Our Global Ambassadors Program convened in London where aspiring women leaders came together with their mentors to discuss social change and economic opportunity. As part of our Program, these women were empowered to grow and build their organizations even amid challenges in their own countries.
See photos of speakers and attendees of our Global Ambassadors Program in London.
“Women, Progress and the Global Economy” public forum
Watch keynotes and panels of the public forum to learn about the critical role women play in innovation and economic growth.
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Anne Finucane: What unites these women is that they are from – many of them war torn areas, humanitarian issues. But what also unites them is courage and tenacity and great talent.
Christiane Amanpour: One of my formative experiences, obviously, was covering the war in Bosnia. And I remember, because women were also targets in Sarajevo, and we didn’t have electricity and there wasn’t running water.
But the moment there was a little bit of something human and humane, the women would rush to take advantage of it, whether it was a store that was open and they could buy something for their kid, whether it was the hairdressers that got a minimal amount of electricity so they could run their generator, so they could wash the woman's hair and dye the woman's hair.
It was resistance, it wasn't vanity, it was dignity and resistance. And that I think is something that women bring to the table or particularly in conflict and in terrible situations.
I'm absolutely committed to equality and to justice. And if there's no equality between men and women in the world, there is no justice and there is no progress. [...] UNDP for several years did reports about why the Middle East is less developed than it should be, given its rich human potential, given its massive natural resources. Why is it not as developed as other countries which may have less resources, and the overriding reason is because half the population is not allowed to engage.
When the women aren't engaged, the entire society doesn't thrive.
Christiane Amanpour: Somehow we have lost the meaning, or somehow the idea of feminism has been turned into a dirty word. And if we can't figure out how to define feminism in its actual meaning and make that a positive word, then we kind of need to do a lot more work to get us over the hump.
Feminism simply means equality. That's all it means; men and women equally represented in whatever sphere of endeavor it is. And unfortunately, too many people think it means female domination and male emasculation. And that's a real killer for those of us who are trying to have an equally represented world. Because that is what feminism actually means. I mean, that's how the feminist movement have taken it and that's what it means.
And I think it's really sad to see younger women, and perhaps feel that the battle has been won and that they don't need to be as politically and socially and culturally engaged in this struggle for equality. And maybe look at us, even me, I mean, I don't consider myself old. I think I'm like normal age. But I feel that –
Anne Finucane: I call it a good age, it's a good age &
Christiane Amanpour: It's good. But I mean, it's like & no, it's not over, it's getting better, but it's not over.
Melanne Verveer: I want to start by saluting Bank of America Merrill Lynch, because I think in many ways what the company is doing, is leading the way by example for what so many others need to do; bringing together the private sector, in this case, with an NGO, Vital Voices, and they do other kinds of work in this space as well.
But proving that it is a good business investment and it is a tremendous investment for social progress to invest in women.
Atifete Jahjaga: Indeed, Melanne, it's true that there is no stable society without the full inclusion of the women within the society. Because the women are not only the agents of change, they are also the agents of the economy growth. They are the agents of peace, agents of the stability, and agents of the development. Each and every one of us from our positions, which are being bound by our constitution and by our laws, we are having to build a sustainable society, to promote peace and stability, but we will not do that without the full inclusion of the women in every cell of our society.
Kosovo has just came out of a terrible war 16 years ago where over tens of thousands of people has been killed and massacred. Over 20,000 women has been raped as a tool of war during the war time. And still, 16 years after the end of the war, we still have about 1,700 people starting from a private home, and six years old baby up to 80 years old men, which are missing in different massive graves in the territory of Serbia.
And so, we set in the moment for ourselves and we look at that and said, like, how we have come up to that situation and by whom that has been caused? The women has been a crucial, or they have played a crucial role, throughout every state of my country has gone through. First with the resistant, the peaceful resistant, that was having 20 years before the war, before the conflict had started in Kosovo.
Then they had to play the crucial role during the war time, because we have seen in Kosovo, we have seen in Bosnia, and we are seeing now in Syria that the women and children are the biggest victims of the war, and most of the time, their bodies become a battlefield of nasty and terrible wars that are taking place around.
And then we suddenly, after the wars and after the conflicts, we kind of like have a tendency to forget the role of the women they play. But this is what we need to put a stop. We need to put a hold on this and we have to raise ourselves and say, like, no, the women has to be an equal members on building the peace around the countries.
