Mumbai: The Indian Institute of Gemology (IIG) today organized an inspirational lecture by Ms. Ali Pastorini for aspiring and established women entrepreneurs of Mumbai. Ms. Pastorini is the past senior vice president of The Panama Diamond Bourse, owner of diamond jewellery brand Del Lima and president of Mujeres Brillantes.
Mujeres Brillantes (Brilliant Women), a group of about 500 businesswomen operating in the gold and jewellery sector that, although mainly from Latin America, also come from Turkey, Russia, Italy, Romania and Israel. The group’s mission is to help women in the jewellery and watch sector to consolidate their business by networking and sharing their own professionalism and experience.
About 30 female students of IIG and some aspiring women entrepreneurs were addressed by Ms. Pastorini in a very frienly and cordial atmosphere. Explaining the purpose behind establishing Mujeres Brillantes through an odeo visual presentation, she said, “It is not only about educating the members of Mujeres Brillantes, is about educating the companies, the associations and the society itself. For this reason, we work in partnership with a few Latin American Associations and World Jewelry Shows because we understand that only when you work as a Group with all relevant entities involved we start to see women in the leadership as a common thing. We must change all the structure and consequently we change the mentality. Maybe this is the biggest challenge that an aspiring woman is facing these days, she understands her position in the world and how she can contribute and that’s exactly the moment where we work with each one bringing their best for the group.”
Ms. Pastorini further said, “We do not try to put the idea that this is a male dominated business, although it is, but what we try is participate in events, discuss important issues, debate in our Youtube Channel where at some point instead of the viewers look at us as a bunch of women, they look simply as business people giving tips in each video or event. In our videos that are in Spanish, Portuguese and English at any moment we criticize the men, on the contrary we have men who have joined our videos, we share our experiences, what worked for me maybe works for you, taxes, laws, education in every country to at end we evaluate as a group how we can work for the changing. The Mujeres Brillantes initiative is a door for the women become better professionals, more prepared for the market, express their opinion and more important feel proud of themselves.”
“Challenges always do exist but if we work in the same page for the benefit of every woman in the industry I do not have doubt we can make it. Mujeres Brillantes do not come with the formula of solving all the problems that the industry face it these days, we come to change the mentality and then together (men and women) find the formula of solve the industry’s challenges,” she added.
Earlier, the director of IIG Mr. Rahul Desai introduced Ms. Pastorini and welcomed the gathering. The presentation was followed by a question-answer session between Ali Pastorini and the studies.
