Women in Business Committee

The Women in Business Committee was established at the Torino Chamber of Commerce in 1999 when the Union of Italian Chambers of Commerce signed an agreement with the Ministry of Productive Activities. The Committee is composed by 21 members in behalf of local business, professional and labour associations, banks and Chamber of Commerce.

Commitee members

The members for the three-year period 2020-2023 are:

Agriculture
Francesca Ercules
Elisa D’Amore
Sara Chialva

Industry
Brigitta Sardo
Cristina Tumiatti
Settore artigiano
Francesca Coalova
Elena Imberti
Diana Debenedetti

Commerce and services
Maria Myriam Catalano
Caterina Fioritti
Lucia Vigna

Tourism
Cecilia Garetto

Bank and credit
Simona Gastaldello

Cooperative
Alessandra Brogliatto
Valentina Gusella

Labour organizations
Elena Petrosino
Cristina Maccari
Silvia Marchetti
Maria Teresa Cianciotta

Managers
Maria Pia Valperga Milanesio

Freelancers
Rosanna Chiesa

 

Mission

The Committee’s mission is to support with concrete actions aspiring women entrepreneurs in their efforts to start, grow and manage successful businesses. In today’s global context, we need to encourage women to increase the spectrum of possible careers and to tackle sectors they are not involved, including sciences and new technologies.

The Committee has proactively introduced programs aimed at supporting women with the follow activities:

• Annual training courses to provide information about setting up a business
• Organization of meetings and conferences with local institutions and secondary schools around particular topics
• Projects and activities aimed to abate digital gender gap
• Annual monitoring of women local enterprises (link to annual trends)
• Participation in trade fairs and exhibitions

The 2020 programme, entitled "buiness and creativity", consisted of a series of activities designed to illustrate how creativity can be a driver for business and business development.

Due to the Covid-19, planned activities have changed and the WBC, in accordance with the theme of the year, organized many webinars and activities remotely:

Event and virtual meeting

• “New business at starting blocks” (training course) – two editions
• “Creativity lab: performing in V.U.C.A. World” (training course)
• “Red shoes: always against violence” (training course)
• “Tackling the new normal: a path to developing resilience and preparing for tomorrow” (training course) – two editions
• “Girls, digital & STEM: future right now”
• “Women & Digital leadership: skills to develop leadership”
• “How to start a new business: home restaurant”
• “How to start a new business: home food lab”
• “Green economy and female business”
• “Green economy for smart city”
• “The new work life balance after the pandemic”

Projects

• Informed company (counselling activity) - all the year long
• Next Land -  STEM for girsl and moms – project in collaboration with Next Level association
• Always against violence
• Business networking
• More women for a better Italy – project in collaboration with the Milan WBC

Networking

• Piedmont WBC Network – since 2000
• Italian WBC Network – since 2000
• European Women Network – since 2019
• IWEC Federaion – since 2019
• Local network against violence – since 2020
• Collaboration with Milan WBC – since 2020

Books

Most of the books editing by the WBC are only in Italian, starting from this year every publication will be translated also in English. We are working to translate the most important texts.

Contacts

Women in Business Committee
New Business Department
Via San Francesco da Paola, 24
10123 - Torino
Italy
Head of office: Ms. Laura Marello (­­+39 011 571 6350)
Ref.: Ms. Francesca Alquati (+39 011 571 6354)
Ref.: Ms. Laura Belforte (+39 011 571 6353)
E-mail: comitatoimprenditoriafemminile@to.camcom.it