Bangladesh Brand Forum, with support from Grameenphone Ltd. and BRAC Bank Ltd, has launched Women Professionals Network (WPN) – the first ever professional network for women in Bangladesh. With an interactive session and participation of around 300 women professionals, HR heads and university female students, the event took place on 9th of May at Grameenphone Corporate Office “ GPHOUSE”, Basundhara.
WPN is the third phase of Women in Leadership project. This project aims to empower more women to reach leading positions in their career across various corporate sectors. Establishing a strong network among the female professionals will help to address the key challenges for women in their career; and encourage them to collectively design and execute solutions.
The event started with the welcome address from President of Women in Leadership, Nazia Andaleeb Preema. She thanked the participants for their interest to connect and empower each other through WPN. She shared that WPN has been designed to encourage professional women to talk to each other and design mutually beneficial solutions to challenges faced by them.
Quazi Mohammad Shahed, Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), Grameenphone Ltd shared his appreciation of the initiative and encouraged the participants to fully utilize the WPN platform to connect and empower each other. Focusing on different initiatives GP has been rolling out to foster growth & development of female professionals, he assured that Grameenphone Ltd will support the platform to reach its objectives.
Shariful Islam, Founder & Managing Director, Bangladesh Brand Forum, shared the objectives of WPN and how those objectives will be achieved. He explained that the members of WPN will be connected at all times through a comprehensive online platform and every month there will be a meeting among the participants. Membership is free and open to any professional women in the corporate sector. Among the members there will be expert mentors who will guide on specific issues and challenges. Also, a bi-monthly publication will inspire and empower women with relevant knowledge.
The event also conducted an extensive panel discussion titled “Why corporates should have more female professionals and How?” moderated by M. Zulfiquar Hussain, CEO & Lead Consultant of Grow n Excel. The panel discussion was joined by Mr. Shehzad Munim, Managing Director, British American Tobacco Bangladesh; Mr. Rajeev Sethi, Chief Executive Officer, Grameenphone Ltd. ; Mr. Syed Mahbubur Rahman, Managing Director and CEO, BRAC Bank Limited & Dr Syed Saad Andaleeb, Vice Chancellor, BRAC University. In the discussion, key figures of success driven by women in corporate sector was shared.
A mentoring program was also launched for professional women by Jahid Shafique, General Secretary of HR Next. The event ended with a warm invitation to WPN membership.
The WPN launching event was also assisted by Masthead PR as PR partner, Aamra as Technology Partner, Webable as Social Media Partner & HR Next as Leadership Development Partner.
