I am delighted to share with all of you in our community an amazing experience we had August 16, 2018. We had the first Latin America WBCM with the support of our partner organization 
Daryus in Brazil. Snacks and soft drinks were provided, as well as room for us to meet. I brought some cupcakes with our committee logo – it was the high point of the meeting (they were good, too)!
In this first meeting, we had about 12 women from the financial industry who work in BCM, crisis management and disaster recovery. We were all very excited to have a forum to our careers, challenges, plans and achievements as individual women and the expectations to have this journey together going forward.
Among the highlights of the meeting were networking and realizing we all have the same challenges and we would like to grow in our positions. First, I presented myself and the purpose of our meeting: “Bringing women together to forge strong personal networks and assist women in advancing within their chosen fields.” Then the ladies introduced themselves and discussed their expectations for the meeting to come.
Then I presented the slides: the WBCM board, Women in Business Continuity Management Panel: Statistics for the field (The Challenges – Audience Polling Results and Roundtable Discussion), and opened up discussion. I told them that we will bring it to Brazil in our next meeting.
I have already received a lot of feedback from the participants of the meeting and also from other women that want to be part of the group:
- “Our meeting was very good! Congratulations for your sensibility, dedication and being caring and inspiring! We are going to rule the world. Thank you!”
- “It was sensational, looking forward to the next meeting.”
- “I already received more requests from women that wants to join next meeting. I will email them to get their membership information and then send it to you.”
Camila Ishikawa
cishikawa@driif.org