Growing up in developing countries is not easy. Being a women in a developing country is hard. Increasingly women are becoming the sole providers for their families. This makes their role even more important. But, how can they do that when their opportunities are limited by gender, education and health issues?

Actually, things are being done and done in a great way. I had a chance today to talk with Kalpana Simhan from Vital Voices. This organization is dedicated to invest and train emerging women and girl leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs who work to increase women’s and girls’ participation in all strides of society. They are present in Africa, Eurasia, East and South Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East.

Investing in women who lead other women is a cascading effect. They also help women promote equitable laws in their countries. What I really liked about this organization is that they don’t go to places and tell people what to do: they let women in communities lead their own. This is really important when working in social projects, it is not about “imposing” a right way, it is about respecting the way people do things and provide them with the tools and training to help them achieve their dream.

New technologies. New advances in medicine. We hear about a new drug to cure this disease, a protein that has been discovered, a new technology that will improve that process. But, what does it really mean? Are we all understanding the same thing? Who controls what is being researched or how should human enhancement, genetic testing, etc be used?

All of these questions have no definite answer, but the different points of view of a panel on the topic today gave me a pretty good idea of how differently humans can think about one same issue. The one thing the panel really agreed on was that it has be to “ethical”. Nick Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, gave excellent examples of how humans have reacted negatively to advances in medicine throughout history, for example anesthesia (something that I take for granted, how could I go to the dentist without it?). How can science and society interphase? According to Nick, through public understanding (when scientists explain to the general public how things work, in my case, it could be the equivalent to learning a foreign language in 24 hours), public engagements where people would have the chance to ask questions (sounds better) and bringing the public in an earlier stage of the research process.

When asked about why people resist to technological and scientific change, he commented that before, people were born, lived and died without really experiencing these changes during their lifetime. About 300 to 400 years ago, changes began to happen, so people have not “evolved” biologically to resist change, it’s psychological. It takes time for people to differentiate between good and bad ideas. Well, that leaves me thinking: how do we all agree what is bad and what is good? Where do we draw the line?

We are gathered here at the Women’s Forum discussing issues that impact women in business, education, society and politics. Why is there never a case for non-diversity? As women, we network and participate in forums to find ways to improve our position in society. Thousands of research and studies have been done on the impact of either having a low or a high percentage of women in a company. Today, McKinsey came out with a study called “Women Matter” (despite the English title, the report is in French, here in PDF). As Laura Liswood appropriately said in today’s panel on Women and Competitiveness, there is no “Do Men Matter” research.

Will we ever get to the point when women don’t have to fight the business case for diversity? Will it ever become a given that women and men are equal but different and that they complement each other? Will it ever be OK for a man to participate in a flexibility program without being seen as not ambitious? Will the percentage of women who have children and have a position in boards increase over time?

The Women’s Forum is a perfect place to debate all of this topics. For sure, there will be no right answer to any of this questions and the next generations of women will be responsible to carry on the torch and hopefully, they won’t have to fight the business case for diversity.

Missed some key points of various speakers while having coffee at the bar? Confused with so many insights and perspectives after attending numerous sessions? No matter what’s your background, the below-mentioned core take-aways for implementing gender diversity will be extremely useful for anyone seeking to reap the full benefits of diversity in the workplace (for managers as well as non-managers) . Move over Management Gurus, here the new management mantra:

7 steps to make gender diversity successful in the workplace :

• Make gender a strategic issue
• Get the executive team to define the business plan
• Let people express dissent
• Appoint a respected senior executive to head the initiative
• Make change before making noise
• Don’t mix managers
• Give it a budget, not just volunteers

Like in all gatherings, some of the most interesting discussions happened behind the scenes, or rather in a suffused tone over lunch. One of the interesting chats your ears on the ground picked up was about the very core issue of the conference – diversity policy in corporations, or why so few women get into company boards.

A few untold truths emerged at a table of European and US female managers from a number of European multinationals. First, they all agreed a convincing business case for gender diversity has to be presented to the (male) senior management. Only a business case can motivate change, and not fairness arguments. Second, many companies, especially those with low women representation, are pondering what to do to attract more diverse talent. The long-sighted ones have tasked their women employees attending the Forum to come back with an actions plan, which is an interesting approach of bottom-up ideas generation. Other companies have put procedures and diversity teams in place to drive change top-down, with substantial budgets. So far, no surprises.

