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.

]]> http://wpng.org/2011/12/21/january-2012-meeting-active-listening/feed/ 0 http://wpng.org/2011/11/02/november-2011-meeting-succession-planning-and-owning-property-in-france/ http://wpng.org/2011/11/02/november-2011-meeting-succession-planning-and-owning-property-in-france/#comments Wed, 02 Nov 2011 21:37:37 +0000 admin http://wpng.org/?p=486

Tuesday, November 8, 2011 – 19H00-21H30 at KPMG

All you need to know about succession planning and owning property in France.

If you own property in France, you should understand the different means of owning such property. French succession law will apply to your French property, no matter your nationality you may have. Do you know the rules about reserved beneficiaries under French law? Have you made a French will?

If France is your domicile, then French succession law will apply not only to your French property, but also to your  worldwide estate, except for real estate owned in other countries. You ignore French succession law at your peril!

These issues are vitally important for you to understand and the presentation will give you the information you need to know.

Tim Hughes is an English solicitor and avocat communautaire. He qualified in England in 1994 and moved to France in 2005, gaining admission to the Lyon Bar (Barreau de Lyon). Whilst he generally advises on French business law matters, Tim also deals with areas of the law relating to individuals, particularly the buying and selling of property in France and French succession law. Tim is the Chair of the Lyon Bar’s GB Working Group and the President of FIBA – the Franco-British International Business Association based in Lyon:  www.fibalyon.org.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011 – 19H00-21H30 at KPMG

Welcome to a new season at our usual meeting place, KPMG offices in Lyon Vaise (51 rue St Cyr, 69009 Lyon)!

We will start our evening with our Annual General Meeting (which will take about 20 minutes).

AGENDA

1. Progress report since the last AGM (8 June 2010)
2. Financial report since the last AGM
3. Plans for the 2011/2011 season
4. Election of the WPNG Steering Committee (you need to be a paid 2011/2012 WPNG member in order to vote, so please pay now or bring your checkbook to the meeting)

Then we will give the floor to the organizing team of TEDxLyon, to tell us a bit more about this exciting event coming to Lyon on November 10, before we continue with our main topic of the evening, the N in WPNG… NETWORKING!

Do you consider yourself a great networker? Or do you think it’s more a necessary evil? And what exactly is your definition of networking…? This session will be led by  WPNG’s own Marion Chapsal, business coach and blogger on women in management, and will focused on you and an opportunity for you to meet other WPNG members through more structured networking. We will discuss in small groups what networking is all about. What do you expect from it? What networking ‘tools’ do you use? What do you get out of it and… how do you profile yourself? Each group will summarize its findings after the discussions.

There should also be the opportunity to do ‘before’ and ‘after’ personal presentations so you can bring the things you’ve learned during the discussions into practice right away! A little preparation goes a long way! So come prepared – start thinking about the above mentioned questions – and don’t forget to bring your business cards!

Reminder: 2011/2012 membership fees are now due: please make out a check for 30€ to WPNG and hand it to our treasurer Marie-France Derderian, at the meeting. Alternatively you can post your check (the address can be found in our latest newsletter).

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.

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.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011 – 19H00-23H00 at Hotel Reine Astrid

The WPNG 10th anniversary celebration is due to be held on Tuesday evening, 14 June 2011 at the Hotel Reine Astrid, boulevard des Belges, 69006 Lyon.

Premium member rate: €25 (this rate is available until Monday 23th May, 2011)
Full rate: €41

The ticket price includes a three course meal with a welcome cocktail drink and wine, music, stories about WPNG beginnings, and a few other surprises!

To reserve, please send an e-mail to info[at]wpng.org with “anniversary celebration” in the subject line. Please mention your full name, the names of any additional people you are making the reservation for, and inform us of any dietary restrictions you may have.

At the same time, send a cheque with the required amount (25€ per person until 23 May, 41€ after 23 May), made payable to WPNG, to:

WPNG
c/o Marie-France DERDERIAN
Domaine de Vassieux
801 chemin de Combe Martin
69300 Caluire

Important: Please include a note with your payment in case your name doesn’t match the name on the cheque.

