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Fiona Flynn logged on to Zoom with me recently to give me the ins and outs of PWN Dublin for my network overview.

In her day job, Fiona is an Emotional Intelligence coach who focusses on nurturing female talent. She is also the current 2021 President of PWN Dublin, so we had a great chat about the network and what it means to the Dublin networking scene.

The Back Story

Avivah Wittenberg Cox moved to France, Paris to be precise, in 1996.  She didn’t know anyone, so rather than sit on her laurels, she started a networking group in order to build a network for herself in her adopted city.

From humble beginnings, PWN Global has since grown to 30 cities, which I list out later in this blog. 2013 saw the launch of the PWN Dublin branch with the support of Enterprise Ireland who provided the meeting space.

PWN stands for Professional Women’s Network, however the first thing I have to say is they are very clear that they are an inclusive and gender neutral networking community.  Men attend and are welcome to attend their events. They have male mentors working alongside their female mentor counterparts.

In light of the open approach, they refer to themselves as simply PWN Dublin.

So while they say that PWN Global is a networking and development platform for professional women of all sectors and industries, it would be fair to update that to:

PWN Global is a networking and development platform for professionals of all sectors and industries.

Their Mantra

All women should be able to aspire, to believe and to achieve.

What’s It All About:

PWN is a career development network for high potential women, where members engage in peer to peer learning via other members and dedicated seminars. Their common objective is to provide women with the tools, networks and support they need to support their career progression aspirations.

A core aim is to help women broaden their thinking in areas of growth, leadership, gender balance and all current and trending leadership topics of the day.

PWN offers members a one-stop platform to connect with like-minded professionals from across the world; to develop their skills and competencies, and to share their experience and knowledge.

All of this is particularly relevant for professionals who have excelled in their technical area of expertise, but who now need to develop their people skills and work on their emotional intelligence.

Behind the Scenes

Volunteers lead the whole event and development schedule of PWN Dublin. Fiona joined as Co President and another Irish lady, Karina Furlong, recently finished her tenure as Global PWN President!

Become a Member

There are ca. 250 active members in Ireland, spanning exective roles, CEOs, Partners and a broad spectrum of professional women.

Members range from financial servives, STEM, FMCG and other professional services.

There are approximately 7 events each year and the profile of members is between 28 and 50+ years of age.

Event types include networking events, roundtable discussions on leadership and current business challenges.  Webinars are hosted also and all recordings are up on their video channels and website.

By becoming a member of the PWN Global community and you can:

• Access a ready built global professional network that will help you to achieve your career aspirations.  This is valid as a local support ecosystem, but also abroad, if you intend on moving cities, you’ll be welcomed in to the chapter within your new chosen city
• Learn from diverse sources (local and global events, mentoring, forums, webinars and dynamic content) how you can advance your career and make a difference to gender balance globally
• Apply for a place on PWN Dublin’s Group Mentoring Programme
• Access their networking events
• Follow them on LinkedIn for all their latest updates
• Become a Corporate Partner and make a difference. They will support members with their corporate services, raise their visibility as a Gender Balanced Organisation and meet their geographical needs with a comprehensive programme. Together they will place gender balance at the very core of your operations.

How PWN Can Support Your Business Needs

• Propose topics for events that align with your internal development needs
• Opportunity to globally network online and during business travel
• Scheduling of gender neutral events engaging men and women to broaden awareness
• Role model to other organisations
• Support your competitive advantage
• Recognition of partner’s commitment to support gender balance
• Opportunity to address the network at the event you sponsor
• Networking with women of all industries and levels promoting diversity of thought, innovation and sharing best practice.

The Investment

• Individual membership is €130 per year.
• Corporate membership is €1300 annually. Corporate membership entitles the company to nominate 10 people to participate in the PWN Dublin & Global events and training.

Networking Events

Pre Covid events typically ran from 6.30pm – 8.30pm in a corporate member’s office.

As with all networks, they moved online and events are now scheduled once monthly, Thursdays from 1pm-2pm.

With easing restrictions they also take the opportunity to do some netwalking, to ensure that human connection.  Sandymount Strand being a location of choice.

The future is likely to be a hybrid and dual approach of online and in person training and networking events.

The Awards

in 2019 they held the 1st World Gender Balanced Network Awards. This has gone on to be an annual event. The 2021 awards will be held in Dublin on November 4th and you can click their website here for more details.

There are sponsorship opportunities, lots of awards categories and you can buy your ticket here.  There are PWN Global Member tickets and non-member tickets available. If you want to have a celebratory evening in great company, tables of 10 are also available at a reduced price.

To enquire about sponsorship, reach out to Rebecca Fountain today.

The Stats

• 20,000 in the community
• 600 yearly events
• 350 active volunteers
• 200+ mentoring events
• 30 cities – Dublin, London, Oslo, Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Warsaw, Munich, Lyon, Paris, Nice/Cote D’Azur, Bilbao, Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, Geneva/Lausanne, Zurich, Milan, Rome, Sofia, Istanbul, Zagreb, Vienna, Bucharest, Sao Paulo, Lagos, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai.
• 90 nationalities
• 19 countries – Brazil, Nigeria, Malaysia, UAE, Ireland, UK, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Austria, Poland, Netherlands.
• 4000 members

Corporate Partners:

There is quite the illustrious group of corporate partners who, when possible, host many of the live networking events. Corporates that are involved in PWN Dublin include: Grant Thornton, Eirgrid, Citi, Takeda, Invesco, Hays, William Fry, Mercer, State Street, SurveyMonkey and then there are organisations and state bodies such as Irish Management Institute, National Treasury Management Agency, ESB and Irish Rail.

Getting Social

To reach out to connect in with PWN Dublin, their social credentials follow here:

Website, Twitter,  Facebook – This is a private member’s group, Linkedin & YouTube

You can view a video of their 2019 awards here.

Connecting With NetworkingJean

You can reach out to me at hello@networkingjean.ie.

Book a chat:

I hope you enjoyed the reading about PWN Dublin – A Network Overview. If you are a part of a network and would like to get the network profiled on my blog, book an interview slot with me here.

Getting Social with NetworkingJean

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Mailing List

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