Outstanding Women in Business: Ileana Botez, President of PWN

Business Review is excited to feature an enlightening conversation with Ileana Botez, President of the Professional Women’s Network Romania, in the March 2024 edition titled Outstanding Women in Business. Ileana shares her profound understanding of the challenges and opportunities that women face as they navigate the path to success in various industries.

What determines a woman’s business success?

Success has always been a goal that everyone dreams of. Regardless of the field in which they work, women want to be successful. Beginning with the 20th century, it has been noticed that women set for themselves higher targets related to being successful when they set out on their journey in the working field or entrepreneurial area of activity.

The perception of success, in a broad sense for women represents the achievement of all the objectives set out. Starting with completion of their studies, or getting the job they want, but also when women find fulfillment in the personal life. There are many areas in which success can be identified, but its perception varies from person to person.

Being a successful businesswoman means reaching a high degree of independence which allows her to feel more confident in their own strength and wants to reach new horizons of achievements. Many business experts have defined success in business as equivalent to happiness in life. And the great similarity between them is that both success and happiness are subjectively defined by each person. According to the definition in the dictionary, success is successfully passing challenges or reaching the goals that an individual proposes in a certain field. Each woman has its own definition of success depending on experiences and vision. From the ability to develop a profitable business which operates based on honesty, integrity and contributes to the well-being of the community to offering its employees peace of mind and a balance between their professional and personal lives. In addition, women think more also at the impact of the business on the environment and on the people around them. Feeling and seeing success in different ways comes naturally, but the common in everyone’s perspective is represented by the achievement of objectives. To reach that point, it is very important to develop a strategy which must be respected. Being courageous, determined, ambitious, resilient, visionary, realistic, passionate, perseverant, trustful, honest, communicative, inspirational, motivated, and empathetic represent the most important skills and human qualities of a successful woman in business.

How difficult (more) is it today for a woman to assert herself in executive positions?

The current society provides more and more opportunities to women to develop themselves. It is up to them if they want to achieve new and targeted goals for their business journey. Taking into consideration that at the EU level, 60% of the graduated people are women, that shows they are more interested to be better prepared for the working field to obtain higher positions and revenues. In the last decades, women gather courage and assume positions with a higher degree of leadership. There was and still is a lot of talk about the success of women leaders in recent years, but also about female leadership becoming a kind of symbol of change. At the global level and in Europe there is a trend in this regard, but there is a long way to go before a fair degree of representation will be achieved. Women can contribute to the evolution of an organization by manifesting a different style of leadership, one that is more empathetic, more resilient, with a focus on results, but also on well-being. There is a need to remove stereotypes and to let go of cultural biases. This is the only way to provide a fair place of representation for both men and women in leadership positions, thus benefiting from the strengths of each of them. More and more women role models in the management positions with different successful leadership styles will offer to the next generations inspirational examples. In addition the marriage, motherhood, and home responsibilities also generate inner turmoil that raises significant barriers in a woman’s career. Women need to rely on the understanding and support from their families in the professional endeavors. Another way of support can be obtained from supportive professional and entrepreneurial women’s communities where they can find other women who hold leadership roles in various companies or are successful entrepreneurs and are providing access to new perspectives or are mentors and coaches who guide them in difficult moments.

What are the industries with the strongest barrier to career advancement for women? But those in which the ascent is easy?

Many years ago, one of the most common prejudices in the business area was that women perform less in technical fields, that it is harder for a woman to reach decision-making positions in technology companies. Romania performed better in this field even before 1989, when the women in the technological faculties were around 25-30% which was more than the average in Europe. This trend was maintained also in the last more than 30 years. Besides these fields, the construction and utilities sectors are also activities where women are increasing their presence. Removing biases should be strictly based on performance and professional recognition. Initiatives, programs, and competitions are some of the main directions to encourage and motivate women to aspire to areas of activities which are known better as men dedicated. The young generations are more open to an extended areas of activities and women will be more present in all of them. Women leaders can help young women to discover what is beyond talent, beyond ambition. The women’s passions behind are very important to overcome themselves, by putting in the effort, perseverance, picking themselves up when failing and learning from mistakes. The final target is to achieve their goals with passion and focus day by day on them.

What are the biggest challenges for a woman to reach leadership positions?

The fact that women have become increasingly competitive among key positions in large companies around the world has not been a surprise for some time. Studies show that, on a global level, the difference between the number of men in top management and that of women occupying similar positions has begun to amortize and the balance to move, slightly but surely, towards equality. Another proof that supports this trend are the statistics that show that the number of women following MBA&EMBA programs is constantly increasing.

For women to access leadership positions means to be better prepared in terms of competences and skills. That is why these master programs bring benefits not only on a professional level, by accumulating knowledge relevant to any business and obtaining the diploma that certifies this, but especially on a personal level. These types of programs strengthened women’s self-confidence, which is essential for any person in a management position, or for an entrepreneur. Accessing an MBA program comes as a natural continuation of the learning process for any person interested in professional development and evolution. Even when they hold leadership positions, not infrequently, it is more difficult for them in the companies in which they work to establish themselves when their colleagues in the management teams are predominantly made up of men. Thus, gaining respect in such a work environment often turns into a real struggle.

How is Romania in terms of women top executives (challenges, difficulties, positive aspects)  

In Romania, the middle management is dominated by women which is a positive aspect. The statistics show that around 60% of these positions are held by Romanian women. In the last decade, the Romanian women still trying to make it to the top face several challenges that many of their fellow male executives don’t understand. These issues prevent many women from achieving their goal of becoming a leader in their company and diminish their ability to advance in business.

From the empirical observations, experience and based on the studies’ results, some of the main challenges a woman in Romania must overcome to reach leadership positions are as follows:

the history biases – there were long periods of time when women were in second place in terms of social position, but it is good that we are taking small steps towards evolution; now is the first generation of entrepreneurs “per se”, so in many contexts women have to deal with “Romanian leadership”, which involves male dominance, lack of communication, barren work relationships where emotions have no place; the need is to be treated equally;
stereotypes and biases – women must face the situations of impossibility to be promoted to a leadership position because is required physical presence all the time not taking into consideration that they aim to have a family and children; it’s the context that sets the tone.
setting a balance between family and professional life based on the time, wishes and goals;
self-confidence – women leaders often struggle with unequal treatment in front of men, but in addition, they need to stand out, draw boundaries with teams, inspire;

promotion – many coaching interventions take place when a person changes their position within the company; very often, people who have not led teams are appointed to leadership positions based on seniority; women who go through this process are often overwhelmed by strong emotions, the fear of failure and the impostor complex;
blocking emotions – in environments where labor relations are robotic, a female leader cannot perform; they need “humanity” in relationships and exchanges on an emotional level in the field of work; in many cases emotions are repressed, which leads to dysfunctional behaviors (lack of involvement, avoiding discussions and conflicts, etc.), anxiety, and maybe even depression.

A significant challenge that should be considered by women is to build solidarity between them. It is a must to get support from other women, if women would be better represented in the leadership position. Encouraging each other and starting from the core principles of who women are based on morality, values, and integrity. Fairness, passion, excellence, and enthusiasm should be promoted to establish the foundation of the progress through women’s work.

Romanian women learnt how to have confidence in their own voice. Civil society substantially increased its role and is much better represented by the voices of more and more women’s communities. For sure as the present looks, the future will bring more positive results.

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