The WF07 was a whole experience to remember. First of all, because of the other students in our group, which were all from different countries and backgrounds but made me feel like family. And I learned something unique from each of them. Then, the experience of meeting so many successful women sharing with us their experiences in business, government or academia: they “told” me it’s possible to get what you want, if you try hard enough. Only 15% of the attendees were men — for once a minority — but their viewpoints also made a strong impression.

Three ideas that I brought home:

• “Women take decisions with 75% of the knowledge while men do it with 25%”, a speaker said. For me, that means that we should take bigger risks and turn our fears into strengths.
• Trust is a necessary feature of the world, but creating it requires self-knowledge, openness and understanding of other people’s points of view.
• Writing on the blog in a foreign language (my mother tongue is Spanish) was a real challenge: but now that I’ve started, I don’t expect to stop.

I’ve heard her twice, and I have really enjoyed the way she speaks. One of my MBA teachers used to say that a characteristic of a mature personality is the sense of humor. Laura Liswood, senior advisor of Goldman Sachs, confirms it: it doesn’t matter how serious an issue can be, what’s important is to consider it in its real proportions.

Equal opportunities for men and women are needed, companies have to find ways to retain senior experienced workers, to integrate immigrants and to adapt to women needs, if they want to be in the top. Above all, women need to enjoy what they do.

Today I’ve seen somebody that does it.

In business, trust is a key discriminant for customers and stakeholders. They need transparency and confidence. But building trust is not simple, it’s an everyday effort.

In politics, people vote for you if they trust you. Here too, building trust requires constant determination.

So: can businesswomen and female politicians have a real dialogue with us?

We trust they can, because we really need to be confident that they understand what’s going on. Complex world, complex dialogue. Political dialogue translates into democracy. How should trust capital be spent in politics? We seem to need new approaches.

When it comes to education, or health, women trust both the institutions and themselves. They take risks. I believe tat the most important issue is to take responsibility. We can’t keep expecting that somebody else takes the responsibility for problems to be solved.

Captain Stéphane Cabarrocas is the Flight Operations Vice President of Air France and an expert on how to reduce stress — namely, the stress of air travel. I was impressed by how his company understands the meaning of trust. Air France understand that their core business is not aircrafts: it’s safety. They started a Stress Center as a way to help their clients reduce their fear of flying.

They have develop an anti-stress method that can be useful also for other fields, and indeed Air France pilots are giving conferences in hospitals, for example on team stress issues.

When you think of a pilot, you never imagine how aware they have to be about what surrounds them; they have to be aware of their crew, the aircraft, the passengers, traffic communications, the weather, and of course about their own feelings. The most important thing to improve safety is to make sure that the communication between the pilot and his crew is fluid.