Brought to you by the Professional Women’s Network of Barcelona.
The Professional Women’s Network (PWN) focuses on promoting and accelerating diverse, gender-balanced leadership within the Barcelona corporate community. The PWN welcomes professional men and women and offers a range of initiatives, events, content, training materials and networking. PWN is an expert in diversity, with a mission to be the “go-to organization” in Barcelona in relation to gender balanced leadership.
Very simply, PWN believes that leveraging 100% of the world’s talent leads to improved business performance, better decision making, economic sustainability and a happier society.
Fostering Leadership Skills
Established in 2011, the Barcelona chapter of PWN is one of many in a global organization with 4000 members worldwide. It is particularly proud of its bespoke mentoring program, which includes virtual mentoring for senior leaders and is involved in EU funded programs, such as the SWING program, supporting female leadership in sports organizations. Mentoring has proven to be one of the most effective tools to empower people and support and accelerate personal and professional development.
Mentoring is a relationship between an expert willing to share his or her knowledge and experience, and one or more mentees who want to learn from this expertise to develop personal or professional skills. It’s a relationship based on trust. Discretion, honesty and confidentiality are vital: what arises in the mentoring relationship stays in the mentoring relationship.
PWN believes mentoring is the perfect short-cut to prepare you for the next step in your career. Mentees are supported by an inspirational relationship—one that may even become a life-long friendship—in an environment that fosters honest conversations and generosity.
Challenge, Learn, Grow
This year PWN is running its fifth mentoring program, with 25 mentor and mentee pairs, working together in an eight-month program which consists of:
- One-to-one sessions focus on the individual needs of each mentee.
- These sessions are a great opportunity to learn about yourself, your skills, goals and priorities and how to become productive when confronted with new challenges. Mentees come to the program with an open mind and ready to implement changes in the way they approach their personal and professional projects through the knowledge and inspiration offered by the mentor. In addition to this, the mentor and mentee may even share the same industry or sector in which the mentor can provide introductions to broaden networking and even counseling in new challenges.
- The program provides exclusive training and leadership workshops that deliver skill development. A broad range of topics are updated every year including: communication, mindfulness, LinkedIn strategies, international negotiation, marketing your business and leadership development to name a few.
- Networking events give participants exposure to a community beyond that of the mentor.
- As part of its commitment to support gender balance, the program is open to male and female participants.
Due to the COVID-19 situation, the mentoring program has been re-oriented to a virtual version and is proving to be as exciting as the traditional face-to-face program. The mentoring team responded with speed and flexibility to the challenges of this year, allowing the PWN mentoring program to continue to achieve great results, despite the current difficulties.
Over the next two months the PWN will share the personal experiences of some of the 2020 participants in its mentorship program, offering first-hand insight into what mentoring brings to peoples’ lives.
You can learn more about the PWN Barcelona's mentorship program and events on the website at pwnbarcelona.net and follow the organization on Facebook @pwnbarcelona, Twitter @PWNBarcelona and LinkedIn.
Brought to you by the Professional Women’s Network of Barcelona.