PWN Member of the Year: Virginia Otel, President of PWN Romania

It is tempting to start every article in this Q4 newsletter with the phrase “a week ago we gathered together in Dublin to launch our inaugural Gender Balanced Leadership Awards event” and actually, there is so much I would love to say that is already covered in other articles! With this short article, what I really want to do is focus on one particular award category.

We are very open about the fact that as a non-profit we would not exist without the support of our members and the dedication of our volunteers. Naturally, our awards event was the perfect opportunity to recognise their contribution and that is how we came to create our Member of the Year award. 

We wrote to our members and asked them to nominate a member from anywhere in our network that they felt had demonstrated outstanding service to their local City Network and the PWN Global mission. We received many nominations from right across the global network, with each one deserving of our recognition. 

Our judges had their work cut out for them, but after rising to the challenge, a decision was reached and we were able to present Virginia Otel, President of PWN Romania with the award on the night.  

With her leading roles in Mentoring, Women on Boards, Engaging Men and subsequently as President of PWN Romania, Virginia has worked hard to create links with many important organisations within Romania and internationally.  Under her leadership, the local network membership and impact has continued to grow steadily and the global mission and vision has an articulate and effective ambassador.  

I also wanted to use this space to celebrate all of the members who were nominated and to thank them for their contributions.  There are too many to list here but I will take a few lines for a special mention to Sandra Momah, the founder of our first PWN City Network in Africa. 

Sandra, along with her team in Lagos, has taken our mission and transposed it across cultural and generational divides to encourage the next generation of women leaders to step up!!

To everyone who was nominated, and to those who were not - you are all winners and PWN Global would be nothing without your inspiring contributions. We salute you, we thank you, and we look forward to doing it all again next year!!!

Created by: Karin Trivière, Head of Membership Experience, PWN Global

Edited by: Rebecca Fountain, Head of Marketing and Communications, PWN Global

Date: October 2019