If, like oceans, there were seven continents in the world, five Latin Americans figuring on the list of the world’s 35 most important women under the age of 35 would be absolutely proportional. But there are only five continents, and so there being only five Latin American women covered by the World Business/Shell study shows the region’s under-representation in the ranking.
It might not be just another statistical oddity. Despite the fact that today in South America there are two democratically elected women presidents - Michelle Bachelet in Chile and Cristina Fernández in Argentina - and that the role of women in public life is ever increasing, Latin America cannot shake off its infamy as a region of chauvinism. Studies moreover reinforce the reputation, and the region was in the bottom half of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2007.
In 22nd place, Cuba is the highest ranked Latin American country, due to the low difference between male and female enrollment in primary and secondary schools, the minimal difference in literacy between the sexes, the relatively high participation of women in Congress and in cabinet posts, and the higher percentage of women among professionals and technical workers. Compare this to Argentina, where advances have been made in many regards, such as political empowerment and access to health and education, but which still shows one of the widest salary gaps in the world between men’s and women’s pay for the same work. On that criteria, Argentina comes in 107th out of the 128 countries researched by the study.
Latin American women have nonetheless claimed roles that are not only relevant, but are especially innovative. In a region with serious problems, such as very unequal distribution of income - a fault that in large part explains the gender gap, given that female workers are concentrated in the lowermiddle and low income levels - the active role that women have taken in the social area is particularly significant. The development is not one of philanthropy, but rather the application of a sophisticated business vision that helps narrow the divides that threaten the region’s countries
This is clearly reflected in the World Business and Shell study. Influential Latin American women in the list are Colombian pop singer Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll (whose Alas project is discussed on page 5), Argentina’s Gala Tonconogy, Mexico’s Mara Hernández, Brazil’s Thaise Guzzatti and Colombia’s Catalina Cock Duque.
Shakira Isabel Mebarak (30)
Shakira is the most successful and internationally recognized Latin American female singer of the moment. In addition to recording more than 50 singles and winning two Grammy awards, the Colombian singer has played a large part in sensitizing her audiences and world leaders to Latin America’s problems. She founded the Pies Descalzos NGO, whose name in Spanish means ‘Bare Feet’ and which finances special schools for poor children in Colombia, and in late 2006 she created Alas, the Latin America in Solidarity Action Foundation, a Panamabased organization that brings together celebrities and political and business leaders to finance aid programs in Latin America (see Giving á la Shakira).
Alas is a foundation whose membership includes artists and members of society dedicated to improving childhood health and education, investing in social programs and promoting awareness. In 2007, Alas held several concerts in Latin American cities and in New York to raise funds, with which it launched two programs, “Ala vida,” to give medical and nutritional aid to pregnant women and children under two years old, and “Ala escuela,” to encourage working children to return to school.
Gala Tonconogy (32)
Tonconogy, a Harvard University international relations graduate who also earned an MBA at Stanford University Business School, was born in Argentina and has long been involved in the investment world. She worked for JP Morgan in New York, where she played a part in a number of mergers and acquisitions in Latin America, and was operations manager of Endeavor, a non-profit association dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs in emerging markets.
Tonconogy is a financier who continues her work of facilitating the development of the smallest entrepreneurs. Currently, she is working as an independent consultant specialized in small and medium businesses that cannot afford the services of large consulting firms for their development. As a partner at Zaiteki Search Fund, she also specialized in indentifying SMEs worth investing in.
Her work at Endeavor Argentina gave her good tools for this job. There she was in charge of defining the portfolio strategy and finding entrepreneurs, and identifying those industries that offered the possibility of having high impact locally as well as globally. In addition, she had a big impact on increasing the organization’s mentor network.
Mara Hernández (32)
In a region such as Latin America, where policy and politicians do not have the best of reputations, this young Mexican has politics in her blood. Her vision however is not of the rough and tumble of daily politics, but rather of facilitating dialogue and creating a culture of democracy in a country such as Mexico, which spent the better part of the 20th century under a system of authoritarian government.
Hernández founded her first NGO when she wasonly 21 years old and was an economic advisor in the Mexican senate during the Vicente Fox administration, which brought the return of real democracy to Mexico. While she worked on her Master’s in public administration at Harvard University, Hernández powerlessly observed the inability of Mexican politicians to come to agreement during a key period of the history of her country, when many big changes were expected. So, she got to work and created the Center for Civic Collaboration, to promote dialogue and whose achievements include the participation of 42 congressmen from across the political spectrum in an intensive negotiation workshop. Through exercises and presentations by experts, she made them understand that they had things in common that they could use as a basis for reaching agreements
Thaise Guzzatti (31)
Brazilian Thaise Guzzatti is dedicated to promoting rural development through agrotourism models in poor rural communities in her country. Guzzatti’s efforts are focused on helping rural communities that want to clean up, build infrastructure and create new products and tourism services as a way of sustaining family economies. This process stimulates the sense of ownership, allowing communities to benefit financially and learn a sense of pride in their culture and lifestyle
Guzzatti created the program after a stay in France in the late 90s, where she was invited to visit rural tourism projects. Following the lines of Guzzatti’s program, the families become part of the ‘Solidarity Tourism’ network, which is renowned for offering certified quality services to tourists. By end-2007, Guzzatti’s organization - Acolhida Na Colônia, one of the largest affiliates in Latin America of the French social tourism association Accueil Paysan, which operates in 19 countries - offered visits to 32 municipalities in the southern state of Santa Catarina, and is in process of expanding. The project emphasizes a collaborative and environmental concerned model, and will help about 40 members that are planning to invest in clean energy generation in their properties
Catalina Cock Duque (31)
Gold mining is being attacked by many environmental groups because of its high environmental impact. This impact is even more serious when dealing with smallscale unofficial mining companies that lack the technical and financial capacity to prevent gold mining’s collateral damages. Colombian Catalina Cock Duque witnessed deforestation in the Chocó region of Colombia’s Pacific coast, where poor farmers rented part of their lands to small miners, who exploited the gold and later abandoned the operating sites, leaving them totally destroyed.
Cock Duque created Green Gold, a company dedicated to organizing these small farmers as miners, using environmentally friendly extraction techniques. Green Gold buys this gold from them, paying the highest prices in the market, and later sells the gold under the fair trade mechanism, which was previously limited to agricultural products. Cock Duque, who also chairs the Association for Responsible Mining (ARM), an independent, global initiative aimed at developing responsible small-scale mining, asks jewelers to pay a premium for the certified gold produced by these small farmers under sustainable conditions. Green Gold dedicates more than half its profits to reforestation and conservation of the Chocó forest.
