Women in Finance was the first
event held in Luxembourg on the 30th of April 2014 by Inspiring Wo-Men and
Luxembourg For Family Office. Female finance leaders came together from
different sectors as from Banks, Life insurance companies, Family offices,
Audit and Lawyer firms. They exchanged their experiences in the Finance and
Corporate World. All the speakers were women with key positions as Chief
Financial Officer, Chief Executive Officer, Counsel, Partner or Board member.
All sessions were devoted to the financial world.
On the first panel, Beatrice Uba
Jolivet of CALI Europe explained the Bankers case with the context before
during and after the crisis. She explained the consequences of the various
crises for the clients, the financial actors and for the Luxemburg Financial
sector. The private banker needs to have a perfect knowledge of the targeted
markets and the “Luxembourger toolbox”, a knowledge of the cross-border aspects
and he/she will become more and more a commercial engineer.
Valérie Piastrelli from PwC
Luxembourg presented the Chief Financial Officer case. Research shows clearly
that companies with minimum one woman in the Board -especially since the 2008
crisis- are more profitable, have better results and less debt, probably due to
the fact that women are prudent and risk advert. But there is still a long way
to get more presence of women on boards of companies and state institutions.
She explained that women have common recognized skills: as leadership,
they have democratic and participative management styles, they are very
competent in initiative taking, and they are team players with integrity and
honesty.
Diana Diels presented the Family
office case. Only 8 % of the Wealthy transmit their fortune. A Family office
structure helps enormously. Private Bankers see Family office as another
segment above Private Banking but most of them are not able to provide the
essence of a true family office. Family office is not an invention but is
coming from an ancestral tradition that can be traced since the Roman antiques.
Family office is not a different way of asset management. Women are long term.
Family values and wealth preservation are important for them. Women have to
manage job, children, school ... they work in a structured way in
multi-tasking situations.
The second panel brought
different experiences together with Alicia Zemanek of UBS, Anne Lambe of Allen
& Overy, Cathérine Martouguin of Arendt & Medernach, Cécile Henlé of
Loyens & Loeff, Deniz Erkus, and Nathalie Weber of AS avocats. All
these women are working in a financial environment. They gave a landscape of
the gender differences, challenges and anecdotes that women experienced during
their studies and careers.
Why is it that we define success
differently for men? If you would ask a woman if she has succeeded, she
would tell you that if she had been a man; she would probably have been more
successful! One of the panellists said. Until she read the book of Sheryl
Sandberg, COO of Facebook, she thought that many of the learning’s/mishaps she
had experienced in her career life were solely due to her personality and
behaviour. Sheryl made her realize that gender differences did
indeed make a difference in women’s success. She conveyed the message
that if we have difficulty in striving in our careers, it is not that men are
putting obstacles to our careers! The problem is that there are too few
women at the top. We all have a role to play, starting with us, women, by
supporting each other, then also share more responsibilities with our male
colleagues so that they better understand us. But above all, women need
to believe in themselves!
Inspiring Wo-Men's next event is the
Leadership Academy, on the 26th of June at Mercure Kikuoka Golf in Canach, a
fantastic opportunity to learn from the best business leaders and trainers, change the way you see yourself, your potential, your
life, and boost your career! This year's summer edition will propose 4
different topics: Conosce te ipsum, Le marketing de soi, Gestion de
carrière, Soft Skills with more than 20 interesting workshops to choose from
all day long. More details on: http://www.inspiringwo-men.eu/Uk/Events.
