Networks to build leadership in trade: by connecting women around the world, the Organization of Women in International Trade is fostering powerful networks that help them to grow as leaders in business.

• Author: Grandbois, Yvonne

More than ever before, we are witnessing the transformative power of women in business and trade, through our networks and our capacity to share, to collaborate, to learn and to lead. Networking has become a way of life.

The Organization of Women in International Trade (OWIT) operates at a global level to help women do business locally and internationally. OWIT chapters around the world bring women together to form a powerful network that helps them to grow personally and professionally as leaders in business.

The organization's values and philosophy embrace the mission statement, "United around the globe to foster international trade and the advancement of women in business". In pursuing these goals, it strives to stay at the forefront of trade developments and to establish alliances with partners.

In the mid-1980s, a few women in several distant locations formed local groups with similar goals to advance trade opportunities and promote leadership. OWIT was officially established in 1989.

Today, with 3,000 members and 20 chapters, OWIT is recognized worldwide for building trade relationships in global communities. Its website, www.owit.org, provides a networking forum for its members in international trade, a job bank, a speaker's bureau and many other services. The organization's executives are asked to participate in top-level global meetings such as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Peru, and ITC's Expert Round Table on the Gender Dimension of the Enhanced Integrated Framework in Geneva and the World Export Development Forum in Montreux (Switzerland).

Delivering results

OWIT helps women to develop direct business opportunities, whether it is consultancies in their professional expertise, import and export business connections...