Program

WCI President Marjorie Margolies 

In line with the rigorous WPSP curriculum and guidelines, we designed an intensive week focused on how to successfully tackle and overcome the specific difficulties embedded in negotiating internationally as a woman leader: communication skills; building self confidence and mutual trust in a often male-dominated and foreign environment; building partnerships and effective networking and the difficult management of work-family balance (often  at  a  distance),  etc.

The program was strutture in three parts and had a threefold  objective:

- Learn from those who did it: We often claim that with more women at the helm, the world would be a better place. But  nobody has actually ever analyzed this claim in a thoughtful scholarly and comparative way to prove it right: with the help of renown  scholars explored the role of women leaders in foreign policy in the EU and the US.  

- Intensive training session on topic such as leadership, communication, advocacy, negotiating techniques, building trust, networking, dress code, managing work-family balance as women in an international and often multinational and multicultural arena. 

Afghan Civil Servants women's group with WCI team 

Women's Campaign International (WCI)'s President Marjolie  Margolies and Joe White Slade's Vice President Valerie Biden Owens led highly interactive trainings, with plenty of practical exercises and possibilities for participants to see their presentations on video and receive  feedback from  the  experts. 

- International conferences open to the public in the evenings to  discuss with current international women leaders in the beautiful setting of the theater of the Italian Cultural Institute, followed by international networking cocktails. 

Anne-Marie Slaughter with Hillary Clinton

New America Foundation's President Prof. Anne-Marie Slaughter and the Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Marta Dassù official opened the conference

We continued with Androulla Vassiliou, EU Commissioner for Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth; Monica Frassoni, President of the European Greens, Mari Skåre, NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security, Marjorie Margolies, former Congresswoman, founder and President of Women’s Campaign International; Valerie Biden Owens, Communication Expert and manager of all the electoral campaigns of the American Vice President Joe Biden; Cristina Gallach, Head, Public Relations, Council of the EU; Veronika Wand Danielsson, Head of the Mission of Sweden to NATO. Kolinda Grabar, Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy at NATO (keynote); Jane Morrice, Vice-President, European Economic and Social Committee; Simonetta Di Pippo, President, Women in Aerospace Europe; Teri Schultz, Reporter for NPR and CBS News, Federiga Bindi, then Director of the Italian Cultural Institute.

See the full program