To reflect on women and power and contribute to their advancement, giving visibility to leading female professionals in all sectors and generating a space for interrelation to weave networks. With this objective, the promoters of Suquet de Dones face what will be the second meeting of this women's forum, which will be held at the Llotja de Mar in Barcelona on October 10, coinciding with the women's competition of the America's Cup.
The promoters of the event, known as Ànimes del Suquet, have conceived this second meeting with a new format that will prioritize networking, as well as establishing transversal contacts in all sectors, "to make this event a unique gathering, where very diverse leading women who would not meet at any other event will coincide," explained entrepreneur and promoter of the initiative Olga Reixach to The New Barcelona Post.
With a cocktail dinner format, the objective will be to maximize contacts and provide content to the event, showcasing success stories that emerged from the first Suquet meeting. The event, held in Lloret de Mar a year ago, facilitated the promotion of new companies, projects, funding rounds, business and personal collaborations among the more than 330 attendees. This year's event not only renews its format, but also its name, and will be convened as Ànimes Barcelona 2024.
As in the first meeting in Lloret, participation in the event is based on direct invitation from the organizers. They will select the guests pursuing the transversality that also characterizes the group of promoters, which includes ten professionals from diverse sectors who have promoted these non-profit meetings from both political and economic independence.
In addition to Olga Reixach, among the Ànimes del Suquet are the director of corporate strategy and former minister Àngels Chacón and also former minister and former vice-president Joana Ortega, along with businesswoman and lawyer Maria Teixidor and labor lawyer and vice-president of Pimec Emma Gumbert, as well as Mónica Melero and Patricia Rodríguez. Also included among the promoters are the CEO and founder of the corporate diplomacy consultancy Diplocorp, Erika Torregrossa, as well as the executive president of Manix Capital and founder of Fibracat, Meritxell Bautista. The businesswoman and investor has just launched the Ikónikas women's network, and she has done so together with another of the Suquet promoters: Mar Alarcón, co-founder of Social Car, 19N Strategies and Terap.
Seeking synergies with the America's Cup, the promoters of Ànimes Barcelona will invite the competition participants to the event"We are all very different, and that is something that must be valued: it contributes to breaking stereotypes from the diversity of opinions," Bautista claims. The heterogeneity and transversality of the group will be reflected in the guests at the October event, which will be selected from this desire to connect relevant female profiles and role models for their projects and leadership, as Teixidor explains. The woman who was the first female secretary of Barça's board of directors emphasizes that, in addition, this event will be a lever to take a leap and open the forum internationally: "Women from all over the world come to Barcelona; we have a lot of international talent and, as ambassadors, we want to connect with them."
Rowing in favor of the America's Cup
The meeting has been scheduled for October 10 precisely to coincide with a global event that will have Barcelona and its waters as a setting: the women's competition of the America's Cup sailing, which will take place from October 5 to 13. Seeking synergies with the sporting event, the promoters of Ànimes Barcelona will invite the participants of the competition. Thus, the event aims to serve as a meeting point for female leadership and talent, also around the America's Cup and the sailors who will make history competing for the first time in the women's category of the competition.
After this event, which expects an attendance of about 300 people, the promoters plan to organize future meetings, changing location in each edition and maintaining for all of them the new denomination of Ànimes, followed by the locality that hosts each of the events. Thus, although the promoters continue to call themselves Ànimes del Suquet, the events will not be convened as Suquet de Dones, but with this new signature.
The initiative aims to weave networks of contacts, while seeking to raise awareness of the path that remains to be traveled, and to highlight the advancement of women in all areasThe origin of the name with which the initiative was born is also linked to gastronomy and, above all, to power: is linked to the Civet that businessman Luis Conde organizes annually, which represents a meeting point for influential figures from the political, economic, and business spheres. It was precisely at the exit of the meeting promoted by the founder of Seeliger y Conde when Olga Reixach proposed to Àngels Chacón the need to promote spaces for professional networking among women outside of work, as Chacón recalls.
Thus the Suquet was born, in contrast to the Civet and with the will to generate these spaces for encounter and interrelation. "If we don't do valuable networking and empower ourselves, change will not come", as Teixidor warns. And Bautista goes further: "We have to start being able to talk about money and business naturally; we have to get together to generate business, and change." A change that is already underway, in which women leaders emerge from all fields and sectors despite the glass ceiling.
Thus, the initiative aims to weave networks of contacts, while seeking to awaken consciences about the path that lies ahead, and to highlight the advancement of women in all areas. "There is a component of banging on the table to reclaim feminine power: we are in the business world and we are capable of articulating powerful synergies", proclaims Gumbert. "We have to break stereotypes; women are well positioned in the business world, we have touched power," adds Bautista, without ignoring that there is still a long way to go, in which the Ànimes del Suquet want to advance by creating transversal collaboration networks among leading women.
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