where one person tries to impose his/her decisions on others, or destructive criticism ("Yes, but..."), or indeed decision making flawed by negativity and risk avoidance.

It is difficult to resist the logic of the happiness doctors if they offer a way to a happy, long life, good health and social/professional success!

Anna Robertson
Speaker Events Director

Sources
What you think you want makes you miserable, so what do you have to do to find happiness? (2005, 2 October). The Sunday Times, Culture, pp. 18-21.

WIN Conference 2005

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

Networking & Professional Links

• Be the One The employment specialist in Fashion, Beauty and Retail - give it a try! <www.bethe1.com>
• International Women's Forum of Bologna <www.iwfbologna.com>
• Mestiere di Scrivere How to write letters, articles... everything in Italian. <www.mestierediscrivere.com>
• Mindtools Tips to manage your stress, improve your memory, and much more. <www.mindtools.com>
• The International Alliance for Women <www.tiaw.org>

Axelle Brown-Videau
Orientation Director

How to Join

Individual membership
To join, simply fill in completely and submit the online application form at www.pwa-milan.org. Probably the best way to find out if PWA Milan is for you is to experience the association by coming to one of our events as a guest. Meet members, ask questions, speak to the members of the board and see whether joining would be beneficial for you.

Membership fees

September 2005-December 2006 September 2005-December 2005

€135 €50

Corporate membership
Companies may join PWA Milan, enabling designated women employees to benefit from all that PWA has to offer. For further information, please refer to the website www.pwa-milan.org or email pwa@pwa-milan.org.