Business topics high priority for U.S. female leaders delegation
The initiative came from U.S. Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from the state of Washington, who is leading the delegation of 38 women and two men from her state.
Ambassador Daniel Fried hosts a mixer tonight (Monday, Aug. 23) to introduce the delegation not only to prominent Polish women, but also to Polish emigres who played a major role in early 1990 business start-ups.
Case in point: Alicja Malecka who launched the Boston-based Pioneer mutual funds here, has presided over their massive growth and expansion into other financial areas such as pensions and now spends most time outside Poland scouring the region for expansion options.
During five days in Poland, the Washington state delegates will meet with central bank chief Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, pension-reform plenipotentiary Ewa Lewicka-Banaszak and Teresa Kamińska, the prime minister's point person for social reforms.
They will pay a site visit to Irena Eris at her Irena Eris Cosmetics Laboratory in Piaseczno, which produces facial creams that hold their own against the best the multinationals put on the shelves here. They also will visit O¦Ka, a national information center on women's groups and activities, chaired by Barbara Limanowska; the Women's Rights Center, chaired by lawyer Urszula Nowakowska; and the Warsaw University Technology Transfer Center for talks with Dorota Hubka of the Environmental Partnership Foundation and with internet data specialists Wiesława Maskalam and Helena Kusotz.
At a Wednesday "Roundtable" discussion, the keynoters will be Senator Murray and the Treasury Ministry's top financial-institution privatizer, Alicja Kornasiewicz. Health Minister Franciszka Cegielska is expected as well, not just as a health guru but as a Baltic Coast business pioneer well known to the Washington state crowd because Seattle and Gdynia are sister cities.
In between seminars and at lunches and dinners, they will meet and mingle with Poland's women in business who worked with Firma 2000 to put together the itinerary. These include Anna Janczewska-Radwan, the president of the 18-month-old Association of Women Entrepreneurs, which now has 170 members. She heads the Polish operations for a German pharmaceutical firm MEDIM. The association's vice president is Wiesława Ewa Plucińska, who heads EVIP International, which is expanding its industrial-turnaround activities from the Gdańsk shipyard to steel mills with a recently awarded government contract.
Wednesday's four-hour roundtable includes not just a "glass ceiling" panel, featuring Warsaw School of Economics (SGH) professor Ewa Lisowska, Washington State University small business specialist Bonnie Boyle and US West regional official Leslie Jones, but a business-development panel headed by EVIP's Ewa Plucińska; Margaret Towle, CEO of Puget Sound Asset Management; and Isabelle Lamb, president of Enterprises International. Henryka Bochniarz, head of Nicom Consulting and a key privatization adviser to the government, is Polish point person for pursuing greater ties between the state of Washington and Poland, with state Sen. Georgia Gardner and state economic development official Kathy Kreiter.
A session on women's health is led by Wanda Nowicka, director of the Federation for Women and Family Planning, state Rep. Mary Skinner and Bernie Dochnahl, director of Global Partnerships.
Too bad the agenda didn't include a sit-down with the Polish official in charge of women and family issues, the high-profile Kazimierz Kapera. They could have asked him why he unilaterally "re-directed" European Union (EU) money earmarked for breast-cancer prevention to anti-pornography activities.
Pornography may pollute the mind, as Kapera insists. But the EU had wanted to help Poland combat breast cancer, one of the country's leading causes of death for women. Only now is attention being given to life-saving early detection mechanisms - both mammography machines and a better awareness by doctors and individual women about at-home self-examinations and routine office checkups.
Ambassador Daniel Fried hosts a mixer tonight (Monday, Aug. 23) to introduce the delegation not only to prominent Polish women, but also to Polish emigres who played a major role in early 1990 business start-ups.
Case in point: Alicja Malecka who launched the Boston-based Pioneer mutual funds here, has presided over their massive growth and expansion into other financial areas such as pensions and now spends most time outside Poland scouring the region for expansion options.
During five days in Poland, the Washington state delegates will meet with central bank chief Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, pension-reform plenipotentiary Ewa Lewicka-Banaszak and Teresa Kamińska, the prime minister's point person for social reforms.
They will pay a site visit to Irena Eris at her Irena Eris Cosmetics Laboratory in Piaseczno, which produces facial creams that hold their own against the best the multinationals put on the shelves here. They also will visit O¦Ka, a national information center on women's groups and activities, chaired by Barbara Limanowska; the Women's Rights Center, chaired by lawyer Urszula Nowakowska; and the Warsaw University Technology Transfer Center for talks with Dorota Hubka of the Environmental Partnership Foundation and with internet data specialists Wiesława Maskalam and Helena Kusotz.
At a Wednesday "Roundtable" discussion, the keynoters will be Senator Murray and the Treasury Ministry's top financial-institution privatizer, Alicja Kornasiewicz. Health Minister Franciszka Cegielska is expected as well, not just as a health guru but as a Baltic Coast business pioneer well known to the Washington state crowd because Seattle and Gdynia are sister cities.
In between seminars and at lunches and dinners, they will meet and mingle with Poland's women in business who worked with Firma 2000 to put together the itinerary. These include Anna Janczewska-Radwan, the president of the 18-month-old Association of Women Entrepreneurs, which now has 170 members. She heads the Polish operations for a German pharmaceutical firm MEDIM. The association's vice president is Wiesława Ewa Plucińska, who heads EVIP International, which is expanding its industrial-turnaround activities from the Gdańsk shipyard to steel mills with a recently awarded government contract.
Wednesday's four-hour roundtable includes not just a "glass ceiling" panel, featuring Warsaw School of Economics (SGH) professor Ewa Lisowska, Washington State University small business specialist Bonnie Boyle and US West regional official Leslie Jones, but a business-development panel headed by EVIP's Ewa Plucińska; Margaret Towle, CEO of Puget Sound Asset Management; and Isabelle Lamb, president of Enterprises International. Henryka Bochniarz, head of Nicom Consulting and a key privatization adviser to the government, is Polish point person for pursuing greater ties between the state of Washington and Poland, with state Sen. Georgia Gardner and state economic development official Kathy Kreiter.
A session on women's health is led by Wanda Nowicka, director of the Federation for Women and Family Planning, state Rep. Mary Skinner and Bernie Dochnahl, director of Global Partnerships.
Too bad the agenda didn't include a sit-down with the Polish official in charge of women and family issues, the high-profile Kazimierz Kapera. They could have asked him why he unilaterally "re-directed" European Union (EU) money earmarked for breast-cancer prevention to anti-pornography activities.
Pornography may pollute the mind, as Kapera insists. But the EU had wanted to help Poland combat breast cancer, one of the country's leading causes of death for women. Only now is attention being given to life-saving early detection mechanisms - both mammography machines and a better awareness by doctors and individual women about at-home self-examinations and routine office checkups.
