Promociona project second edition is just about to begin
September 1st opens the deadline for submitting proposals to participate in the second edition of Promociona Project. A project financed by the EEA Grants within the Gender Equality Programme for raising awareness, training, professional growth, the development of leadership and the promotion of women to decision-making positions within their companies.
01.08.2014
The Promociona Project is an initiative of the Spanish Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality within the EEA Grants Gender Equality and Conciliation Programme, being CEOE the project promoter. The long term general objective is to achieve a greater number of women executives in Spanish companies steering committees and management boards. The intention is to enable companies to develop and retain female talent present in their organizations, placing at their disposal a training and development programme that will enable them to prepare and recruit women for senior management jobs.
The training modules consist of four phases: a course in ESADE, a prestigious business school; networking; mentoring and coaching, according to a Personal Development Programme for each of the participants.
The results of the firs edition, held in 2013, are extremely positive. They trained 40 woman and 40 mentors from the biggest companies in Spain took part (Coca-Cola, Telefónica, Facebook, Iberdrola, IBM, Renault…). The participants were selected among 350 candidates following an extremely demanding selection process. For that reason, in the second edition which is in the verge of beginning, it will be an improvement related to the number of possible beneficiaries: companies will be able to send to the program not only one but two women, and they will have to pay the cost of one of them, as the companies itself have expressly requested.
As the Spanish State Secretary of Social Services and Equality, Susana Camarero, highlighted: “women and men participation in decision-making positions results in more innovative, creative and better managed companies”. So, the involvement of the companies is crucial. In this project, the companies have to sign a letter of commitment with each woman, so that each participant will commit to achieve a number of objectives, and the company undertakes to promote her professionally.
The Norwegian Ambassador in Spain, Johan Vibe, pointed out, during the signature of the Promociona Project second edition, that “utilising female talent is crucial for economic growth”. “It is widely believed that oil sector is the only reason for the Norwegian buoyant economy. But, according to economists and experts, the added value of the female work is much more important for our economy than oil and gas”, Ambassador said.