BPW News Women of the week Karin Raguin : Woman of the Week (82)
Who is Karin Raguin ?
In 1996, I wrote a thesis on “Gender Equality at Work” as I was graduating from a Business School in Paris, France : It was right after the UN Beijing Platform, a time of great energy and hopes for women rights … 15 years after, we didn’t reach equal pay, and the gap is still the same !
At that time I joined BPW France for the first time. Then I served the French federation as Executive Secretary in 2008 and as President since 2010. French federation is still small but very dynamic : in 2009 we decided to focus on Equal Pay and became visible through media. We made a lot of recommendations to the French government since the law was being reinforced for gender equality at work. The Women Empowerment Principles has also been a very good opportunity for us : this year we organized a great meeting at AREVA - the first French company which signed the WEPs - for the Equal Pay Day, in April : more than 200 participants (HR Directors, politics,…) attended it. Thanks to the WEPs, to the Equal Pay day and to a wonderful team, the number of BPW France affiliates doubled from 117 in 2010 to 220 in 2011, and we created 4 new clubs !
I’d like to stress that Nicole Pelletier Perez (Past French President) and Amélie Leclercq (Past European Coordinator) provided me great support in implementing our strategy in France and managing our Executive team.
Serving BPW France means for me to be part of a diverse and international community of business wome,n and to struggle for equality in the workplace. In my job also I’ve been trying to serve the non discrimination and equal opportunities principles : I have been providing support to job seekers, especially the disadvantaged, for example disabled persons. Since 2007, I am part of the Human Ressources Direction of the world leader luxury group LVMH : I was responsible for Corporate Social Responsibility projects for 4 years; I have just been promoted a few months ago – after a maternity leave – and I am now in charge of strengthening LVMH pool of top-performing managers, by implementing a development path with programs.
What I am the most proud of is to have been working for 15 years – within BPW and in the corporate sector – to contribute to change workplaces so that women & men may find self-fulfillment in business.
Karin Raguin