I have been an IE student for over one year, but to be honest I hardly know any confernce going on inside IE until very recently when I started my internship in IE campus. Well here is the first conference I attended called “Leading for the Future”, which was an international workshop co-organized by IWE (International Women of Excellence) and IE.
The idea of the workshop is ¨to help women maximize both of their individual and career potential by sharing successful experiences from others and building on positive experiences; meanwhile, to help organizations attract and retain women talents by creating flexible working environment for them.” as said by Brian Hadfield, Chairman of IWE.
Well if you think carefully about it, this women issue is getting more important among all corporate stuff. But the problem is—–
despite the fact that women are gaining more important positions in the corporate world due to their contribution to facilitating the organization’s capacity to innovate, more women are leaving their organizations due to issues such as inhospitable corporate culture, lack of visibility in the organization, commitment to personal life or family responsibilities.
So what can we do?
(Yes, I was also participating the workshop, and surprisingly the result turned out that many of us rarely do any self development planning regarding social networking with peer business women, or seeking ways of dealing with a male dominated business world, etc., even if we´ve already been in middle management level.)

Unfortunately, there is no one absolute answer to this. (Or you can visit IWE site, there is one forum where you can read and discuss topics within the community)
A wise way could be, also IE´s initiate to hold this workshop, to make women ¨be aware of these issues, therefore able to make plans at each stage to keep personal & professional goals on track. ¨ And keep in mind that ¨Success for a woman does not necessarily mean achieving each single goal set, but being aware of what you really want and consciously making plans to achieve that plan.” —–Thanks to contribution of Celia de Anca from IE Diversity Management Center.
Well here are companies attending the event:
IBM, Reuters, Merrill Lynch Europe, BT Spain, TNT Global Networks & Operations, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Asociacion de Amigo del Museo Reina Sofia, Foundation for Women’s Art, Banco Popular, Marsh, IWE and IE Business School.

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