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Businesswoman of the Year attend Global Summit of Women in Poland

Businesswoman of the Year attend Global Summit of Women in Poland
Chairperson of the Global Summit of Woman, Irene Natividad, giving her introductory remarks before the official opening ceremony.

Chairperson of the Global Summit of Woman, Irene Natividad, giving her introductory remarks before the official opening ceremony.

 

The incumbent Businesswoman of the Year, Baronice Hans joined more than one thousand women last week for the 2016 Global Summit of Women in Warsaw. Preliminaries to the three-day summit started on Wednesday evening when all delegates had to register.

The Global Summit of Women, headquartered in Washington DC, is an international organisation that promotes the participation of women at executive level in governments and in the corporate world.

The overarching theme of this year’s summit was “Women, building an inclusive economy in the digital age.” Under this banner, the summit addressed a range of issues affecting women in their daily work in the modern age.

For the first formal session on Thursday morning, a ministerial roundtable on Private Public Partnerships opened the floor for the formalities to follow later in the day. After this marathon session, the Mayor of Warsaw, HE Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz introduced a discussion on the future of cities, followed by a promotional presentation on doing business with Poland.

The official opening ceremony took place early in the evening followed by a welcoming dinner hosted by the Polish Hosting Committee consisting of more than 30 members.

The programme for Friday and Saturday comprised presentations and discussions during the morning sessions, followed by Breakout group sessions in the afternoons. It was during these Breakout sessions that the delegates learned the most about restrictive and constraining issues facing business and professional women worldwide.

Preparations for this year’s summit started already last year at the previous summit in Brazil. The summit is steered by its president, Ms Irene Natividad from the United States. In her professional capacity she is the chairperson of Corporate Women Directors International, an organisation that promotes women’s role in the corporate and public realms across all continents. She also chairs the international planning committee whose responsibility it is to organise this important gathering of professional women.

Ms Hans was invited to attend the summit in her role as the Namibian Businesswoman of the Year.

She described the experience as exhilarating saying that the summit generates an enormous energy among all the delegates. It offers the women an incredible international networking opportunity, forming linkages which they nurture for the rest of their careers.

Several of the sessions focussed on leadership, business development, and the broader scope of being a role model for young people and the next generation of business leaders.

She returned to Windhoek on Sunday. Her attendance was made possible by the support of the Namibian Businesswoman of the Year sponsors, Telecom Namibia, SABMiller Namibia and Jaguar Namibia.

 

Baronice Hans on the steps in front of the Polish presidential palace in Warsaw.

Baronice Hans on the steps in front of the Polish presidential palace in Warsaw.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

About The Author

Mandisa Rasmeni

Mandisa Rasmeni has worked as reporter at the Economist for the past five years, first on the entertainment beat but now focussing more on community, social and health reporting. She is a born writer and she believes education is the greatest equalizer. She received her degree in Journalism at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) in June 2021. . She is the epitome of perseverance, having started as the newspaper's receptionist in 2013.