An unusual sort of business conference, more glitzy roadshow than sober workshops and breakouts, returns to Rome in September for the fifth time and its 19th annual gathering since inception.

This is WIN, or Women’s International Networking, which will take place at the Ergife Palace Hotel in Rome from 28 to 30 September, assembling 900 delegates, mostly female, from all over Europe “to strengthen their networking skills, their leadership, to find inspiration, to set new goals in their careers and to find a mentor”.

The WIN conference theme this year is ‘Leading the way, with beauty, connection and confidence’. As the conference website puts it, “this is not the usual business conference but a three days extravaganza where inspirational talks, workshops and best practices combine with music, artistic performance and emotions”.

In Association with

A survey conducted by WIN among a thousand participants over the last five years has shown that a growing number of women feel that their organisations have fully recognised their capacities and potential. But many female professionals still think they lack opportunities to move up to senior positions and believe that a quota should apply for corporate board (66%).

More women think that mentorship should be a priority for the company (86%) and that social networks and online communities have become the best way to connect. There was also a 7% growth of women who feel that qualities such as emotional intelligence, nurturing and care are needed at the office.

Kristin Engvig, the founder of WIN (pictured) said: “This is not about fixing the women, it is about creating an environment for them to grow. I believe that in a world where we embrace diversity, we can get more ideas and more creativity from different people. I promote diversity because I think it can give more interesting perspectives on life and work. Diversity is already happening, though.”

WIN is based in Lausanne and was founded in 1997. The first conference was in Milan in 1998. It is considered one of the most important forum on leadership and female empowerment and it has  welcomed more than 13,000 participants since the first annual conference.

WIN also runs annual conferences in Japan and in India, quarterly corporate networking meetings, women’s programmes, workshops and community projects worldwide.

The attendance cost ranges from €1,195 to €1,795, depending on the size of the delegate's organisation.