All professional women welcome whether members or guests
Wednesday, 19 June 2013, 7-9.30 p.m.
PWA presents a Panel Discussion:
“Reinventing Yourself”

Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves…” ~ Germaine Greer

When you take away all the excuses and limitations, who is it that you would really like to be? We’ve arrived at our current situations by various paths that depended in varying degrees on choices we made when we were younger (education, family, geography to name a few), opportunities that presented themselves to us and commitment and drive that we dedicated to attaining our goals. Sometimes our current situations are exactly what we’ve strived for while other times it becomes clear that a change is desired or necessary.

Join us to hear the stories of 4 PWA members who made the decision – and took action – to reinvent themselves and their professional lives.

NH Hotel President, Largo Augusto 10 (MM San Babila, Duomo)

Networking Cocktail: 7 – 8 pm Presentation 8 – 9:30 pm

Entrance free for members, 25 euro for guests, payable in cash at the event.

Members and guest, please register in the calendar section of EPWN.

For more information, send an email to speakers@www.pwa-milan.org

 

 

Meet the Panel:

Francesca Mastrogiacomi
Senior Project Manager, EMEA Sales Support – Strategy & Operations at Google, Francesca first started making friends with search engines when she joined the launch of an E-commerce start-up specializing in food and wine from her native Marches region. Putting her study of languages to the unorthodox usage of identifying keywords for user searches, she soon attracted the attention of Google Italy which recruited Francesca to share her online marketing and analysis skills to help other businesses build successful web-based advertising campaigns.

Francesca has held various roles in Google’s Sales and Country Operations, currently specializing in improving the customer experience for both those searching as well as those looking to be found.
Recently qualified as a Certified Business Coach, Francesca uses this expertise both in her role inside Google as well as with private clients, focusing on team coaching, women’s leadership, and support for both expats and start-ups.

After completing her undergraduate studies at Università degli Studi di Urbino Carlo Bo, Francesca earned a PhD in Applied Linguistics and Communications from Università Cattolica in Milan. She has several publications on adult education and new methodologies in teaching foreign languages. In addition to her mother tongue, Italian, Francesca is fluent in English, French and Spanish.

Roberta Mell
Roberta has a Masters degree in Italian Gastronomy from the Università degli Scienze Gastronomiche di Pollenza. She has traveled extensively througout Italy studying every region’s specialties and character.
She is the owner of Antichè Varieta del Mondo, growing heirloom tomatoes and vegetables for market. She works as a travel concierge for Emilia Romagna and several other regions in Italy.

In America, Roberta developed and launched POPCORN TV, a revolutionary DVD on Demand service that combines DVD street date with the convenience and immediacy of Video on Demand. Prior to POPCORN, Roberta served as Executive Vice President, Marketing for the Fox network. For her efforts she received the Brand Builder Award from Multichannel News, Campaigns of Distinction Award from Television Week and was included in Hollywood Reporters Top 100 Women in Hollywood. Prior to joining Fox, Roberta was Senior Vice President of Marketing for HBO. Her work has been recognized with two Emmy awards, a Clio, and an Effie. During her tenure at HBO, she also received Cable Marketer of the Year, Sopranos Media Plan of the Year and was named Entertainment Marketer of the Year by Ad Age. She holds an MBA from the New York University, Leonard School of Business.

Beatrice Vozzi
Degree in Physics, exposed to French and Italian culture, Beatrice fluently speaks four languages. Most of her career was in IT and Automotive fields between Italy, France and Spain.
She was named Director of Car Logistics for Citroen in Milan and now handles Change Management and Best Practices for the PSA Peugeot Citroen Group still based in Milan.

She is specialised in planning and organising but also in problem solving; this because she has two young daughters aged 4 and 7. Her dream is to go back to Rome, her native town.

Catriona Wallis
Catriona is the founder of Colto OÜ, a startup developing mobile game Apps for kids to learn new words in different languages by having fun playing digital race games. Colto’s objective is to create games that are so absorbing for kids, they don’t even know they’re learning.

Recently Colto won Seed Investment from GameFounders & an invitation to attend their prestigious acceleration program for gaming startups in Estonia. Catriona & her co-founders have been based in Tallinn for the 3 month program, undergoing intensive mentoring with gaming gurus from leading companies such as Facebook, Zynga (CityVille/FarmVille) & Rovio (Angry Birds). The mentors share expertise on optimising the quality of games & learning about best practice business models & strategy. In May, startups travel to Europe & Silicon Valley, US pitching to investors in order to secure Round A investment.

Catriona lives in Varese, Italy, is married to an Italian and has 2 sons and a chocolate labrador.