November 25, 2018

I’ve been friends with Mihaela for the past 5 years. Always on the run, managing a successful business for the last 10 years, Mihaela and I always struggled to find time to meet even for a quick coffee… but this time she looked different.

September 24, 2018

In October 2017, the famous actress Alyssa Milano tweeted on her Twitter account. She didn’t imagine that this tweet will change the world…Milano urged the victims of sexual harassment to come forth about it, in order to make people understand the magnitude of the problem, while her first step was confessing her story with a “me too” of her own. 67k comments to this historical tweet were a hint for what was about to come, as #metoo became a global mega trend with major effects on all the marketing and media channels, especially on social media.

August 27, 2018

International Business Women’s Day will be celebrated on September 20th. This is an excellent moment to invite the BWFR (Business Women Forum Romania) board members to share with us who is a special business woman who served as a role model for them.

May 30, 2018

Celebrating Children’s Day, we bring an inspirational thought to the table. A question I’ve been asked many times – How can we help our kids develop entrepreneurial skills?

April 23, 2018

New sources for inspiration are always in need, we asked the Business Women Forum Romania members, who are participating in the leadership program, to share recommendation on a great book, mainly for a long weekend.

February 25, 2018

It’s been several years for me to be chased by my beloved friend – urging me to finally go ahead and learn some ski. Why I delayed that? So many excuses…it is always time, the need of planning, the hassle in researching, but above all – fear. Fear that was controlling my thoughts, starting always with -“what if“. Several scenarios are running in my head…what if I fall, what if I’ll get injured, what if I won’t be good? So many “what ifs” that created this delay. This year I’ve finally made my decision – no more what ifs, I am going to try.

January 19, 2018

Elena arrived to our meeting with a huge black notebook. Her notebook was so huge and loaded with papers that I could not hold myself from asking – “What’s in the book?” It seems Elena was only waiting for this question to come, so her answer was direct: “In this book, I have millions of thoughts, questions and ideas…it’s all about the new business that I want to start soon. The only problem is that I have so many directions, unsolved loops, I simply don’t know what to choose, what is right and what is wrong…so for now I’m simply writing all in the notebook, hoping that soon I will be able to take some decisions”.

December 20, 2017

Pentru a începe anul dintr-o perspectivă optimizată, am invitat 9 femei de afaceri excepționale, ce fac parte din consiliul consultativ al BWFR (Business Women Forum România), pentru a împărtăși și nouă viziunea lor și pentru a ne oferi câteva sfaturi valoroase pentru a avea succes, pe care doresc să le transmită cititoarelor revistei Femeia. în scopul inspirației reciproce! 

October 30, 2017

Am cunoscut-o la un târg de fashion pe Denisa; este unul dintre numeroșii designeri români talentați si membră a comunității de business din care fac parte – BWFR. În jur erau mulți clienți ce admirau și probau haine, dar chipul Denisei îi dezvăluia sentimentele de îngrijorare. Am început să vorbim și mi-a împărtășit gândurile ce o măcinau: „Afacerea mea este în creștere, dar nu am nicio idee despre direcția în care trebuie să conduc lucrurile de acum încolo…“ 

September 28, 2017

An urgent email was sent to my email box on a late Sunday afternoon “ I cannot believe this is happening to me ! Another one announced he is leaving, again…”. This was not an announcement about a friend getting a divorce, but an email from Daniela, an insurance agent with over 15 years in the business. She was stressed. Her company was finally starting to grow as the market recovered after a few harsh years. Many clients are coming back and also new ones are looking for her services. But it seems that exactly now as things are starting to get so much better, her team is suddenly not performing up to expectations. Her leading sales agent announced she is leaving 2 months ago, the life insurance department manager decided to move to another company and now her personal assistant informed her of her request to finish the collaboration. “What I am doing wrong? Why now? I was so good to my workers….why this is happening to me?“… Daniela, a strong business women who has years of experience seems to lose all her confidence due to the last updates in her firm.

July 24, 2017

It’s midsummer already and Iulia was looking at her cash flows and looked at me with a very disappointed expression “ The numbers are OK, but much lower than I was expecting… I was hoping to be in a better situation by now and planned to apply for a small credit line to buy a new car for my business, but it seems that until my largest client will pay the invoice I will not be able to approach the bank. I don’t understand why I am working so hard and the results are not that amazing….” Iulia description was very touching. Sometimes we felt like we are kids again and we expect fair “return” as if a hard work will bring the correct results, but I knew exactly how she felt because every entrepreneur (including myself) feel from time to time the work is “unfair”, we work very hard and the results are not always equivalent to what we give.

June 27, 2017

Cristina was looking at her agenda. Her program was full and hectic, exactly as she likes as a very busy media agency manager. It seems the hard work paid off… but a second look revealed too many “empty spaces” starting from 20 June. Scary thoughts started to crawl…” if I won’t meet new clients during June,  July & August, I will have no incomes in September… but who will be doing business during the summer? “Cristina had all the reason to be afraid. Exactly as the market started to open up again and clients are talking about some new projects, summer came with all the intention to kill her cash flow.
How long is your vacation?!

May 29, 2017

Oksana was very excited. She just signed her first contract with a new client providing her a long term obligation to purchase her consultancy services for the next 12 months. She decided to open her company and also started making some big plans… renting an office, hiring a personal assistant and even buying a new car…. All the benefits that she had right before she decided to leave her corporate position and start on her own....

April 24, 2017

“I was thinking how great this could be if I will get access to the EU funds…it seems that everybody is getting this grant funds and I wanted to try as well…with tons of motivation I  entered to the EU commission website and almost got a panic attack as it seems I keep reading but can’t really understand what I’m reading… “
Ionela (28), owner of a training company in the last 5 years, has a wonderful idea. She created a unique training session for the IT sector and wanted to get some grant funds after reading the news about all these new programs that were launched to support small companies like hers.
After several years and 6 full time employees she felt that this is her moment to become bigger and to develop an annual training program. The only problem is that, even though Ionela’s motivation is very high, she doesn’t really know how to approach that.
 

March 27, 2017

​“Whenever I go at my bank and ask for something…I always get a “NO”…I’m starting to feel something is wrong with me, why don’t they help me grow my business? “Dana (32) was very upset. She have been managing in the last 7 months a small boutique PR agency, having already 2 clients who are paying her a monthly fee (retainer) and pitching to more than 20 other projects (with a current pending answer)