More surprising was the fact that many of these female managers were not sure the top (male) ranks of the company were really sold on the idea of the business value of diversity. It is all up to how the CEO sees the issue, said one. One manager even said she will bring back ideas from the forum to her top executives, but she will not mention gender diversity as part of those discussions. The company’s top management does not see the value of this debate on gender diversity, she said.

More cynically, or realistically perhaps in some cases, one senior woman manager said that she thought there is very little appetite for women board members within all-men boards. Women board members would challenge the way things are done, and once you let one woman in, a few more would follow, and then what happens? All the women managers at that table noticed that their company boards had members from all corners of the globe, but no single woman. What a shame that European shareholders haven’t noticed the research from diversity consultancy Catalyst. This shows exactly the opposite, that women in top management perform better than all-men driven companies. If this is not a business case, what is?

Linda Lanzillotta, the Italian Minister for regional affairs, was in a panel today on political institutions. In introducing the discussion, moderator Christine Ockrent said that “Italy may be today the European country where distrust towards political institutions and leaders is the highest”. Lanzillotta (in the photo by Mario Farinato) agreed, but nuanced the statement, saying that “while national governments are in a phase of deep crisis of trust, the same is not true for regional and local governments”. I asked her to elaborate on this statement.

“In Italy the most popular institution is that of the mayor, who’s perceived as the one most capable of solving citizens’ problems — of doing the job institutions are supposed to do. Regions also have goodwill. At a national level instead, the government suffers from the perception of its own fragmentation, which makes impossible to lead change”.

This problem is not an Italian exclusive, I said. “Indeed: we are witnessing a drastic decline in trust in institutions globally. Governance systems are struggling everywhere”.

In Italy, the national political system right now is very much under pressure: there is a strong popular rejection of politicians and they perceived privileges, they’re called “the caste”. A book with that title, “La Casta“, is this year’s bestseller, denouncing a long list of advantages, immunities, and the “cost of politics” (the cost of the political system). I asked Lanzillotta about her reaction to the book. “It’s a source of information — I was also surprised by many things — and at the same time its success is a strong reminder of the necessity and urgency of political reform. On the one hand, the cost of some of our institutions is way too high: we need more financial restraint. On the other hand, we clearly have too many institutional levels and structures (and my Ministry is working on simplifying some of that). But, finally, once you’ve reduced the costs and redesigned the structures, you will need to make them efficient, able to deliver the services that citizens expect.”

More scenes from the Women’s Forum 2007. Starting with getting the right makeup:

Next door, the “Thé des écrivains” — the writers’ corner:

It features “Writers tea”:

The theme of this year’s Forum is “Trust”. So I went around asking a few participants about it: What does “trust” mean to you?

Kate Robertson (Euro RSCG UK) — Trust is broken in the world. In her words: “Institutions, governments, nobody trusts them anymore. But the world won’t function without them”. She believes that women can bring an emotional perspective that could help rebuild trust.
About the Women’s Forum, Kate thinks that it has become a established forum and that it is increasingly important. According to her, there is a sense of urgency of women’s role and the Women’s Forum helps bring action to this issue.

Ghania Houadria (La Poste Algérienne) — For Ghania, trust is capital for a company that has clients. For her, the success of the company depends on trust. A lot of problems happen if there is no trust. The lack of trust disturbs the evolution and the development of the company. She agrees with Anne Lauvergeon, Areva’s CEO, when she said in the previous panel that trust is difficult and long to build, but easy and quick to destroy. According to Ghania, for a company such as La Poste, in which the clients must have trust to put their money and send their letters, trust is the company’s reason to exist, and it must be established not only between the company and its clients, but also internally, between the company and its employees.

Gabriela Carvalho (Brazilian, among the 20 young women selected as “Rising Talents”) — Gabriela says that a great part of the work that women do to represent a larger percentage of the workforce is related to trust. According to her, for women, more than for men, it is essential to establish trust and to avoid mistakes to be able to continue in the career. She argues that it is very important to generate trust for the stakeholders and she believes that it is frequently more difficult to do it for women than it is for men.

Joana Loureiro (Portuguese, Aprendera, Junior Achievement, Portugal) — Joana believes that first we have to trust ourselves, believe that we are capable of doing things. Of course we also have to question ourselves, she says. To Joana, anyone who is a leader has to inspire trust.

