2009: the Year of Great Expectations

Like Charles Dickens wrote almost 150 years ago in his novel “Great Expectations”, we emerge from a crisis with great expectations. Some of my friends have just lost their job and others have been told they are next in line if business does not pick up in 2009. Companies are cutting costs by reducing their human capital, the very core of their business. Entrepreneurs complain that international companies are postponing payment for services. Let’s face it, the impact of the financial crisis is being felt everywhere. At the same time a message of hope and change flows across the Atlantic – 2009 will be the Year of Great Expectations with new leadership at the helm of the so-called Free World. But how to make these expectations reality will be the number 1 question in 2009!

Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Competition

Great achievements
Looking back on 2008, EuropeanPWN was successful in establishing three new networks from scratch. Thanks to the enormous effort and commitment of Sjannie Hulsman and Marie-Clair Williams, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Berlin successfully held their launch events, complete with top speakers and hundreds of attendants.

To provide international board women with a programme at European level, we designed the EuropeanPWN Board Room Round Tables. Two round table events were held in January and September on topics of corporate governance and the EU’s competitive position in the world with IMD professor Paul Strebel and European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes.

Making networking easier was behind the improvements of our platform functionalities, including the introduction of the “BusinessExchange”, a separate platform for women entrepreneurs who are looking for business opportunities among the network and may offer their services to our membership at a discount. In addition, the ThinkTank Groups presented a novelty in coaching: the online self-coaching tool about your first 100 days in a new job; by defining 5 issues and 12 actions to address the issues, the self-coaching tool helps women in a new job to better prepare for a successful start.

Another highlight at the end of the year was the launch of the 10^th and 11^th editions in our Women@Work series: Networking - the New Ariadnes' Thread. The authors Marie-Claude Peyrache and Cecile Demailly provide a compelling overview of all aspects of women's networking activities. Practical tips and suggestions form part of the book which women can use as a guide to improve their networking skills.

Great expectations
Along with great expectations, a crisis produces achievements - after all, in this day and age we feel pressured to outperform last year's results. The network has great expectations for 2009 too and it will be a challenge to outperform 2008's achievements. This will mean further growth of membership, even more inspiring events and insightful publications, new functionalities of our membership platform to enable members to communicate and exchange knowledge and experience even faster and more easily. Again, new city networks will become part of the EuropeanPWN family, further improving our reach across Europe. We are excited by what 2009 promises and hope to share some of that excitement with you!

We wish all of our members, guests, corporate partners, newsletter readers and all other interested women and men a year that will be not only the year of great expectations but also a year of great realisations.

EuropeanPWN board and staff

Mirella Visser, Marie-Claude Peyrache, Brigitte Pichat-Sese, Thérèse Torris, Cécile Demailly, Annalisa Gigante, Ingrid Loren, Andrea Buck
January 2009