In mid January I had the opportunity to attend the HP EMEA Women’s Summit in Sofia, Bulgaria. The motto of this event, which is part of HP EMEA’s Diversity programme, was “Building the next level of women leaders”. HP’s objective was to support leadership opportunities for female managers through a combination of workshops, career planning, opportunities to interact with executives as well as other activities aimed at expanding our network in the company. Let me share with you some of my impressions of this internal event.

Can you imagine what it is like to be in a huge conference room, together with 150 women from nearly all EMEA countries? Well, I can tell you that it is great – and also very lively! We did not need any encouragement to start talking to the colleagues next to us, believe me!

The event was kicked off by Sasha Bezuhanova, the country manager of HP Bulgaria. Sofia in Bulgaria was a great location for this event: not only because the country is part of Central & Eastern Europe (CEE), the fastest growing region in the world, but also because with Sasha the country has a female managing director, who can be considered as one of the role models for women at HP.

So, besides getting to know a lot of women from various countries and different business groups, what was the event about? I unfortunately cannot list all the different useful sessions, presentations, discussions and panels, but I will focus on two parts, that were most beneficial for me. For example the three workshops on the second day, which were all grouped around the topics of career and personal development. This was a very intense experience, where we looked at our own strengths, professional and personal goals. During each workshop we worked with one colleague, who added her feedback, and vice versa. In the end we committed to a couple of concrete actions, which we will pursue in the upcoming weeks to get closer to our own targets.
Another highlight was the peer-to-peer speed mentoring exercise, where in three 20 minutes sessions a group of participants and one HP Executive shared best practices and exchanged views on topics like work/life balance or how to use a network.

On the last day we had a feedback session with the members of the EMEA management team, among them also Francesco Serafini, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of HP EMEA, where we delivered actions for the EMEA management team to help employees (men and women) in their development at HP. In a couple of months we will be asked to provide feedback about how we think HP has progressed in these areas.

I could go on and on with listing all further impressions of this great event, but I fear you would stop reading then. So, in a nutshell: I made some great personal contacts, received very valuable insights of myself, was given tools to develop my career, and returned home with a bag full of new ideas and perspectives, which prepare me well for the next challenges and opportunities at HP.

Silke Berkmann, Corporate Marketing Manager, Central & Eastern Europe