Women are the ones that are more keen of not forgiving, but for keen of a moving forward because you cannot – there is no force in this world that will make you forget what has happened with the rape, with the genocide, with the ethnic cleansing. But it's that drive that you think about the children, you think about the future generation, that you flip the page and you want to move on.
Atifete Jahjaga: The 20,000 women, which has been direct victims of the sexual violence during the war time as a tool for – in our country. They have been continuously stigmatized by their family and by their own society. It was a taboo theme that could not be & or it was not dare even – nobody to speak publicly or individually about that topic.
And three years ago after a very nasty debate out of one of my proposal to put forward a law in the parliament of Kosovo to recognize the legal status as a civilian victims of the world, for the women in Kosovo. After a very nasty debate that I heard in the parliament of my country, I said, like, this is over and this is going to get ended in my country. And I will not allow that under my leadership, under my presidency, and so that's why within those three years, I made one of my top priorities of my presidency regulating the status, the legal status of these women, for their re-integration and re-socialization of these women, but mostly the access to justice. Because these women, they don’t need the money, they don't need jobs, they don't need nothing; they just want whoever has done this to them to find the justice.
And this culture of impunity, it's still existing in Kosovo for about 16 years. In Bosnia, over 20 years, in Rwanda and in many other countries. And we have to put a question to ourselves. How long more we are going to tolerate this injustice and this culture of impunity, which is existing in our society? So, that's why I was personally a part of many of the campaigns that has been done in the country.
Melanne Verveer: Education around the world is still holding women back. Even in this country, even in America, even in France and Germany. Because educationists still believe that not every door is open to women and will not teach them that every door is open to you. Because they still put women into the silos of, yes, get to university, but then you won't work.
Because, as you know, in some countries culturally, in Germany, mother-in-laws thinks it's terrible that their daughter-in-laws work. And in Japan they used to think that. But the GDP of Japan is so bad now; the Prime Minister of Japan is becoming one of the world leaders for women's empowerment because he knows he has to get women back to work.
The educationist from primary and nursery school have to understand that every door and mothers and fathers have to understand that every door is open to every child at whatever background they come from, that they can make it through.
Liz Dibble: In order to change the statistics, you need to change the attitudes and that takes a while. It starts with education. It starts with networking and, you know, that's an overused word but I think we all recognized the power of having somebody to turn to, having someone in to bounce ideas off of.
Learning from other people's not just successes but failures.
Ahu Serter: Networking is a source of education and observation and, you know, fulfilling your curiosity. I think for me it's kind of an observation source and the more you network, the more you're open. You know, you'll learn and then as you learn this journey of discovering keeps getting better and better.
Unidentified Participant: There are a lot of challenges that woman entrepreneurs face and in a country like Tunisia, I think it's important to hear from your perspective what you think the most pressing challenges are and then where do you think we could make some change.
Amel Bouchamaoui Hammami: For us in Tunisia maybe the access to finance and access to market is the main challenges that woman in entrepreneurs in general are facing and women in general face. But I'm taking this opportunity and I would like maybe to address some messages that -- to the fact that maybe now the most important challenge that we are facing is unemployment in Tunisia.
And now, we are having a very high percentage of unemployment. We consider it high because we never had this number before. It's 18% and unfortunately, as all of you are aware, Tunisia was able to overcome the political transition. However, we need to overcome this economic transition.
As a private sector, as a woman entrepreneur, we have our homework to do. We rely on ourselves, you know, to solve this problem of unemployment. But since I'm here in London and I'm having in front of me, I mean, representatives of the international community, I think it's important that the international community best support the transition in Tunisia because the failure of the economic transition in Tunisia will affect the transition in all the region.
Alyse Nelson: Often mentorship is talked about as if it's soft. It's a nice thing to do. But actually it's smart, it's a strategy and as you saw and I think it bears repeating, 77% of those who have been part of this program over the last four years have gone on and really grown their businesses.
Actually, 23% of them grew their businesses by more than 200% as a result of the program and remember, this is only within a few years and what we also know is that those that are mentored are more likely to go on and mentor others.
Andrew Plepler: We very much looked at these relationships whether it's vital voices or whether it's or whether organizations like Shani's is in exchange of learning so that we can be more effective in deploying the resources that we have. The last panel talked about access to capital, we have innovative models where we can reach nonprofit organizations who may not yet ready for bank loans but there are vehicles to still get them financing to grow they businesses particular in that middle range that was discussed, that $250,000 to $2 million range of financing.
