Daily Times

Women Business Network in collaboration with Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Startup Grind Lahore powered by Google for Startups and HR Knowledge Café organized Women Biz Meetup at the Lahore Ladies Club.

The theme for this year being “Lets Create a Better Tomorrow”, the event focused on empowering women entrepreneurship and highlighting the importance of the need of women leadership in the corporate sector of Pakistan. The event started off with welcome remarks by Saba Mubarak, SVP, Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry Lahore, opening remarks by Sam Ali Dada, President, WCCI, and ended with concluding remarks by Dr. Shehla Javed, Founding President, WCCI, Lahore. Sabahat Bokhari, Director Diversity and Inclusion Jazz, called attention to the importance of resilience and grit in a woman leader to smoothly operate in a workplace with great commitment. She also spotlighted how the distinctive strengths of women can provide them with great advantages and help them move higher as well as become a powerful resource for other women seeking to rise. Haroon Akhtar, co-founder of HR Knowledge Café, emphasized how Women Business Network is not an entirely ‘women based’ space but a platform to encourage women participation all across organizations.

Iftikhar Hussain, Director Startup Grind, Lahore and Co-founder, Women Business Network, highlighted that the WBN is a network of business and corporate leaders to uplift women entrepreneurs & corporate executives for cross border opportunities & emphasized that glocalized version of women entrepreneurship can change the outlook of our corporate sector along with how organizations can be more successful by supporting diversity and inclusion of women in their businesses. Usman Ali, Director Growth & Strategy, Transforming Hub, also explained the positive impact of empowering women, directly boosts productivity, increases economic diversification and income equality in addition to positive development outcomes.

The significance of women having a seat at the table and what value this leadership can bring to the organizations was discussed during the two panel discussions, “Today is the day” and “Make a move now”. The role that male counterparts can play during this journey is also crucial and was thoroughly talked about during the panel discussion by Atif Arif, Vice President HR, Bank of Punjab and Dr. Faisal Hashmi, Head Government Affairs and Administration, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Coca Cola. Multiple other panelists included Nausheen Jaffery from Nestle Professional, Maria Mubashir from Systems Limited, Anum Jeelani from Intagleo Systems, Sam Ali Dada from WCCI, Lahore, and Hafsa Asif from Hansgrohe who conducted a discussion to create an impact as well as ease for the women to be in a powerful position in the corporate sector.