Going to the Women’s Forum this year as a member of the student’s delegation has been an amazing experience. I’ve been interested in women’s issues and challenges since my master, when I made my dissertation about women entrepreneurs in Brazil. At this time, I hadn’t completely realized all the challenges women face in society and in the job market. And I became so excited about this study that I decided to continue to do my research on the subject for my PhD thesis at HEC, in Paris.

Participating in the Women’s Forum 2007 was therefore a wonderful opportunity. Not only could I attend sessions and panels with women and men who make a difference in the world, but I also had the pleasure of interviewing some of them, leveraging the work that we did with the blog.

During this three days in Deauville, I was impressed to see how much women have improved. Indeed, seeing all the successful and courageous women from all over the world who participate in the forum, it becomes clear that we have made some real progress. However, we also realize that there is still a lot do to. Women are not yet well represented in positions of responsibility in private and public spheres. How can it still be true in the XXI century? And, more importantly, how can there still exist some practices concerning women, particularly in some African and eastern countries, which go against the most basic human rights? It is a world of paradoxes. This is why the theme of this year was so pertinent: trust. Trust is the basis of any relationship between human beings.

The Women’s Forum is not only a gathering of important women (and men) but also a place where people discuss about the future, the environment, politics, world conflicts and current crisis, such as the one in Darfur. Long-term and concrete initiatives have also been created and put into practice since the first edition of the Women’s Forum, in 2005. One of the most interesting of these is the Cartier Women’s Initiative Award, with the support of McKinsey & Company and INSEAD. Five women entrepreneurs, one from each continent, have received a prize from Cartier, as well as a US$ 20 000 grant and coaching support for one year. The projects have a real impact. One example is the one of Lucie Avoaka, the African Laureate this year, whose project is a healthcare provider in the underprivileged region of Abobo, in Ivory Coast.

What I took from the Women’s Forum as a lesson is that we have to continue to fight for our dreams. All the interesting women to whom I talked to or interviewed during the forum had a couple of things in common: they had a passion for what they do and they were not afraid of taking risks, of fighting for their ideals. This is really inspiring.

Yesterday Friday we all discovered the winners of the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards (see this previous post for details), five women entrepreneurs (see picture), one from each region of the globe (Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America). When Bernard Fornas, President and CEO of Cartier International, announced the winners, he said that they took 7 hours discussing to make the decision. Not only me, but I guess a lot of people in the WF wondered: what criteria did they take into account for the evaluation?

Today I spoke to Freja Day, from Cartier International, and she told me that the evaluation is very rigorous. The three main criteria are: creativity (the degree of innovation of the overall business concept and idea); sustainability (financial impact of the business, indicating its long-term success); impact (community impact of the business, in terms of job-creation and impact on the immediate or broader environment).

The jury is composed of outstanding individuals of the business world, the non-profit sector and the academic field. There are five jury panels, one per continent, representing a variety of profiles, countries and cultures. The jury members all voted for the projects of the finalists.

Freja also said that the social impact of the project is very important, especially in emerging countries. The analysis of the business plans, showing the sustainability of the projects in the next three, five or ten years, counted a lot as well.

The Award is a long-term project and is going to be repeated. So, women entrepreneurs of the world, prepare your business plans for next year’s Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards!

When I saw her speaking Portuguese while walking around in the Women’s Forum, I was happy to find someone who speaks my native language. Only after I learned that she was one of the “Rising Talents“. Joana Loureiro is a real woman entrepreneur. She is the General Manager of Junior Achievement in Portugal, the world’s largest organisation dedicated to educating students about entrepreneurship.

Joana told me that she knew Junior Achievement in the United States, where she followed a post-graduation course on Management of non-profit organizations. She then had the idea of bringing it to Portugal. Today, Junior Achievement Portugal has already established a network made up of over 600 volunteers and 600 teachers in 13o schools.

