Words matter. These are the best Melanne Verveer Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Women are a dynamic economic force. We represent the largest consumer market in the world and are drivers of GDP. More and more companies recognize that when they support women as customers, employees, leaders, future investors and partners, they are adopting sound business strategies and advancing social progress.
We know that the most dangerous places in the world are more often than not the most dangerous places for women, where women are denied their rights and oppressed. These are the places that are unstable and where extremism often takes hold.
Studies demonstrate that as gaps are being closed between men and women – in access to education, in health, even in economic participation – the most difficult gap to close is in political participation. Somehow that sharing of raw power, political power, remains very illusive.
There is certainly a growing body of data that correlates investments in women with a country’s general prosperity; a recognition that no country can get ahead if half its people are left behind.
Politics is rough and tumble everywhere, and many women recoil from that negative aspect of it – the nastiness, the charges and counter-charges.
Women in business are talented leaders who can share their skills as trainers, mentors and advocates.
For me, leadership is making a difference. It’s using your agency to bring about change.
My major obligation or responsibility is to work to integrate gender issues throughout the work of the State Department.
Over time, I’ve come to recognize what others bring to the table, and I’ve developed a much more team-based approach. There’s the saying that there is no end to what one can achieve if one doesn’t have to take the credit for what was achieved.
I hope that through Fast Forward, we can encourage women everywhere to know their power wherever they find themselves; to find their purpose; and to connect with others in order to create a better world – especially for women and girls.
Women can achieve power and purpose in whatever profession they pursue, position they hold or whether they are caring for their children full time.
The role of business in advancing women’s rights is growing, particularly in the area of economic opportunity including opening access to training, mentoring, networks, markets, technology and even to capital in some circumstances.
The most important lesson I’ve learned is how rich and rewarding life is when one can engage in meaningful work, whether on the job or outside of work.
