São Paulo – The Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) Women’s Committee saw its official launch on Wednesday (15) during a webinar hosted by the organization. Dubbed “Wahi – Women Who Inspire,” the Committee will strive to bring Brazilian and Arab women closer together, especially on the business front.
“The purpose of our Committee is to have Arab and Brazilian women get acquainted, to share experiences in their lines of work and to do business together. It is our deeply held belief that this sharing of experiences will provide the inspiration for us to be able to display entrepreneurship, to accomplish things and to innovate more and more in our day-to-day, our businesses, our lives,” Committee president Alessandra Frisso said. Frisso is the director of research firm H2R Pesquisas, an ABCC member company.
According to her, the Committee’s three-pillared mission involves economic development, cultural promotion and exchange, and social responsibility and marketing. She explained the rationale behind the choice of name – wahi is Arabic for inspiration. “Women who inspire us and who inspire other women,” she said, referencing what the future holds.
“And then there is a very important singularity to Wahi. What’s alluring about this committee is it will spread awareness of the lifestyles, the differences in behavior, the challenges faced by Arab and Brazilian women. This will enable greater mutual acquaintance to end mystification and break paradigms. We truly believe that in letting all these women’s voices be heard, we will value their ideas and contributions, and we will build bridges that will lead to trust and respect. That is one of Wahi’s primary goals,” Frisso said.
The Committee’s board sits civil engineer Claudia Yazigi Haddad, historian Silvia Antibas and executive Janine Bezerra de Menezes. Its members are the ABCC’s Daniella Leite, Fernanda Baltazar, Tâmara Machado, Isaura Daniel, Karina Cassapula, Ana Cristina Oliveira and Marina Sarruf.
ABCC president Rubens Hannun kicked off the event. He remarked that 51% of the organization’s staff are female, and 71% of its C-level positions are women. “Our teams are led by women, and we are happy to have this committee named ‘Wahi – Women Who Inspire.’ I would like to begin by saying thank you from the bottom of my heart, and to inaugurate this committee on behalf of the board,” he said.
The webinar “Low Touch Economy: A New Way of Doing Business,” during which the Committee was launched, was one of the first initiatives of the novel women’s group. Four professionals were invited to discuss the topic and go over the challenges posed to businesses by the pandemic, in Brazil and the Arab countries. The event got over 800 viewers in Brazil and the world.
Here are two other stories on the webinar:
Arab businesswomen discuss their pandemic experiences
Democratizing technology a Low Touch Economy challenge
You can watch the Committee’s introductory video here:
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
