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Creating positive footprints

Pink Shoe hosts South Asia Democratic Forum

Pink Shoe Club along with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Entrepreneurship was delighted to host the inaugural meeting of the South Asia Democratic Forum, based in Brussels.

The roundtable was presided over by Lord Ahmed at the House of Lords. He spoke eloquently of the need for men and women to work together on business opportunities. Nazir said this is not a new idea – far from it, as he told us of the Prophet Mohammed who happily worked for many years for a highly successful business woman, who in fact became his wife.

Helene Martin Gee of Pink Shoe welcomed guests to the debate. Then Carmen Godeneau explained the background to the SADF and its objectives of bringing together people of South Asia with European business people.

We heard excellent presentations from Madi Sharma, entrepreneur and member of the European Economic & Social Committee; Sue Lawton, Director of WEConnect International, and Dr Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj of Henley Management Centre at Reading University and co-founder of the International Centre for Enterprise & Entrepreneurship (ICE).

Madi went on to chair the discussion, which covered the vast scale of the topic and the many areas of potential impact. This was followed by a light lunch as we further shared ideas. The next event will take place in Paris early in 2012, followed by a third forum in Brussels.