So we can be an innovator. We can use our relationships with other lenders to provide capital.
And then the last point I'll also talk about the supply chain. We spent $2 billion a year with diverse suppliers of Bank of America. That's an enormous economic development driver and how do you be most efficient and how you're deploying those resources to get to women-owned, the minority-owned businesses in the supply chain to be an economic driver.
So we really think of this as how do you harness all of the resources of the company and we think about it, it is no longer just writing a check but harnessing all of the capital and the resources that a company of our size and scale and be a partner and play a role in the society that can be constructive.
Shelley Brindle: I was the first female in the executive floor at HBO and one of the things I tell women, it's – if you can get a P&L job, get a P&L job. Because one thing people can never argue about is the results.
And so having P&L responsibility, I think has always been just really great insulation, if you will, for any particular gender bias. But that being said, I had those mentors and sponsors and I think it's really important to notice to really – to note the difference and I'd say early on, I had mentors and mentors are ones as we try to do this week as far as impart their knowledge to kind of help you and that kind of stuff and then I was really fortunate enough to have sponsors and they are men and women and they are people that literally come down and pull you up in the organization.
And quite frankly, generally, it's because it's a selfish benefit and that's OK because they see something in you that actually is going to ultimately benefit them and they might pull you up and help you in your career and I'd had both and I think as I've been very reflective on my career, I think I'm really more grateful than I – I'm more aware of their impact and what they’ve done for me and it was people that, you know, could give you an honest feedback and, really, that people, quite frankly, included you in the meetings and in the conversation that made other people uncomfortable that you were there.
And I've had many people do that for me and for that, I absolutely had taken that lesson and have done the same for others in my organization.
Shelley Brindle: A good mentor will celebrate your successes, hands down. A great mentor will help you learn from your mistakes and embrace them and not be afraid to take that next risk and be there with you when you fail and pick you back up and help you move to the next step.
But actually, one of my great mentors is here, Melanne Verveer, and, you know, I think the wonderful thing about mentoring is that I can never pay Melanne back. What does she need from me? But, you know, I have to pay it forward and I think that's the real power of it.
Shani Aloni: A great gift that I got from Vital Voices is that I learned to see my organization and myself as part of this global network of women changing the world.
And here are these, you know, two organizations, Vital Voices and Bank of America and this woman who is sitting on the top of the corporate world and they all think that my leadership is important enough to take a week off their time to invest in my leadership and to invest in my organization!
Andrew Plepler: To breakdown those barriers and perceptions that people have in stereotypes of, you know, nonprofits are defined this way, big banks are defined this way, you know, successful executive in the corporate world is defined this way and, actually, spending a week together and understanding that we all have the same objectives, we all want to solve big difficult problems and we all bring something to that challenge and we bring different experiences and different skills and different resources.
But if we get together and understand that Bank of America, at the end of the day has the same goal as the Haifa Rape Crisis Center, we can begin to solve some of these problems.
Andrew Plepler: Really feel free to fail and be empowered to fail is probably the best lesson that I've been given and if you're too scared to fail, you're not going to solve problems and if you can have bosses in life and seek out mentors in life that encourage you to get out of your comfort zone and try new solutions and know that not all of them are going to work, that's probably the best advice I've gotten.
Shelley Brindle: There's been this inverse relationship between how much I cared about what everybody else thought and how successful I've been.
And I think if you can let go of the fear, it's amazing how successful you can be.
Alyse Nelson: Actions. Yes. Yes. What great advice from Shelley or other mentors that you'd want to impart to people here?
Shani Aloni: I see women and men, you know, waiting for when they retire to volunteer or waiting for, you know, when – you know, or having this dream of one time I'm going to change my job and go work for an NGO and the internet is full of jokes about this kind of sentences and so I think my advice would be or my request would be, you know, whether you're specializing in marketing, whether you're specializing in IT, whether you're specializing in logistics or, you know, anything, you know, the NGO world can gain from your knowledge and from your experience.
So please don’t wait for when you retire. Please get involved now. I know it's hard. I know you must be a very busy people and, you know, I know there's so little time, you know, in this world. We have so little time but please know how valuable your knowledge and experience is for NGO. You wouldn't believe how much -- how much we can do with your knowledge as an experience. So get involved today. Don’t wait.
Facts and figures
5/11/16
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