PWN Romania: Celebrates its Women on Boards Community

The Women on Boards (WoB) pillar of PWN Romania has grown, organically, and at great speed in the last 6 years, reaching more than 100 people who attended the various programmes. Women on Boards has developed from a pilot training programme for women who aspired to a board position, into a fully matured community dedicated to gender balance in leadership positions.

The pillar has conducted four successful editions of the Women on Boards Academy and two WoB Mentoring Programs. In addition, it has set up five task-forces to oversee the achievement of its main long term goals:

• training & mentoring women for board positions
• creating and promoting a professional selection base for boards
• research in mapping the current situation and how to adapt best practices from other states
• advocacy for legislation in support of gender balance, and
• nurturing a community that gathers experienced board members with aspiring ones in order to bring added value.

In celebration of this achievement, the pillar has designed a unique event, the Women on Boards Alumni Reunion, which will take place annually, and will provide the perfect opportunity for networking within the PWN community, and for current and future partners to better share the achievements registered so far.

The inaugural Women on Boards Alumni Reunion took place on 18th January , 2023 and atracted a vibrant collection of WoB graduates, lecturers, mentors and partners. The event also demonstrated the results of our efforts to build a national support network – recruiting all the stakeholders involved in achieving gender balance in leadership, with support and best practices from our international partners.

The pillar has many different activities. In additional to the Women on Boards Academy, the pillar is also assuming a role in transposing the EU Directive regarding gender balance in board positions, into Romanian legislation. We are currently generating the specialised selection base necessary to complete this process successfully. As such, our goal is to bring together as many institutional and civic entities as possible, and to nurture the bridges between the public sector and the national and international associations interested in generating gender balance at all levels of society.

Through this event, the Women on Boards pillar has also marked the unlocking of a new step in its development and aims to set the path for a more holistic approach to our general gender balance objective. We started the year with a celebration and with big plans, and we are looking forward to an adventurous journey towards our goals.

Date: January 2023
Authors: Illeana Botez, President, PWN Romania and Violeta Ciurel, VP Women on Boards, PWN Romania
Editor: Rebecca Fountain, Marketign Consultant, PWN Global