"For a company to succeed it is essential to apply the group idea, to work the collective mind of the whole team at the service of the organisation", acknowledged Lucía Casanueva, managing partner of PROA, during the presentation of Women Presidents Organisation (WPO) in Galicia. In the framework of the conference 'The impact of women entrepreneurs in the world', organised by the WPO at the ABANCA Social Work Centre in Santiago de Compostela, it was argued that adequate and safe environments, which facilitate personal and family reconciliation with the possibility of developing projects, are essential to promote women's entrepreneurship.
In addition to Lucía Casanueva, speakers included Maite Valiño, Managing Director of Grupo Atlante; Carmen Lence, President of Lence Torres; Dolores Martínez, President of Galerusa.
The event was opened by Juan Manuel Vieites, President of the Confederation of Galician Businessmen, Camilia Burns, CEO of WPO and Valeria Rodríguez-Codina Felgueras, WPO Chapter Chair for Spain and Latin America. Both WPO leaders highlighted the purpose and impact of this organisation, which has 2000 members worldwide.
The event was also welcomed by the Regional Minister for Employment Promotion and Equality, María Jesús Lorenzana, who was in favour of achieving a more balanced presence of women in decision-making spheres. She also remarked that they can obtain better business results and referred to a study by the International Labour Organisation, which states that companies with a mixed leadership between men and women increase their profits by up to 25 %.
Beatriz Lorenzo, Founding Partner of Real Impact, then moderated the panel "The impact and importance of women entrepreneurs". In this panel, the participants described their experience in the management of important organisations belonging to sectors such as energy (Galerusa), food (Lence), architecture and engineering (Atlante) and communication consultancy (PROA).
In this sense, the founding partner of PROA Comunicación and member of WPO, Lucía Casanueva stressed that for a company to succeed, "it is essential to apply the group idea and work the collective mind of the whole team at the service of the organisation". And with regard to the keys to promoting female entrepreneurship, she points out that "we need to create environments in which women can reconcile our time with our families and motherhood with the development of projects and the creation of companies. We have made progress, but there is still a long way to go, but we must be patient because we are talking about profound changes in our societies and this cannot be achieved in five years. It takes decades of perseverance, effort and work.