The advice she gives to people who think of becoming entrepreneurs are: first you have to try, to experiment. And the other important aspect is that you have to be willing to take risks. She said that in Portugal, for example, people tend to be very averse to risk.

With the importance of entrepreneurship growing in the world, it is quite amazing to see initiatives such as Joana’s in the Women’s Forum. We can hope that more women (and men) would be inspired by her and help create an entrepreneurial culture in other countries too.

Virginie Dangles-Marie always loved animals. Her childhood dream was to be a veterinarian. And she became one. She made her studies at the École Vétérinaire Nationale d’Alfort, in France. But because of difficulties in this profession due to the economic reality, she decided to follow a research master on cancer research, a subjet that also interested her. After the master, she completed a PhD and today she is a prominent researcher on cancer at the Institut Curie, in Paris.

Virginie received the Mitjavil National Academy of Medicine Fellowship award and is also a nominated member of the French Ministry of Agriculture’s National Commission of Teachers and Researchers. She is one of the young women selected in the “Rising Talents” program, launched by JP Morgan and the Women’s Forum with the support of Egon Zehnder International, which aims at creating every year an international network of women between 25 and 35 years old, who have demonstrated particular passion, commitment and social involvement, making them inspiring women for the future.

I asked Virginie — selected this year among the WF’s Rising Talents — what would be her advice for women who wish to pursue a career in science. Her answer was: you must have passion for what you do. Another important thing is that you should try to get the maximum of information you can about the opportunities and possibilities in this type of career, and try to bring this “plus”, this “exotic touch” to what you do.

In the Men’s Corner yesterday Friday, the question of why CEOs should be serious about sex was raised again. The interest of the audience in what the speakers had to say about this and in the speakers themselves was so big that the Men’s Corner had to move to the James Bond room (no pun intended). The Men’s Corner transformed into a room crowded with ladies and even the James Bond room was not big enough for all the people who wanted to attend. In the end, we had an interesting configuration, with three men standing in front of an audience mostly composed of women, some of them seating on the floor and with their shoes off.

The three speakers, Carlos Ghosn, president and CEO of Renault and of Nissan, Frank Brown, Dean of INSEAD, and Jean-Pascal Tricoire, CEO of Schneider Electric, France, were provoked by the journalist and editor of Les Echos Virginie Robert, who was very sharp and asked for precise answers.

All of the three speakers said that gender is an important question for their companies. Frank Brown reported that the percentage of women at INSEAD is around 28% and they are trying to increase this number in the next years. I interviewed an alumni student from this business school in 1977 and she told me that in her class they were 20 girls out of 220 students, which corresponds to 9%. This means that there has been a great progress in the last 30 years, but there is still a big space to raise this percentage.

Jean-Pascal Tricoire said that gender diversity started being a more important issue for the company in the last 10 years, more strongly in the last 5 years. Companies such as Schneider, a leader in electricity and automation management, have a historic of having less women, but they are making initiatives to raise this number. They began to give much more attention to the statistics of gender in the company and are making initiatives to recruit and retain more women.

Carlos Ghosn called attention to the fact that, when it comes to choose a woman to the executive committee, sometimes there are simply not women on the list. He thinks that the important thing to do is to prepare women so that they acquire the competencies to be on the list. Some women, he said, are just so competent that they are going up for themselves. Others, who are not very confident, need more coaching. He also said that today, if they have to choose between a man and a woman with the same competencies for the executive committee, they would certainly choose the woman. But he believes that the business plan is essential. He even proposed a study. He is willing to finance a study that proves that more diverse groups makes the company more profitable. Anyone interested?

UPDATE - See also The man’s version on the Men’s Corner, offering a different take by one of our male bloggers on the same event.

In today’s world, a large number of executive women are having children later in their lives, or even deciding not to have them in order to advance in their careers. They make longer studies and some of them invest in a time consuming career. Indeed, the mean age of the first pregnancy went from 23 years old in 1976 up to 29 years old in 2005. These facts were shown yesterday Thursday by Corinne Hubinont, Professor and Co-Head of the Department of Obstetrics at the Clinique Universitaire St-Luc, in Belgium, during the Discovery Moments, to a very interested audience, in a session (photo) titled: “Pregnancy and Executive Women …is it a challenge?”

