São Paulo – In a bid to demystify the business culture of Arab countries, the WAHI – Women Who Inspire committee of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) and the Women Inside Trade (WIT) group are hosting, at 9 am on Wednesday (16), the webinar “Challenges and Opportunities for Women Doing Business with the Arab Countries.” Registration is open. The event is free of charge, and simultaneous translation into English and Portuguese will be available.
WAHI Board chairwoman and research firm H2R Pesquisas Avançadas commercial director Alessandra Frisso (pictured above) will open the webinar. International NGO Women Inside Trade (WIT) cofounders Veronica Prates and Monica Rodriguez will respectively speak during the event’s opening and wrap-up.
According to Frisso, the ABCC Women’s Committee works to connect Brazilian and Arab women along three pillars – business, social responsibility, and culture. “We are building bridges when it comes to business development. One of them is our partnership with WIT, an international trade-oriented women’s group. Our purpose is to relay some of the experiences of women who are used to working with the Arab countries and who have been able to carve out opportunities, so that we can share their stories,” Frisso said.
Lack of knowledge is conducive to myth and distancing, Frisso said. “We wish to encourage deal-making through the experiences of those that have done it before, and who not only have overcome challenges, but managed to consolidate business opportunities,” she explained.
The webinar is intended to spread knowledge and awareness regarding business relations with “We are all too often restricted to what we know. We intend to provide an opportunity for us to get to know and get close to one another, so that in the near future we can do busines based on cultural understanding,” she said.
WIT
Aside from being the cofounder of Women Inside Trade, Monica Rodriguez is also an international trade consultant with BMJ. The WIT works to empower women through a worldwide network of professionals, as well as specialized training and leadership development.
“The WIT is an organization of women working together for the shared purpose of bringing together women involved in foreign trade. International trade is a very masculine world, so the idea is to carve out a space for women, in spite of the difficulties,” said Rodriguez.
Rodriguez said the partnership with the WAHI committee is designed to create synergy and collaboration through the discussion of aspects of foreign trade. “The WIT is a space for dialogue and knowledge-sharing,” the businesswoman said.
The international group was established in Brasília in 2017. It has a website and social media pages. The work is entirely pro bono, and there’s also a WhatsApp group of some 250 women who share information on business-related events and topics.
“We intend to espouse the notion that yes, doing business with Arabs is possible. To demystify misleading stereotypes and encourage businesswomen to make their way into new markets and find new business possibilities,” she concluded.
The speakers in the online event will be Karen Jones, Head of Operations for the Middle East & North Africa Office of the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil); Grazielle Parenti, chairman of the board at the Brazilian Food Industry Association (Abia); Shamsa Al-Falasi, Cluster head of the Citibank Global Subsidiaries Group for the GCC & Iraq; Heuda Farah Guessous; Heuda Farah Guessous, cofounder of Morocco’s Foodeshow event; and Kellen Amorim, a strategist on Personal Branding and Positioning, Communication and Female Leadership.
The webinar will be moderated by the ABCC’s Institutional Relations manager, Fernanda Baltazar. ABCC president Rubens Hannun will also be featured. Al Ward/Royal Queen partner and Date Crown representative for Brazil and Latin America Julia de Biase and Vitta Gold CEO Cecilia Mendes Araujo will ask questions in guest capacity.
This will be the second webinar hosted by the WAHI women’s committee.
Quick facts
Webinar: Challenges and Opportunities for Women Doing Business with the Arab Countries
Wednesday, September 16, 9 am
Register here
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
