|
WinConference : Gisela Raeber
Corporate Networking Group
Gisela Raeber
CNG - a breeding ground for innovative ideas and pioneering leadership
Initially established for sponsors of the yearly W.I.N. Forum, the Corporate Network Group (CNG) has been opened in 2004 to a wider range of corporate and organizational members. By identifying key industry fields, W.I.N. has set up a network of like-minded organizations, internationally oriented, culturally aware and leaders in their community.
This corporate platform focuses on forward-thinking, learning, benchmarking and innovating solutions together. Agenda topics range from relocation, attracting, retaining, growing and promoting females leaders to constructive cooperation with men, building diversity cultures, and running successful business networks.
Today, most global corporations feature diversity as one of their values, and diversity issues reach from nationality and culture to education and religion. While those differences are much established attributes in most companies working across Europe, the main source of diversity is recognized as being the gender issue today, and there is still a lot to do. Some corporations are more advanced than others in living up to diversity and most of them recognize that the gender mix in a leadership team is beneficial for the company. Women bring inspiration and authenticity to leadership. It mainly means living new values, focusing on ethics and improved synergy.
W.I.N. CNG brings together people from such global corporations working in similar business environments and facing very similar issues.
The April 2005 session was hosted by Procter & Gamble and included an excellent overview on the company's diversity training module. P&G has been embracing and leading diversity programs and initiatives for many years, and has become a global benchmark for the concept. They see diversity as a huge asset that generates fresh attitudes, different perspectives and exciting new ideas.
Other recent meetings featured Ebele Okobi-Harris, Senior Associate, Advisory Services from Catalyst talking about building the diversity business case and Martha Maznevski, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at IMD who discussed with the group balanced leadership at the World Economic Forum in Geneva.
Our next CNG will have Helen Ratte of Deloitte Touche lead the discussion on launching corporate diversity programmes. Besides having key guest speakers or professors at many of our sessions, we have experienced that a highly valuable part for the corporate delegates is the dialogue with other leading international organizations and the exciting exchange of experiences, challenges, and ideas.
CNG Members include ABN AMRO, Alcoa Europe, Dow Chemicals, Eastman Kodak, GE, HP, JT International, Novartis, IBM, INSEAD and P&G. Other companies attend occasionally, those are mainly the companies who are still exploring the paths to incorporate women leadership or to make it progress. As one attendee put is recently "diversity issues are not embedded yet in our company culture but the mind-set is there". For those companies W.I.N. CNG could be a true catalyzer to get started or to speed up the process.
Gisela Raeber
W.I.N. CNG project Manager
Home | Contact | Join our Community | About Us
Women's International Networking
CBC-L, Rue de Simplon 37, 1006 Lausanne, Switzerland
Best viewed with Internet Explorer 1024 x 768 True Colour © 2006 Kristin Engvig. All rights reserved.
|
|
Home