EY, AIPFE Cyprus launch ‘Women Fit for Business’

EY Cyprus and AIPFE Cyprus-Women of Europe have launched the Women Fit for Business (WF4B) programme geared towards unemployed female university graduates under the age of 35. This collaboration aspires to empower, motivate and connect participants through practical training and soft skills that will assist them in their search for work.

Twelve candidates have been selected to embark on a 60-hour, 9-month programme which entails training, mentoring and networking, covering a wide range of topics, including personal profiling and skills assessment, job search skills, professional development workshops, empowerment through centered leadership, internships and more.

The inaugural event, held at the EY head office in Nicosia, featured two motivating keynote speakers, Georgia Paphiti, CFO of Swiss Bank UBS in Luxembourg and the EMEA Regional Financial Controller for UBS, and Valentina Kislaya, President and founder of Leaders and Image, an organisation with coaching expertise across the entire corporate spectrum. Both speakers shared inspirational stories and ideas with the audience.

Through this programme and in response to the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Gender Parity Report, which concluded that it will take 170 years to achieve global gender parity in the workplace, EY aims to draw attention to the issue and galvanise support from other organisations to accelerate change.

“Women make up more than half the population of the world, yet have long been overlooked as a vital talent resource that contributes to economic growth and prosperity,” said Stavros Pantzaris, EY Cyprus Country Managing Partner.

“To accelerate achievement of gender parity we need purposeful action by both men and women to recruit, retain and advance women in equal proportion to their numbers and commensurate with the limitless potential they offer the workplace.”

Anna Koukkides-Procopiou, President of AIPFE Cyprus, elaborated on AIPFE’s ongoing initiatives to promote the involvement of women in civil society in Cyprus and abroad. She also talked about the WF4B programme, presenting two graduates of the 2015 intake who talked about their personal experiences and success stories, and described how the courses helped them to achieve their professional goals – either in finding a job or in starting their own business.