The Council of Business Women in Bulgaria (CWWB ) will continue to expand and build on its leading initiatives and programs, while focusing on new projects and ideas. This became clear during a special event at Grand Hotel Sofia, in which the events and activities of the Council for the first half of 2016 and a development program by the end of the year was presented were reported.

The third edition of the Leadership Academy, which will start in July under the patronage of the Mayor of Sofia, Mrs. Yordanka Fandakova , the second edition of the National Traineeship Initiative “We are staying in Bulgaria ” under the patronage of MEP Eva Paunova, the mentoring program of the Council, participation in legislative initiatives of the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, new courses and trainings are just some of the initiatives of CWWB by the end of 2016.

As part of the National Traineeship initiative, which aims to work for the retention of young people in Bulgaria, this year a new project is expected – Summer Academy “Leaders of the Future”, whose focus is on senior students.

The chairperson of the Board of CWWB d-r eng. Boryana Manolova announced that the organization will continue with its regular meetings with prominent women from politics and business as well as its participation in leading international forums and conferences. Previously, special guests at these meetings were the MEP Maria Gabriel, Eileen Wilkinson – Regional Vice President of Shell Exploration and Production, Tsvetanka Mincheva – Member of the Board of UniCredit Bulbank and others. The Council Women in Business received special recognition at the 26th World Women Leaders Forum held on June 10 and 11 this year in Warsaw, at which dr. eng. Boryana Manolova was honored as one of the women champions for 2016.

The largest event organized by the Council jointly with UNESCO in 2016, is the Global Women Leaders’ Forum, which took place in late May. Within three days it gathered over 70 distinguished ladies from the world’s elite from 4 continents, including government heads, ministers, MEPs, leading representatives of international organizations, heads of research centers and universities, personalities from politics, business, science and media. The extremely fruitful discussions of the Global Forum ended with the adoption of the Sofia Declaration for the promotion of gender equality. The document calls on all parties in the face of governments, international organizations, civil society and the private sector to take measures to ensure equality of women in all spheres of life. In the second half of the year the Council’s efforts will be directed towards further promotion of the document globally.

Attracting additional support for the Declaration was one of the goals of the visit of the delegation of CWWB to the European Commission and the European Parliament at the invitation of the Bulgarian women MEPs. The visit took place at the end of June this year and included 10 meetings with politicians and representatives of the NGO sector at European level, including the Vice-President of the European Commission Kristalina Georgieva, the Vice-President of the European Parliament Mairead McGuinness , MEP Martina Dlabajová and Angelika Niebler , ALDE Party Gender Equality Network (GEN) president Flo Clucas , Antonio López – Istúriz – Secretary-General of the European People’s Party and others. The representatives of the Council invited European Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva to be the patron of an international conference in the autumn in Sofia, dedicated to economic and geopolitical challenges facing the region.

During the event, dr. eng. Boryana Manolova , on behalf of the council, handed diplomas praising the companies that supported the Global Forum, in the face of the golden sponsors Siemens Bulgaria and Prestige -96, silver – EY Bulgaria and SAP, media partners Nova TV and Manager magazine, and BMW Bulgaria , “Katarzyna Estate”, Coca -Cola, Generali Bulgaria, Lidl.