The Women’s Forum for Economy and Society

Each year in October an extraordinary gathering takes place.  Women leaders from the cutting edge of business, politics, academia, science and the arts globally congregate in the quaint seaside town of Deauville in France.

Amidst the timbered architecture and boardwalks on the beach The Women’s Forum for Economy and Society meets to air the issues of the day, debate challenges and solutions and cast a uniquely female perspective on, as the name implies, the Economy and Society.

Tackling the Crisis
There could not have been a more timely moment to gather this iconic group of women from all over the world.  The programme was reshaped to cover the financial crisis and emerging recessionary pressures and inevitably the tone was more sombre than in previous years. A poll of Forum participants conducted at the Forum by IFOP showed that women tend to be more cautious and concerned about our financial future. 

Diversity – an advantage in economic adversity
Yet the theme – Progress - also provided optimism and inspiration in spades.  Diversity it seems is a key part of progress and strikes a chord with a wide range of businesses in the 21st century.  Indeed  business seems to have woken up to the advantages that diversity of all sorts can bring to decision-making, to teams and generally to the commercial success and richness of life within a company at a time when new business models will be crucial to economic development over the next 10 years.  A study conducted by McKinsey & Company called “Women Matter: Gender diversity, a corporate performance driver” published at the Forum concludes that companies with the highest number of women at board management level perform best in organisational and financial matters.   McKinsey. in collaboration with Amazone Euro Fund, compared the average financial performance of 89 companies and showed that those companies with more women in senior managerial positions outperform their sector by 10% in terms of return on equity, and by 48% in terms of operating results.   What works in business should also work in politics according EU Commissioner Margot Wallstrφm, responsible for Europe’s Communication strategy.   In her key note speech the Commissioner came out fighting for the need to get parity for Women in politics.

But the Forum is not just aimed at elites or business. Set up four years ago by French businesswoman Aude Zieseniss de Thuin when her invite to Davos did not arrive! The Forum takes a much wider perspective and this year’s edition included speakers ranging from Carlos Ghosn, CEO Renault-Nissan to Ingrid Betancourt to Diane von Furstenberg; from ministers for women’s issues in Africa and Cambodia to campaigners for women’s rights in Ireland and Afghanistan; from neuroscientists to Taslima Nasrin the exiled Bangladeshi author.  Being of a pragmatic Anglo-Saxon bent, one of my first questions on being asked to get involved with the Women’s Forum at the outset was “but what will it do?”.  The reply, a rather disconcerting one came back “… but it is a forum for debate and raising critical issues”.  It is the diversity and rich perspective brought to these issues where the Women’s Forum, cited by the Financial Times in 2007 as one of the top five global fora alongside Davos and the Clinton Global Initiative, really succeeds.

Contradictions, connections and individual contribution – finding new models
Indeed it is the radically different lives and individual stories behind these perspectives that best illustrate the point.  Take the seemingly contradictory worlds of high fashion and women’s rights.  They came together in a way in Deauville that was shocking, inspiring and totally unimaginable in a more traditional setting.

Diane von Furstenberg, designer of the iconic wrap dress, serial entrepreneur and businesswoman has become involved with not for profit campaigning organisation, Vital Voices.  Between them they brought to the Women’s Forum in Deauville an extraordinary play “7”.  The play is written by 7 women playwrights and tells the stories of seven women from far flung corners of the globe whose lives and efforts have made a huge difference to the position and rights of women in their societies.  Perhaps the most courageous is that of Mukhtar Mai, who suffered terribly personally at the hands of the traditional “honour” system in rural Pakistan.  Not only did she pursue her case through the court system and win, but used her compensation money to set up the first school in her village to bring education to local girls and boys and thereby try to prevent the same fate awaiting other women.  The play could not fail to move the 1200 strong audience – largely women – but what really made an impression was the courage of the women themselves who also came to Deauville.  One could not help but wonder whether in these times when the Icelandic government is as the FT said turning to women to clean up the “male mess”, the connection and power of women’s stories could be at the heart of a much more profound influence on corporate social responsibility and transformation of business models moving forward in the 21st century?

Concrete action – business commitment
Utopian ideals? Perhaps but what was evident at the Women’s Forum was that the theme of diversity against adversity and diversity as part of the solution, resonates with very successful and very commercial businesses from car makers to luxury to technology.  There were many initiatives where time and again the partnership of individual talents and business expertise came together in partnership.  The Forum has indeed moved beyond debate and become practical and substantive in the work that it accomplishes.  Take the Cartier Women’s Initiative Award for young entrepreneurs, the Elle Foundation Women for Education work; The Climate Club; Force Femmes – helping to place post 40 year old women back into the workplace after career breaks, SciTechGirls begun in 2007 by L’Oreal and Orange and now more widely supported by companies such as Accenture, Areva, GDF-Suez, Intel Lenovo, Microsoft, Thales encouraging young women to pursue careers in science; or the Rising Talents programme with Eurazeo and Egon Zehnder in support which pulls together from the Forum senior businesswomen to mentor young women leaders of the future in the fields of arts, science, academia and business.

This special role for women has certainly been the thinking and the brainchild of Aude de Thuin, founder, inspiration and creator of the Women’s Forum four years ago and one which she is convinced serves well society and economy alike. ““Women have a duty to speak, to be actors for change. The Women’s Forum must help to shake things up and build together a different world.” Aude de Thuin “Women have a duty to speak, to be actors for change. The Women’s Forum must help to shake things up and build together a different world.”   Business it seems agrees with her.  So let’s hope that, despite what looks like a difficult economic period globally, in 2009 that we will see a continued growth for this unique, inspiring and often contradictory event.

Julia Harrison is founder and Managing Partner of Blueprint Partners and sits on the founding committee of the Women’s Forum
www.womens-forum.com