One of this morning debates asked the following question: What should women expect from political leaders? Interesting, but what about women as leaders in politics? Elisabeth Guigou, former French minister of justice and Linda Lanzillotta, Italian minister for regional affairs agreed on the fact that women are sharing qualities that could lead them to perform better in political positions. Women are “more innovative”, “more generous”, “they bring diversity”. Women’s are also more ethical than men. Maria Anjeles Amador, former health minister of Spain, thinks that as soon as women’s will reach a similar level of responsibility as men, they will probably be as corrupted as men are!

Diversity is important in politics because people need to identify with leaders that are able to understand their needs and their problems. Gender diversity improves politics efficiency. It also leads to a better knowledge of the population aspirations. But women credibility has to be challenged. Women should be criticized just as men are, that is actual equality Elisabeth Guigou thinks.

To achieve that goal, men have to play a role, they have to “share the power”, Maria Anjeles Amador told me, “Women are half of the population, we are not men’s adversary, we just have a different vision that could be useful”, it seems that the right solution is to “walk together” she adds. Long Jiang Wen from the Chinese delegation insists on the necessity to bring women to higher position especially in countries where this results difficult. Particularly in those countries it is important to make men be aware of the necessity to leave some place to diversity in governing bodies.

The main goal is to reach Plato’s will: “a world in which nobody feels happy for being a man and nobody feels selfless for being a woman”.

I felt somewhat suspicious about the theme (Sorry…) and was very interested in asking to a large number of the Women’s Forum’s participants what “trust” means to them, with a bit of irony I must confess. Who does choose to attend an event (just think about Davos) because of its theme? I can even go further: How many of the participants didn’t even know or remember the theme that is supposed to gather us for three days in Deauville? I suspected them to be numerous. Anyway I asked, I talked and on top of that I laughed with the women I met. But by the end I got flabbergasted too. These mighty women knew the theme, and what’s more they considered it of some importance. Of course they are not absolutely naive idealists: they have not traveled up to ten thousands miles to talk merely (what’s more, in Deauville) about trust. As a dynamic social entrepreneur put it: “It might seem light and genuine but trust does remain of high importance. Let’s don’t fear to go back to basics”. A partner at McKinsey makes it clear, “trust” is an “attribute”; it means “openness and transparence”. In a nutshell it means “demands”. And for so high-level and hardworking women, one can make it clear that means much.

This is a kind of an irony. The great novelty in this edition of the Women’s Forum is the creation of a men-only area, where they can enjoy a relaxing time while waiting for their spouses to get out of their “feminist” conference. And the rules are very strict there: a security guy at the entrance makes sure only men get in there. Here is a picture of the “Men’s Corner”:

Men are a minority here at the Forum, about 15% of attendees – Aude de Thuin, the Forum’s founder and CEO, underlined in her introductory speech that complementarities were essential to our world today, but that to her, 30% of men is the top-limit to reach an ideal balance. Some women here find amazing that men would chose to join the Forum; other consider the dedication of a specific area to them as a provocation.

Crazy rumours have been spreading around this morning regarding this very selective and secret area. For instance, I’ve heard they were hiding a PlayStation somewhere…

But beyond the joke, I think we have a point. The WomensForum choose this year to welcome its male members with clichés – a huge TV screen playing rugby games, leather armchairs and possibly a hidden PlayStation – in the same way men welcome women back in the real world.

Nowadays, a lot of companies are trying to promote gender diversity among their Human Resources. Though the higher you are in the hierarchy, the fewer women you can find. Perhaps is it too soon to value the outcome of these women-friendly policies, and perhaps can they be improved. Indeed, behind the provocation, the purpose of the men-only area is to raise awareness towards all the differences between men and women in business, which a corporate day-care facility cannot erase. Men are invited there to discuss gender diversity issues and share their experience and best practices concerning the integration of female values in their managerial culture.

Of course, and according to the most recent rumour, until warrior women in the Forum have besieged the area.

A Women’s Forum? This sounds pretty threatening, doesn’t it guys?

Some of you did make the choice to come to Deauville, though… Why?

Beyond the usual jokes (”Well, 1200 chicks! What man wouldn’t come?”), I am impressed by the true interest these men are showing for this event, whether they come as partners, speakers, or attendees.