Reservations will be confirmed once we have received both your email and your payment.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011 – 19H00-21H30 at KPMG

The topic of this month’s meeting is “Women in the Workplace: A Roadmap for Success”. A 2010 report by McKinsey identified the third most important barrier to the advancement of women in the workplace as the tendency of women not to promote themselves. Sounds familiar? Then come and listen to executive coach Rosemary Marzio and her inspiring ideas for overcoming this and other professional “own behaviour” challenges that women frequently face.

Rosemary is a certified coach and a partner in the international executive coaching firm, Praesta. She works in Paris and Lyon, and provides both individual executive coaching and team coaching, in English and French. Rosemary is also involved with the business school ESSEC where she coaches students on the Executive MBA program. Prior to qualifying as a coach, Rosemary practiced law in New York and London. A more detailed biography can be found at www.praesta.fr

Tuesday, April 12, 2011 – 19H00-21H30 at KPMG

Jennifer Shaw-Taberlet will present concepts and exercises from “The Artist’s Way,” Julia Cameron’s broadly tested and popular method for nurturing our creativity at home, at work, in outer-space… wherever the urge strikes!

• What is creativity and why nurture it?
• Some basic principles
• The basic tools
• Highlights from the 12-week method

Jennifer Shaw-Taberlet obtained her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Rennes (FR) before working as a researcher at the University of Cambridge (UK). Her path then meandered towards consulting in the field of research finance. In this capacity, she has helped build-up, obtain funding for and/or manage a dozen international research consortia of up to 32 businesses, universities and research organisations. She enjoys the multi-cultural interactions her job brings and is inspired by the creativity and brilliance of her clients’ scientific research projects. In her spare time, she enjoys writing comedic screen plays.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011 – 19H00-21H30 at KPMG

Marion Chapsal will make a return visit to our group and will enlighten us on why the next  decade may well be “the decade of the woman” and how to prepare yourself for your uprising.

This workshop will include

• Facts and figures about “womenomics”
• Ways to embrace your power, now!
• How to clarify your vision: a pizza exercise!
• Learn to tell your story, in a nutshell: craft your elevator pitch.

Marion Chapsal is the owner of Geronimo Coaching, a Lyon-based training and coaching company. She coaches leaders in executive presence, presentation skills, personal power and communication: as a professionally trained actress and experienced teacher and performer, she is an expert at public speaking. She practices creative and active coaching through the use of innovative tools that foster creativity and right-brain thinking.

Corporate experience:
Graduated from CERAM business school Sophia Antipolis, Marion has over fifteen years of experience in the Education Management field. She has been teaching and lecturing during eight years for the International Executive MBA’s in Leadership and Communication skills at EM Lyon. She has facilitated, in English and French, Personal Impact and Management training seminars for several hundreds of managers from large European Corporations such as EADS, Renault, Saint Gobain, Suez, Oracle, Alcatel and L’Oréal. She’s a member of ICF and a partner at the CoheChange International Network. She’s a great networker and very active on on-line social networks (LinkedIn and Twitter @MarionChapsal). She’s also a blogger at www.geronimocoaching.com.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011 – 19H00-21H30 at KPMG

What approaches are effective for supporting the development of new skills? We often seek to improve the abilities of others (your child, a group of students, a new colleague or a recently promoted subordinate who will shoulder some of your work) and sometimes, we find ourselves discouraged by the lack of progress in those we seek to teach. Although it is easy to find fault with our learners, there is room for improvement on our side as wellJ. This session will start with a brief grounding in the theory of learning and explore 4 concrete strategies to promote real, transferable learning.

Siara Isaac currently works as an academic developer in the teaching support unit of a major French university and is the past coordinator of the Science Graduate Teaching Workshops at McGill University. She has teaching experience at universities in Canada, China and France, ranging from practical lab settings to courses for 1000 students. She holds a M.Sc. in Chemistry from McGill University researching the design and synthesis of novel analogues to DNA for pharmaceutical applications.

