Dear AMCHAM members, partners and friends,
Last week was another busy week for us with the highlight being the International Woman’s day event at mid-day on Friday hosted by PwC at their Crystal Park facilities in Gasperich. This is the seventh year AMCHAM has partnered with PwC to put on this event and the first year for Baker McKenzie to also join in this partnership.
The event started at 11:00 in the morning for the benefit of the schedules of our mostly female attendees with welcoming remarks by Vinciane Eustace from PwC, the Chair of our AMCHAM Diversity Committee, who was accompanied by Sabrina Bodson from Baker McKenzie. Mary Carey from PwC then took over to introduce and moderate our carefully chosen and diverse panel of speakers which included Analia Clouet, Secretary General and Member of the Management – Banque Raiffeisen Luxembourg; Avanti Sharma, Pre-Teen Technology Specialist – Workshop4Me & Brand Ambassador – Girls in Tech Luxembourg; Iain Fish, Upper School Principal – International School of Luxembourg and Marjolijne Droogleever Fortuyn, Head of Legal Affairs – BNP Paribas Luxembourg. As you will see from the accompanying photos of the event later on in this Newsletter, we attracted an exceptional, sold-out crowd of attendees, and likewise included 92 staff members from PwC who joined via internal streaming. As every year, I was pleased to give final remarks at the end of the event before we all began a very nice walking lunch accompanied by rich and productive networking.
I think it is fair to say that over the seven years we have been doing this event we have seen considerable progress and the tone of the event is becoming more positive as a result. At the same time, there remains much to be done.
Three specific issues stand out in this regard. Firstly, and in keeping with our seven years of tradition, the panel was composed of a female moderator, three female panel members and one male panelist (Iain Fish). In my closing remarks, while lauding and complimenting all of the speakers, I mentioned this unequal balance and made the point that we will all know we have really moved forward when we get to the point of equality where we have an equal number of female and male speakers (I was pleased to have a positive round of applause for making this remark!). In a similar sense, the audience was likewise very heavily composed of women attendees and, while this was great for Networking and the sharing of experiences, progress requires the participation and active engagement of men as well as women. I hope that next year, each woman who registers to attend will bring a worthy male guest with her!
The third specific issue actually unites men and women together, and this is the matter of the very prevalent lack of appreciation of transferable skill sets by HR personnel here in Luxembourg who appear to overly rely on confirming skills based on diplomas earned without much regards for skills learned outside of classrooms and the transferability of those skills between job titles.
This lack of interest to embrace the value of transferable skills contributes to discrimination against older workers of both genders and women trying to re-enter the workforce after raising their children. The total impact is to deny companies access to appropriately qualified talent that is available but being overlooked. On behalf of AMCHAM, I have offered to take that subject on as an issue… and hope to have support from all of you! Greater acceptance of and appreciation of skills acquired during a full range of life experiences will help companies identify a broader range of eligible qualified candidates to hire while also giving available talent a greater opportunity to be hired.
Last week we also held an excellent Committee event at Amazon arranged by our RTD (Resourcing, Training and Development) committee to showcase four coaches to allow them to explain the range of services and the techniques they use to help people. The 90 attendees of this event were privileged to share this experience and I was honored to make an introduction to the event!. My thanks to Mina Kocgil from Amazon for arranging and hosting this excellent event!
Last week I was also pleased to attend the AGM of our partner organization, the British Luxembourg society, and was honored to be elected to the governing council for a second year. My BLS colleagues and I were thrilled to be hosted by LALUX at their beautiful offices in Leudelange!
This week, we put special attention on an interview with Julia Barone, a special person working at the Hotel and Restaurant School in Diekirch – EHTL – who shares her experience and a bit of her life story. We likewise are pleased to recognize this special school for its excellence and global reach including to Italy (as can be seen in the photos from their recent evening event). Please enjoy both the interview and the photo article!
I was also pleased last week to visit our member company, the excellent Law firm GSK, to distribute Member Benefits Cards for use by their employees and their partners. Please enjoy those photos as well and please see the MBC section of this Newsletter to learn more about the news from this great program for AMCHAM members and their families.
I can’t wait to see what recipe BiBi offers us this week… and hope you enjoy preparing and serving it too!
With respect and my very best wishes,
Paul Schonenberg
Chairman and CEO
AMCHAM.lu