To answer that question, Corinne confirmed what most executive women feel when they think about having children and continuing to advance in their careers: Yes, pregnancy for executive women is a challenge. After the age of 35, the risks of pregnancy start growing at a higher rate. In addition, the time when executive women start thinking of having a child coincides with the time when they are on the track to a successful career, which normally demands long hours of work, travelling and late meetings. She called attention to a “new high risk pregnancy”, associated with stress, high physical workload, dissatisfaction at work and late pregnancy, despite the major medical performance we have today.

Some ways to manage this challenge were suggested and discussed during the session. For example, to facilitate early pregnancy, during the studies or early in professional life. Another important point would be to allow long pregnancy and materity leave in “late pregnancy” in order to decrease their complications. But all these solutions depend not only on women, but on society as a whole.

One of the women in the audience reported that she was noy very reassured by the solutions that exist today, as they depend on a change in society and this takes time. She is 35 and doesn’t have children. Another woman, from the Belgian Board of the Women’s Forum, said that she decided to have children later, around the age of 30, so that she could advance in her career before. But she considered herself lucky because she didn’t have any problems getting pregnant or during pregnancy.

The question of how women executives can manage the challenge of pregancy is not solved, but discussing them in the Women’s Forum seems to be a good beginning to think about solutions and starting to make things change.

The expectations are high for the finalists of the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards 2007, a joint project by Cartier and the Women’s Forum, with the support of McKinsey & Company and INSEAD. Yesterday Thursday, the fourteen women entrepreneurs gathered to show their start-up projects in the Women’s Forum. There will be five winners of the Prize, one from each region (Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America). The five winners will receive The Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards Trophy, US$ 20 000 each, coaching support for one year and media visibility. I could talk to some of the finalists about what they expected from the Award (which is to be announced tonight). All of them agrees that it is already great to be among the finalists.

Lucie Cissé, an entrepreneur from the Ivory Coast, said that it is already an honor to be there. If she wins the Prize for her project of a healthcare provider in the underprivileged region of Abobo, she thinks that it will help her develop the project and it will also be good for Africa. The Argentinian entrepreneurs Marisa Otamendi and Carola Pradas are also very excited to be finalists. They said that the Cartier Award helped them make their dream come true, a customer service consulting and outsourcing for e-businesses in Argentina. The Cartier Award helped them develop their idea, write their business plan and organize their work. They argue that their project can benefit women, as it will allow them to work from home. If she wins, Bettina Götzenberger, from Spain, will be happy to benefit from the consulting and coaching that come with the Prize.

Among the European women entrepreneurs, Jenny Carenco, who quit a job in a consulting firm to open her own business, a new generation of baby food jars and frozen baby food, thinks that the products and services that the finalist women entrepreneurs propose make a real sense. Besides, she believes that the credibility of the structure of Cartier’s Award will certainly help them obtain funding for their businesses. Katalin Berenyi, a French entrepreneur, remembered that there are not many women entrepreneurs in France. According to her, the level of the projects of the finalists is very high and they are all very interesting. Her business is an anti-fatigue cosmetics range based on traditional Korean herbal science. If she is one of the winners, she believes her company will obtain a great visibility. Antonia Sanin, who created a day-care center for children aged 3 to 6 in Colombia, considers that the Cartier Women’s Initiative has already given her a lot. It helped her formally write her idea and consolidate her working team.

Indeed, Freja Day, from Cartier International, explains that Cartier has been a sponsor of the Women’s Forum since its creation in 2005. She reminds that women are the driving force of the economy. They wanted to create something concrete for women, a long-term initiative that could help women open and develop their own businesses. Cartier has a long history (founded in 1847) and, as Freja says,”women are the heart of what we do”.

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.