Siara has taught workshops in the following institutions : Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Suisse), McGill University (Canada), Ecole des Mines de Nantes, Université d’Angers, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Université Joseph Fournier Grenoble 1, INP-Grenoble, Ecole Polytechnique de Lyon, ISARA-Lyon, Ecole Catholique d’Arts et Métiers Lyon (France); and for visiting groups of instructors from Lebanon and Morocco. She is also an active WPNG member.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011 – 19H00-21H30 at KMPG

Happy New Year to all current and prospective WPNG members!

We hope the year is off to a good start for all of you, and we aim to help it along with our first meeting of 2011.

What is my Worth?

How do I put a value on my services? Pricing is management’s biggest headache; maybe it is your biggest fear or nightmare.  Are you under pricing your added value, or over pricing and losing opportunities?  Join us January 11th, 2011 to gain insight, and confidence, in pricing your products and services.

A panel of diverse entrepreneurs will discuss how they have put a price on their skills and services. This will help you better negotiate with customers thanks to a deeper understanding of your added value and of target marketing.

Chairing the panel will be none other than one of the co-founders of WPNG, Teresa Cooper Kislik, a professional trainer and consultant at E M Lyon. Other panelists will be Alice Dauphin (lawyer), Nathalie Perrin (non-profit fundraising), and Carol Bausor (language & training consultancy).

Alice Dauphin is a member of both the New York and the Lyon Bar and currently practices as an independent lawyer in Lyon, after having worked with many large firms in the US and Paris.  In addition to business law, Alice has a specialization in media & communications law on both sides of the Atlantic. Lastly, she is an expert in multi-tasking, with 3 children, a husband and numerous volunteer activities. Besides being well organized, Alice stays fit, mentally and physically with regular Pilates workouts that help her maintain life/work balance. Alice is French, tri-lingual and has degrees from the Paris Sorbonne University and Georgetown University in Washington D. C..

Carol Bausor has been managing a language and training company for over 20 years.  Within the framework of ILTC activity, she sometimes also runs coaching programs, and is particularly interested in “Personal and Professional Success” strategies.  For the past 5 years, she has been studying American style direct marketing, which has, according to Carol “changed her life”.  A passionate and dynamic professional, Carol now includes marketing in everything she does! She is particularly proud of selling some of the most expensive (and effective) English language training programs on the market.

In addition, if you have heard of Toastmasters then you have perhaps heard of Carol as well.  She recently helped found, and runs a new bi-lingual Toastmasters group in Lyon. Carol is British, is married with 3 very international children, her daughter was recently studying in Finland, and her youngest son (aged 16) is spending his junior (première) year in Mexico.

Nathalie Perrin cofounded [co]influence, a fundraising and communication consultancy.  In 2010, their first year of operations [co]influence received the top award from the  Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Lyon at the Salons des Entrepreneurs. Before founding [co]influence, Nathalie spent 15 years in marketing in fast moving consumer goods, with companies such as Beiersdorf Nivea and Panzani.  She has lived on both sides of the Atlantic, and while in Boston (6 years) with her husband and three children she discovered fundraising and obtained a certification from Harvard. Nathalie quickly put this training to work upon returning to France as the campaign director for Lyon’s “new” Musée des Confluences with Philanthrôpia, focusing on fund raising strategy, as well as soliciting big donors in addition to Grenoble Ecole de Management and ESC Dijon.  Today as the [co]influence director they have a very diversified portfolio of clients from “Choeur et Orchestre 19” to Ecole Centrale and EM Lyon.

In addition to having 3 children, being the President of the Parent’s association at the international school in Lyon, Nathalie gives lectures at business schools and at international conferences and is as an active member of the French Association of Fundraisers. Nathalie is French, tri-lingual and graduated from SKEMA.

Teresa Cooper Kislik is the co-founder of the WPNG along with Catherine Bassompierre. An American sales and marketing professional with experience on both sides of the Atlantic, she moved to France in 1992.  Teresa has extensive experience with leading global companies such as IBM, E&J Gallo Winery, United Biscuits and Chevron Texaco, in addition to being a successful entrepreneur. She is passionate about connecting people and leveraging opportunities through international marketing strategy. Since 1995 Teresa has been a marketing professor at EM Lyon and training managers in major corporations around the world.