Started off with a great violin recital by Vera Tsu from China. Followed by the opening speech by Aude Zieseniss de Thuin, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, The Womens Forum for the Economy and Society who thanked us for being here - 1200 participants — 70 countries – 150 speakers in 60 sessions. More than 100 journalists. Guest country for this forum is China with 50 invitees. Also 15% are men! She spoke of the need for complementarities between men and women as vital for the world but 30% men is just fine (much laughter) she said. She then went on to speak of the partners and programs for this year - Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards … Rising Talents… Women for Education … Deauville Declaration – SciTech Girls.
Some of her appeals to the audience: 3 days to build Trust in our societies – we want to create debate in order to change the world. Trust is the very backbone of our society. The world cannot progress without trust … and without women. One of the keys is transmission and change – to move forward. Say to the young generation — have confidence in yourselves. Our role is to help you by giving you a strong message to business .. business culture must change to understand and adapt to the younger cultures.
She talked of three reports that show that women matter in business and economy. Reports – 1. Women Matter – companies where women have more top management women – perform best. Report 2 – women’s contribution to world GDP in countries like China and India are rising. Report 3 – if there are more women in top management, there will be less corruption.
She ended by saying that there are 50 Chinese women here – focus on Asia, and invited Long Jiang Wen, General Director of International Department, All-China Women’s Federation, China to talk to us. Her talk centred around Chinese women into the New Century – avg GDP 9.6%. Rapid devt of economy – not without women’s contributions as 45% of labour force is women. While I missed a lot of the other stats - one anecdote struck me — one of the key indicators of change in China today is that men are participating in housework!
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