On November 20, 2014, several hundred people attended the symposium "Women in Business and Innovation," held at Stanford University and part of Poland-U.S. Innovation Week. Moderated by Janine Zacharia, international journalist and visiting lecturer at Stanford, four distinguished panelists discussed the role of women in the business and technology fields. Polish Consul General Mariusz Brymora and Deputy Honorary Consul Shana Penn made introductory remarks.
The panelists were Katarzyna Kacperczyk, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland; Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube and Senior VP of Google; Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology & Strategy Officer, Cisco; Gloria Duffy, President and CEO of the Commonwealth Club of California.
The panelists candidly discussed how women are impacting business and innovation on a global scale in both the private and public sectors; what challenges and opportunities women leaders face beyond the U.S. and Silicon Valley; and how issues of glass ceilings, gender imbalance, and pay inequity differ in the European Union and elsewhere. The lively discussion incorporated questions from the audience on whether a Google could exist in Poland, how to manage career and family, and the future of technology in five to ten years.
Audience members included Tad Taube, Honorary Consul for the Republic of Poland in the San Francisco Bay Area; Dr. Stanley Wojcicki, Chairman Emeritus, Department of Physics, Stanford University; and representatives from Polish businesses and government.
The event was cosponsored by the Stanford Graduate School of Business / Women in Management; Stanford Global Studies; and Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research.