A trendy-dressed filmmaker working for the Women’s Forum smiles at the sight of the chattering ladies in the Discovery Moments space. “I’m glad to be here. I’m used to covering events, but this one is different: things are smoother, not as aggressive, more harmonious.”

Some men came as partners of the event, convinced of the importance of women in shaping the future of their company. Bain & Company partner Bertrand Pointeau, whose consulting firm runs the “Men’s Corner”, expresses the concerns of his company in attracting women at management levels and in meeting their professional aspirations and private constraints.

Gerald Lema, President Asia Pacific of Baxter International Inc., came as a speaker, to share his company’s experience on attracting women at management levels (an almost 50-50 ratio) and the great benefits of this balance. He expresses his enthusiasm in meeting inspiring women at the forum and definitely expects to take new ideas back to China. He will be debating on “Sustaining Corporate Loyalty”, on Friday.

A few men came as king consorts, as well. Claude G., a Belgian lawyer, accompanies his wife, and explains why there are so few of his kind. “Some men wouldn’t feel at ease with the idea of accompanying their wife to such a forum. It still isn’t in the mentalities. For others, it’s the wife who wishes to keep her own private space.”

All express their admiration for these women who, often on top of their family life, commit themselves professionally and in public life. Well, Messieurs, as women, we are very grateful that you came, and we are happy to welcome you!

Her Royal Highness the Princess Astrid of Belgium gave an inspiring speech during the luncheon, talking about the nature of humanitarian action in today’s world. She is the Chairwoman of the Belgian Red Cross. A couple of quotes:

“Perhaps we should learn to deal with the fact that in our society there will always be a small minority of 5 or 10 % who need to be taken care of by the state — given that everyone deserves decent healthcare, education and housing”.

“Every year social benefits increase by 1% less then salaries”. This impacts particularly single women, especially those with children who receive no financial support from their partner, and this becomes more acute in times when a lot of familes have two incomes.

“I refuse to conform to the image of a lady of charity. I seek instead to mobilize networks”.

Scenes from the Women’s Forum 2007. A break at the main bar:

Discovering the “Rising Talents“:

At the Cartier Women’s Initiative Award booth (a joint project by Cartier, McKinsey and Insead aimed at encouraging female startup entrepreneurs), getting ready for tonight’s presentation of the finalists:

Say it with flowers:

Why have women entrepreneurs, managers, civil society leaders, academics and artists from all over the world come to Dauville to meet for three days in a conference centre? Talking to the participants as they queue up for their badges shows a universe of women leaders who deeply believe in the value of this event for them personally and for their organisations.

They are here to find inspiration and share experiences with their peers from all corners of the world. Elizabeth Pastore-Reiss from the consultancy Ethicity sums it up saying the Forum provides a global vision on sustainability built on women’s concern about what kind of world future generations will inherit from us. Elene Chatillon, a young consultant at McKinsey, is here to meet amazing women and participate in a strong debate on trust in business and society. For Florence Lenne from Aeroports de Paris, the Forum creates a space for reflection and exchange, networking and even making new friends.

The Forum as an opportunity to network with inspiring women is a key motivation for the participants. They come here to gain energy, ideas and new relationships and hope this will help them change their organisations to the advantage of other women as well as men. Some of them are senior managers who have been charged by their organisations with the responsibility of improving talent through diversity. Erika Pulings leads talent management and diversity policies at Dexia. She is here to share best practices with other leading organisations on how to improve diversity and attract talent. This is important for all businesses, but in the financial sector in particular. Yolanda Conyers from Lenovo also believes in the importance of winning diverse talent for her organisation. For Lenovo, sponsoring the conference is an opportunity to reinforce its commitment to diversity and networking with women leaders who share the same vision.

For many of the participants, this is the first year they attend the Forum. This shows how a long way the Forum has gone to establish its reputation as a source of inspiration and ideas for women leaders from all over the world. On its first day, the atmosphere of the event is filled with energy, confidence and interest to learn from each other. It is the women leaders who create this atmosphere and they want to carry it with them and bring it out into the world on leaving Deauville.

Picking up the badge and the delegate’s package:

First coffee and networking:

Making our way to the main hall for the opening session (the big portraits are by painter Titouan Lamazou):

Everything is ready in the main hall, attendees walk in, the cameraman checks his material. The third Women’s Forum will be on in a few minutes:

First speaker, giving the welcome address: the Forum’s founder Aude Zieseniss de Thuin: