A note from the EuropeanPWN former Board – New board will lead EuropeanPWN into further growth
On January 22rd EuropeanPWN’s General Meeting elected a new board to serve the federation. This was the result of a new election process introduced in June 2009 by the Task Force and Nominating Committee. After half a year of hard work and careful preparation the handover took place at an Extraordinary General Meeting hosted by the network in Barcelona.
The federation board consisted of:
- Mirella Visser, President (since January 2007)
- Marie-Claude Peyrache, Secretary-General (VP Corporate Affairs from 2007 – 2009)
- Brigitte Pichat-Sese, Treasurer (since January 2007)
- Therese Torris, VP Website Strategy (also VP Mentoring from 2007-2009)
- Cécile Demailly, VP Think Tank Communities (2006-2009
- Annalisa Gigante, VP Women on Boards (since June 2007)
- Marijo Bos, VP Corporate Affairs (since June 2009)
- Monica Pesce, VP New Networks (since June 2009)
Together with the local presidents and their board members, the federation board was responsible for achieving an impressive expansion of EuropeanPWN. Europe’s leading network for professional women now has 3500 members across 17 local networks, organizing over 500 events a year. These results would not have been achieved without the commitment and dedication of the volunteer board members:
Mirella Visser is a founder of EuropeanPWN and was appointed to the first federation board in 2005 as VP and Secretary-General, in which capacity she managed legal matters and governance in the set up phase of the federation. She took over as President in January 2007, and led the internationalization of the Board and geographic expansion of the network. She established EuropeanPWN as a professional organization, building visibility and credibility both with corporate partners and institutions. She is a much-admired speaker and an authority on female leadership and speaks at numerous international events. Mirella created the EuropeanPWNBoard Room Round Tables to discuss current governance topics with top women of Europe’s largest corporations, thereby engaging senior women in the debate and creating a new network of top level connections across Europe’s business world. She played a major role in the European Commission Network of Women in Decision-making in Politics and the Economy and was nominated for “European of the Year” in 2007. Before taking the presidency, Mirella served almost 4 years as president of the Amsterdam chapter during which the chapter became part of the federation EuropeanPWN. Mirella is a supervisory board member, management consultant and author. Her recently published book “De Silk Road to the Top” is on the shortlist for Management Book of the Year 2010 in The Netherlands.
Marie-Claude Peyrache, as VP Corporate Affairs, was very successful in increasing the number of companies partnering with the network. She was responsible for securing the Orange partnership contract, which has been a major step in securing the financial future of the federation. During her mandate we welcomed new corporate partners Sodexo, Aon, Coca-Cola and BNP Paribas and additional partnership contracts for events and research were concluded with ABNAMRO, IMD Lausanne and Egon Zehnder, Mercer (research for the Women on Boards book), Mexx, Accenture and Amrop (book sponsoring). Marie-Claude served as President of the Paris’ chapter for 4 years and co-wrote with Cécile Demailly the 10th book in our “Women@Work” series called “Networking-the new Ariadne’s thread”.
Brigitte Pichat-Sese, Treasurer, has been responsible for the health of the federation’s finances since January 2007, when she took over from EuropeanPWN’s first treasurer Jane Coblence. Brigitte’s sound financial management experience, as Head of Group Finance at MAN, and the Board’s prudent approach have led to a very stable financial base for the new board to continue the mission of promoting professional progress of women across Europe.
Thérèse Torris combined the functions of VP Website Strategy and VP Mentoring programs. She was responsible for designing, coordinating, writing and editing one of EuropeanPWN’s most successful books ‘Mentoring – A Powerful Tool for Women’, published in 2007. In addition, Thérèse’s contribution to the further development of EuropeanPWN’s state-of-the-art platform has been crucial. Her energy and vast knowledge in this area has made the communication backbone of the network into what it is today: one of EuropeanPWN’s Unique Selling Points.
Former VP Publications Cécile Demailly, who was involved since 2004 and served on the board from 2006 – June 2009, was thanked for her significant role in developing the successful EuropeanPWN book series “Women@Work”. Under her guidance almost ten books were organized, written and published, thereby fulfilling one of EuropeanPWN’s key missions to create a platform for professional women to share experiences, learn from each other and develop their leadership skills. In addition Cécile created the ThinkTank Communities, in which hundreds of members across Europe participated in discussion on topics relevant to women’s careers.
Recently appointed VP Corporate Affairs Marijo Bos had a strong start in her new role by attracting one of Europe’s leading business schools IE in Madrid as corporate partner in kind, offering discounts to our members on a variety of senior management programs. She and Monica Pesce, who was appointed in June 2009 to the new function of VP New Networks, will continue to serve the network on the newly appointed board.
Last but not least, our dedicated EuropeanPWN staff, Community Manager Ingrid Loren and Website Manager Andrea Buck received thanks for their continued cooperation.
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