2011-2012 season dates

We’re happy to announce the dates for our upcoming season. Please mark them in your calendars now!

September 2011: Tuesday 13th
October 2011: Tuesday 18th
November 2011: Tuesday 8th
December 2011: Tuesday 13th
January 2012: Tuesday 10th
February 2012: Tuesday 7th
March 2012: Tuesday 13th
April 2012: Tuesday 3rd
May 2012:Tuesday 15th
June 2012: Tuesday 12th

Topics and guest speakers will be revealed in September.

February Meeting: An ambitious project

Tuesday 7th February 2012 – 19.00 to 21.30 at KPMG.

Parts of this presentation was performed live and recorded for future screening at the very first TEDxLyon event in November 2011. We are very pleased and honoured that the speaker is an active WPNG member. 

Parts of this biography could be you, couldn’t it? 

“When she left her career she had been a Quality manager for 10 years in the industrial field, 5 of those years in post in China.

Her husband’s subsequent move to Japan brought up childcare issues, so she quit her job and got involved in her daughters’ school: PTA president, substitute teacher and formal teacher in a 3-6 years old class. 

Fortified with this experience she wanted to give more parents the opportunity to “grow” international children and when she came back to France in 2010 she worked on opening her own international school.

Her own opinion is that she has failed, but that is not true, her adventure and ambitious project is not over.

We invite you to come and meet Claire Blondel, entrepreneur and mother, and listen to her very personal story and project; it has brought to light interesting specificities in the French education system that we will all recognize to some degree.”

Join the discussion afterwards where we will focus, not on the French educational system, but what is good and can be learned from educational systems all over the world.

The WPNG membership represents over 20 nationalities and we expect the exchange to be very rich indeed!

Tim Hughes’ presentation on French succession and property law

From the November 2011 meeting

111109_succession-property-law

Letter from the president #3

Wow, what a night!

WPNG Winter Social evening at the tapas bar SUELTA VERDE, 13 December 2011

I wanted to say so much but muffled my speech…, well actually a lot of what I wanted to say wasn’t written down to tell you the truth…

What I should have said was:

“Do you want to know what the WPNG membership really gets up to in their spare time?”

…and then go onto say…

Did you know that almost 10% of the WPNG membership was involved in the very first TEDx conference that happened in Lyon on November 10,  2011? TEDxLyon lead organizer and licensee Fatiha teamed up with co-organizers Roelien and Bieke, Marion mentored the speakers, Evie advised one of the speakers on content and one of the illustrious speakers was Claire, the welcoming team included Aurélie, Marie and Karyn.  All of whom are WPNG members, which means that ten of the most dynamic international women in Lyon is in fact one of us!

Did you know that there are another 5 people working (after hours) to make the WPNG a dynamic, fun and happening place to get together and network?

Did you know that Steering Committee members are regularly and actively promoting the WPNG in other organizations and associations, like our sister group in Grenoble the WWNG, at FIBA (Franco British International Business Association) and the up and coming LYINC Lyon International Club and many more.

Did you know that the WPNG is making a name for itself and getting queries from other associations who have heard of us and want to know more, how we function, what we do, where we meet…

Well, we do and high five to us!

Before signing off, I wanted to extend a special thank you to all you ladies who are actively spreading the word and who brought a friend to the Winter Social, because you know that together we carry the torch and spread the word of the WPNG…eh oui!

Phew, there you are! The words I should have said and the message I wanted to give on that Tuesday night, but then you were busy chatting, networking, laughing and discovering why some people can’t wear lipstick for more than 5 seconds before licking it off!

Thanks for turning up, it was fun, we’ll have to do it again someday!

Kristina Ashton, WPNG President

January 2012 meeting: Active Listening

Monday, January 9, 2012 – 19H00-21H30 at KPMG

Active listening’ and how to put your point across successfully in a multicultural environment

Have you ever wondered how confident you are to have understood what the person sitting opposite you said, or do you think you actually know what the other person said? How well do we do when we operate in a multicultural environment? Are we fixed in our mindset or do we try and understand cultural differences?

During this session, we will learn how ‘Active listening’ enables us to become a better negotiator. In our everyday life, we need to negotiate all the time, everywhere and for everything with our partner, children, friends, manager or colleagues….It is therefore important to understand better each other thanks to Active Listening!

We will be welcoming former businessman and international lecturer, Jean-Pierre Bernard, Associate Professor at Grenoble Graduate School of Business.

About Jean-Pierre Bernard

Jean-Pierre Bernard is a consultant in Semiconductor, Intellectual Property & High Tech business. He is also Associate Professor at Grenoble Graduate School of Business, France. His main teaching specialties are Technology Management, International Business Negotiation, International Operations and Cross-Cultural Management. Formerly Vice-President Europe at Amkor Wafer, an American-Korean company, he was responsible for the European Operations, interfacing European clients and Korean manufacturing facilities. In addition to these European activities, he spent some time at restructuring the US and Japan customer support teams, and negotiated technology transfers from USA toward Korean and Chinese foundries. He spent also a couple of years within the Indian group Wipro between Europe and Bangalore, being in charge of merging European and Indian engineering teams, defining a common working methodology for off-shore engineering. As an engineer, he spent several years in Germany at Philips Munich where he led the European Analog Design team, dedicated to integrated circuit products like ASIC and System-on-Chip.

Thanks to 25 years of international professional activity in Europe, USA, Asia and India, he has acquired some extensive experience in international negotiation and team-building with different cultures. Jean-Pierre Bernard holds a Ph.D. in Microelectronics from Grenoble University and a MBA from IAE Grenoble. Based for 9 years in Germany and Austria, he is trilingual in French-German-English and fluent in Italian.

Please note that this meeting is exceptionally on a Monday, and not on our usual Tuesday.

And please don’t forget to bring either a healthy snack or drink to the meeting. Home-made quiches, cakes and other dishes are always appreciated and the purchased varieties are welcome too.