Anna Gudmundson is a senior manager at advertising response company Ad.IQ where she develops and manages new products and services, the latest being their mobile internet offering, as well as heading up a product team.  Here, she talks about: what she has taken from the Global Summit of Women 2009, the positives that can be taken from a recession and how these can be applied to the careers of both men and women alike.

From a balcony on the 15th floor looking out at the skyscrapers and hearing the traffic from the streets below, it would be hard to identify the city. But the mountains that tower up in the background, stealing much of the attention from the glossy buildings, remind me that I am not in London or New York. This is Santiago, the capital of Chile, with a population of 5.65 million people. The Mapocho River that runs through the city is currently almost dry which is a stark reminder of environmental and climate concerns, which seem to be on the lips of politicians meeting in nearby Valparaiso, as well as of the coffee drinkers in the many cafes across the city.

If you would allow the lack of water in the river to symbolise the difficult times we are experiencing, it surely doesn’t seem to have cracked the spirit of Chilean visionaries. Sure, the country is feeling the bite just like everywhere else, but the Chilean economy appears to be withstanding the crises better than many old economies, and the crises may well be the catalyst to push through the changes required in structures, culture and old ways of thinking, to take Chile to the next level, and maybe to break through the ‘glass ceiling’…

My purpose in travelling to Chile was to explore a business idea and to attend the Global Summit of Women 2009, the 19th of its kind. The Summit brings women leaders from around the world together, to discuss women's economic development, leadership and political influence around the globe, to network, exchange experiences and ideas, and to take initiatives towards a more diverse and balanced global order.

With the wide range of topics that the summit covers, and the various breakout sessions to be attended, each participant can walk away with a different experience. Whether you find that the summit paints a bright and positive picture for the future of women across the globe, or if you get a sense of struggle, obstacles and hard work, is more likely dependent on your mindset rather than the program, speakers or delegates. The variety of angles, topics, countries and interests is truly broad.
Having heard an auspicious speech from Her Excellence President Michelle Bachelet Jeria; spoken to Esther Silver Parker, VP Wal-Mart USA, about global trends in the current crises; having heard personal stories from successful women entrepreneurs and how they have overcome their fears of failure; partaken in a workshop on effective leadership and got goose bumps of Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams' speech on violence against women, I leave the summit humbled by the charismatic, balanced, generous and skilled women leaders that are out there doing an amazing job, be it in a charitable organisation, leading a country, a multinational corporate or supporting micro-businesses somewhere in Africa.

I was particularly keen to explore any indicators of a paradigm shift towards increased diversity in positions of power and influence. A 50 women strong Vietnamese delegation shared their success stories and progress of the women of Vietnam both in business and politics. Vice President Nguyen Thi Doan expressed the need for governments to put policies in place to accelerate such changes and the results they presented show great progress in an important economically emerging part of the world. The mere presence of the first woman minister of Saudi Arabia, Norah Adbullah Al-Faiz, is a symbol in itself as is that of the hosting country's President Bachelet, the first female president of the country.

It is not, however, an all-sunny picture that I wish to paint. As Esther Silver Parker, Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. USA expressed when I sat down for a ten minute chat with her:

“I do see a positive shift towards women’s empowerment, however, the development is worryingly slow. For leaders in business, the number of women in the pipeline for the top positions is still decimal. Women tend to go for more support type positions and not for destination jobs. With destination jobs I mean jobs that lead to CEO positions.”

Global recessions generally have a positive impact on female employment, particularly in poorer countries. When one salary is no longer enough to feed a family, or the man loses his job, the woman has to step in to fill the income gap. Although this ‘effect of a negative trend’ is more noticeable in poorer parts of the world, it is also a tendency in our economies. In richer countries you can also observe a recession ‘knock-on effect’, where when companies downsize, men on higher levels in the organisation get made redundant as a measure of diminishing costs. This allows women, as well as managers in general across the organisation, to fill in the positions and grasp opportunities. In other words, we can see some positive outcomes of the recession, although I do not want to claim that the recession has an overall positive effect, for either men or women.

So should we thank the crisis for the tendencies of change and the opportunities generated on the back of the turbulence and required restructuring? My own opinion is that the process has already started. We had a woman and a black man nominated as candidates to the US Presidential election long before hell broke loose. I do, however, believe that the crisis may have come as a powerful catalyst. Had the measures been put in place and the actions taken that we see now, we would not have seen the same level of meltdown. The question is, how do we carry the learning forward and ensure that the positive effects of the current shake-up become permanent ways of conducting business in the future?

“En rio revuelto, siempre hay pesca” means that the wise take advantage of turmoil (“in turbulent waters you can always find fish”). I would encourage everyone to consciously think about how to take advantage of this time of turbulence and think not only about what we want with our careers and what opportunities may be available to grab, but also to think about what values, behaviour and culture we want to see in our organisations, and how we can contribute to weave these into the processes and ways of doing business at all levels in the workplace. Let’s not miss the occasion to push through a positive sea change and let’s also make sure we do not miss any career or business opportunities that may now have moved within our reach due to the shakeout.

I am proud of and impressed with the inspiring peers and role model leaders I met at the Global Summit of Women 2009 in Santiago. There is clearly long way to go until we see a 50/50 situation across men and women on the boards, but there are indicators of a positive change and we have a turbulent river that is yet to set its new direction. It is up to all of us to decide and take action to make sure the river runs in the direction we want for the future.

Anna has many years of management experience in the technology sector including managing the development of new media marketing solutions for big global brands and managing large scale telecom projects across continents at Alcatel-Lucent. Anna, a Swede by origin, and fluent in four languages, has lived in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, France, Spain and is currently living in the UK. Anna is actively involved with many networks, organisations and non-profit organisations and has a specific passion for encouraging and driving entrepreneurship in women, an area where she’s nurturing plans related to empowerment and financial investment. And when she's not doing that, Anna enjoys singing, reading, yoga, organising social events and going to live gigs. And if she hasn’t been at a social event the night before, she gets up early in the morning to trade the stock market.