European Professional Women's Network, Nice - Côte d'Azur
3 questions to Susanne Forsman-Hey, President EPWN
Nice - Côte d'Azur.
The network in Nice – Côte d’Azur has over 70 members representing 21 nationalities, with a distribution of approximately 60% entrepreneurs and 40% corporate employees working for the likes of IBM, Amadeus, CERAM Business School, EDHEC Investment Research, UBS, Cap-Gemini, Accenture, Air France-KLM, Galderma, CHU Nice, Crown Worldwide Group, the European Parliament, and Texas Instruments.
3 questions to Susanne Forsman-Hey, Président EPWN Nice - Côte d'Azur:
1. What was the EPWN Nice - Côte d'Azur’s role at this Annual Meeting (AM) and what were the main topics discussed?
The AGM takes place in a new city each year, so this was the chance to show case our region. The attendees, well accustomed business women, arrived expecting to hold a meeting in a holiday setting. They left positively surprised about the top-notch Team Côte d’Azur meeting facilities and the proximity and ease of the airport.
In addition to the formal AGM, the main topics and priorities were decided for the coming year. They include the third bi-annual study (performed by Mercer) of the representation of women on boards in European Top 50 companies; a programme to attract senior business women and give opportunities to connect them with peers Europe wide; an expansion of the Network’s proprietary collaborative networking platform; along with continuing our engagement on the EU Commission’s Network for Women in Decision making in Politics and Economy. Finally, many of the city networks operate highly-sought after mentoring programmes. The Nice Côte d’Azur chapter will be taking a leadership role in connecting the programmes, leveraging local best practices and offering inter-European mentoring partners.
2. Can you tell us more about the EPWN Nice-Côte d’Azur branch?
In the past year we have more than doubled our meeting activity from one to now 2-3 events per month. There are workshops targeted at teaching attendees a particular new skill, speaker events aimed at inspiring and motivating, ongoing clubs teaching and following up on progress on topics such as ‘creating your pitch’ and ‘goal setting’. The mentoring programme holds regular events to introduce and match new participants, and then, there are ‘pure’ networking events as well. Events mainly take place in Sophia Antipolis, but occasionally also in Saint-Laurent-du-Var, Monaco and Nice.
3. What other activities does the branch plan to organize in 2009?
On July 9th we have the pleasure of welcoming Ken Pope, a lecturer at the ESMT business school in Berlin, the IUM in Monaco, and the Eurecom in Sophia Antipolis, to lead an evening on “Reinvention Yourself - The joys and fears of change”. We round off the Spring semester on 23 July with networking drinks in Sophia Antipolis.
The Rentree always gives opportunity for new starts, so we offer a workshop on Brainstorming, delivered on September 8th by Wendy Buckley of London Innovation Center. On the 24th of the same month is a chance to get introduced to our mentoring programme, and possibly engage with a mentor or mentee.
On October 1st offers an interactive workshop on “How to support creativity and innovation for yourself, your business and your teams” led by Barbara Wilson, Professor at a number of Business schools and also one of the EuropeanPWN Nice founders.
At least 5 more events are planned for the Fall semester (“Defining your value proposition”; “Science, Philosophy and Principles of Happiness - Energy and its influence on our lives”, “Focusing on Solutions, not problems”, “Goal setting”, etc…) in addition to a celebration of our 10 years’ anniversary in December.
Contact email : President@EuropeanPWN-Nice.net
More information: www.EuropeanPWN-Nice. net
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