BPW International

BPW Estonia was established on November 11, 1992 and every year on November 11 BPW Estonia  celebrates its birthday. Since our first birthday we have nominated the title Woman of the Year and Award to a successful and enterprising woman who has influenced our lives and the whole society. The Birthday Gala and Award ceremony traditionally takes place in the ancient Town Hall of Tallinn. The Mayor of Tallinn participated to congratulate the Woman of the Year. This year the Award was given for the 19th time.

BPW Estonia has become well-known in Estonian society by nominating the Women of the Year.

Woman of the Year 2011 is Tea Varrak. She was the Chairperson of the Commission of Estonian Government organizing the EURO integration. Tea Varrak has also been the initiator and achiever of many interesting undertakings - first Estonian private business school Mainor, one of the founders of Fontes private school, Chairperson of Board of Enterprise Estonia.

Last year BPW-Estonia was proud to name the Woman of the Year 2010 Kristina Šmigun-Vähi, who is a worldwide known cross-country skier and two times gold medalist of the Olympic Games.

This year for the first time on the initiative of Young BPW Estonia we nominated the Young Woman – Entrepreneur. The award went to a successful young woman - Eva-Maria Õunapuu, who is the founder of company JOIK. Joik OÜ is producing scented candles and SPA cosmetics. Eva-Maria is a perfect example of a young enterprising woman. She started to make scented candles by hand because she could not find candles with the perfumes she loved on sale. Then she started sell the candles she made to shops. Step by step her business started to grow and she put new brands in production. Now Eva-Maria and OÜ Joik have their own production rooms, however, the production of candles and SPA cosmetics are made by hand because it gives a special significance to the products.

The nomination criteria of the Young Woman – Entrepreneur is age under 40, establishing and running her own company for at least 3-4 years, the company has to be  outstanding in its sector (industry/service/trade), the product/service has found a market niche and has been accredited by other participants of the same branch of the market.

On the magic date 11/11/11 BPW Baltic-Scandic international seminar with the presence of BPW Estonia, BPW Sweden, BPW Finland and BPW Latvia was held in Tallinn Estonia. The theme of the seminar was 'Enterprisingness in the changing world. With new ideas and new experiences into the year 2012'.

The keynote speaker was BPW Past President Ms Tuulikki Juusela from Finland who focused on the advantages of the Women Empowerment Principles (WEP) how to develop and promote ones organization implementing WEPs.

It's really useful and inspiring to strengthen contacts and share experience between BPW sisters from other countries. 
Anu Viks BPW Estonia Board Member