ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN TURKEY A HUGE SUCCESS

This year’s annual conference in Istanbul, Turkey took place on October 10. With over 112 attendees, over half of whom were women business owners, the event was successful in raising awareness about supplier diversity and facilitating connections between corporates and women business owners in Turkey.

The daylong conference was a mix of panels and networking opportunities for the participants, with panels aimed at educating women businesses owners on how to do business with corporations. The panels covered topics such as what corporates are doing locally and globally for supplier diversity and how corporates make purchasing decisions.

The final event of the day was a pitch competition, which gave women business owners a chance to hone their public speaking skills, interact with corporates, and receive feedback on their presentation. The winner was assigned two mentors from the judges, who will meet with her at least four times over the next year.

The event received excellent feedback from both the attending corporates and the women business owners, who praised the energy level, the ratio of women owned businesses to corporates, the panel discussions, and the opportunity for one on one meetings with corporates to take place.

Thank you to everyone who attended the conference and thank you to our sponsors and panelists for helping make this event such a success!