In celebration of International Women’s Day which this year aims to promote digital literacy for women and girls, I interview Monika Kočiová who leads the Center for International Private Enterprise's (CIPE’s) portfolio of programs across Central and Eastern Europe as a Program Officer, based in Bratislava, Slovakia. Her work focuses mostly on strengthening the capacity of the private sector to advocate for constructive policy reform, advancing the role of women leaders, and strengthening overall the business and governance environment. 

Monika previously served as the Director of the Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Košice. Her focus in recent years has been on the development of trade relations, especially in the Central and East European Region (CEE), but also worldwide; cross-sectoral cooperation; and support of the innovation ecosystem within the region. In this podcast, we explore the issues around economic empowerment for women and some of the barriers to full engagement which still exist, not only in Europe, but across the world. We discuss the importance of girls and young women having positive roles models they can emulate to pursue the career of their dreams. We also talk about the online abuse which many women face, even in social media forums such as LinkedIn, which is supposedly a professional networking platform, but where misogyny, or hatred and gender-based online violence, is still to be found. 

Monika briefly references the three main programs which the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) is currently working on to advance women's empowerment in business and enterprise. 

These are: (1) Women and Leadership - e.g. where the Center actively equip women with soft skills for their personal and professional development; and Women on Boards - again to promote women in influential leadership positions by being represented on Trustee or Directorship Boards and; 

(2) Women in Technology - engaging women in the digital transformation agenda;

(3) Gender-based Violence in the Workplace - countering hate speech and abuse, both online and face to face. Monika holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs from National Chengchi University in Taiwan. Beside Taipei, she also pursued her studies in Mexico, Czechia (the Czech Republic), and Portugal. 

Outside work she dedicates her time to Rotary International where she has been appointed as the spokesperson and the Chair of the International Aid Committee for the Czech and Slovak Republics regarding the current situation in Ukraine and she is the founder and Chair of the Mentoring Program. 

Find out more about the Centre for International Private Enterprise at: https://www.cipe.org/ Find out more about Rotary International at: https://www.rotary.org/en Contact Monika Kočiová via LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monika-kociova/ 

For more information on this podcast series, or to make any comments or to ask any questions relating to English Language learning, please contact me at [email protected] or visit my LinkedIn profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-scott-lawton/ or my company page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/john-scott-lawton-consulting/?viewAsMember=true 

#Leadership #speech #impact # Mindset #English #Empowerment #Listeningskills #TESOL #IELTS #toefl #confidence #confidencebuilding #Englishlanguage #Slovak #Slovakia #Women