Women balancing their personal & professional life.

Saturday was a special day for 20% of our workforce. Why only 20% - Oh I am refering to - we the special people on earth - the Women CIIans. The women CIIans hold different positions right from Project leader to the just entered fresher with great backgrounds - post graduates or Engg graduates or people who are about to get Masters Degrees in either Business Administration or Computer Applications.

Coming to the point of this email, we had an interactive meeting on 22nd November Saturday, with Ms Virginia Littlejohn, CEO and Co-Founder of Quantum Leaps, Inc., which shares women entrepreneurial best practices, and facilitates their access to markets. She is also Chairman of TradeBuilders, Inc., which provides virtual trade missions and online conferencing.

Her primary focus for several decades has been advocacy on behalf of women entrepreneurs. In the late 1970s, she served as an adviser to the Carter Administration's efforts to advance women owned businesses. and in 1980, Ms. Littlejohn was selected the SBA's first National Women in Business Advocate of the Year, She has held various position fitting into her role as a champion of Women Entrepreneurship not just stopping with her home country, USA, but also carrying it over to the rest of the world. She has won numerous American and international awards for her entrepreneurial advocacy efforts, including a Lifetime Achievement award she received in Beijing in 2007 from the America-China Business Women's Alliance.

The primary national activity that Ms. Littlejohn is currently working on for Quantum Leaps, in cooperation with the NWBC and the major women's business associations, is to develop The Roadmap to 2020 to fuel women's enterprise development in the United States between 2009 and 2020.

It was rare honour and privilege for CIIans to interact with her on how they can balance their personal and professional work in the IT industry. The questions from the participants ranged from ' what made you become an entrepreneur' to 'how do you manage your travel' to 'how do you manage to have so much of energy with so much of travel' to 'how she felt about having her daughter in laws from different countries'. It was her turn to ask how the women who had children managed to take care of them and what is the support system for them, how do they feel about arranged marriage, etc. With her vast experience, she was advising them about what the work place expects out of them, how they have to take care of their personal life, how they have to bring up their children whether it is a boy or a girl, with the mental make up to take the responsibility of the house, etc.

It was such a personalized wonderful experience for all the 25 people who were part of that meeting, At the end of the meeting, what she wrote in our guest book sums it all

It was a wonderful visit to a wonderful company! I dont think that I 've ever felt more welcomed anywhere!!

Virginia, you have become part of us. Most of us will look you up for our guidance in both our professional career and family life.

Thanks for spending time with us.