IWF DAY TWO-Madrid

Friday May 19, 2006 Madrid

I just returned from a full day here in Madrid while at the International Women’s Forum. The best part of the conference is always the “dine arounds.” Women from the hosting city host dinners at their homes for 10 women who come from different areas. This provides an intimate opportunity to get to know each other and learn from each other. Paloma, a public health administrator, hosted our dinner. Included in the group was a woman from South Africa who drills mines all over the world, a journalist from Great Britain, a journalist/politician from Argentina, a developer from Maine, an environmental engineer from Florida/Washington DC, an attorney who manages a ballet company in Canada and a University professor, president from NY. Our conversation ranged from the role of the press in helping us (or not) to understand what is happening around the world, to how we manage caring for children and parents while having active careers, to roles in creating change in our communities and countries to the challenges of becoming pregnant (women were from 20s-40s when they had their first child-two have not). As always, the group is humbling to me.

Included in the rest of the day was a performance by a Spanish light opera group, a visit to the Prado and, most importantly, discussions in the program of “Closing the leadership gender gap: How to influence the debate that will transform the world.” The presenters included:
v Saadia Zahidi of the World Economic Forum who shared a study of the correlation between the welfare of women in a country and the country’s economic well-being.
v Ludmila Shvetsova, First Deputy Mayor, government of Moscow, Russia, who commented that keeping power is harder than getting it.
v Ana Pastor, Spokesperson, Spain’s Conservative People’s Party who commented that women must be “superwomen” and do it all: great mothers and great leaders and that time is our greatest challenge.
v Maria Eugenia Estenssoro, Legislator, City of Buenos Aires, Journalist (who was one of the guests at dinner with me) who commented that we must change the value system so that family is as important as productivity.
v Inn’am Al Mufti, Senator and former Minister of Social Development, Jordan who spoke of the King and Queens commitment to equal rights for women and described policies and programs that were impressive. Yet she also described Social and cultural constraints; poverty and unemployment; and lack of peace in the region; are barriers to equality. Misunderstanding of Islamic religion is too bad. The religion does promote equality of genders and evolution to the times.
While these are only a few of the comments that were made, it was an interesting presentation.

The Second program was Bridging the Gap in Business: successful Markets, Vibrant Organizations & the Lessons of Europe. The presentations were by people such as Barbara Mair: consultant to President Fox on Education; Karin Forseke: Investment Banker in Sweden; (former CEO of British Stock Market and many other prestigious financial organizations); Gerlinde Sturm Siemens Germany and Pilar Buro: President of a Spanish Hospital Management Group.
The discussion included somewhat of a debate on the “golden cage” to entitlement to time off and the impact of policy and tradition on women and business.

Jack enjoyed some free time and went with a group of men to the Naval Museum. He joined me on the tour of the Prado….
Tomorrow we have several more interesting panels and Flamenco!