September 29: Cristina Lunghi participates in WWIRE's 10th anniversary roundtable

Arborus, which has participated in WWIRE conferences for many years, is honored to participate in the 10th anniversary of this international network created by Janicka BASSIS for women in real estate.

Read Cristina LUNGHI's speech on this occasion

WWIRE 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SPEECH
Cristina LUNGHI
September 29, 2022 - Champs ELysees.
 
 
Madame President and Founder of WWIRE
Dear Janicka
Ladies and Gentlemen
 
It is a great honor but also a great responsibility to open this 10-year anniversary ceremony of WWIRE.
 
10 years, already and only 10 years considering how far we have come.
 
You have made this network the 1st worldwide network of women in real estate, with a philosophy that I share with 1000 %, based on benevolence, generosity, but also the concern of concreteness, action and the construction of a better world.
 
You are an outstanding facilitator, you know how to bring women together, value them, give them a place, promote them, advise them, coach them, recruit them, and feed them with inspiring conferences and testimonials.
I'm forgetting many other things, but everyone can add to this list the benefits they have gained from their years with WWIRE.
 
WWIRE is the network that had to be invented and that you invented to allow women all over the world to meet and help each other.
Because networks are not only important, they are indispensable.
And especially for women, and even more so for women in real estate.
 
Because the network creates an incredible strength and this is the reason why people have been networking for a long time!
 
Thanks to networks, people have been able to reach the highest levels of political and economic power; whether it be school networks, sports clubs, political clubs, think tanks, morning breakfasts, after work sessions, business trips or conferences, and so on... Because the network is the fastest and surest way to get information, on who is who, who is doing what and with whom, etc. ....
the network offers many opportunities.But for that, you need time... leave your house early in the morning, come back late, travel in short, take care only of yourself... that's why for a long time it was said that behind every great man there was a woman, who takes care of everything else!
This was the usual way of gaining power and doing business...
I say it was, because it is changing ... especially with new networks that have new forms and modes of operation as WWIRE.
For women, there is an additional reason to belong to networks: the very specificity of being a woman in a male-dominated system! 
Women's networks are therefore necessary for many reasons:
The first and most important one for me is to have the opportunity to meet between women. To be reassured.
Seeing and hearing, from other women, that the problems we encounter are those of all women: such as guilt, lack of time, marital problems, child rearing, management problems, time management, allows us to put things into perspective, to reassure ourselves and especially to understand that it is not the fault of one person but of a system!The second reason, concerns the poor understanding of the organizational systems of the networks that direct the decision-making processes ....
A woman manager of a big bank told me one day that for women, it was like entering a soccer field without having ever played... of course they will learn the codes of the networks but they will lose time compared to the men who know them for a long time...
So it is important to save time on understanding the system.
A network like WWIRE, which is supportive, allows this crucial time saving.The third reason concerns all the information that a network can give you: in a network, you meet people you have never met before ..... And they give you a lot of informal information about the atmosphere of companies, other networks, etc., about people's behavior, about people who want to change jobs, about available jobs, about stories between people, in short, about current or future opportunities..... It also gives you information about who likes you and who doesn't, about the management style, etc. and it allows you to make informed choices.....That's why I love mentoring so much... it's such a great way to get access to a new network, your mentor's network! But those aren't the only benefits of networking! I'm convinced that since women have entered the game, they have changed the rules!And the internet has helped a lot in this change, the financial crisis too and the needs of the new generations, men and women alike, even more so.
And here again WWIRE has been able to adapt and create a new way of networking.This new context offers the opportunity to network from home! And WWIRE organizes conference meetings, master classes, etc. via Linkedin, which allows for international and non-binding participation with replay in addition!
Finally, and here WWIRE plays a unique role, I would like to talk about women in real estate.I believe that the place of women in real estate has become a major issue for our society.Indeed, the real estate industry, with its construction of industrial, commercial and residential buildings, is one of the three biggest polluters in the world.Therefore, it contributes largely to the aggravation of climate change.It is therefore urgent that this sector of activity changes its operating modes to become sustainable. And it is urgent that this happens.The real estate system is interdependent with other systems:

• Administrative, authorizations to build, to sell, to rent.
  • Living arrangements: number of children per family, number of dwellings per family, etc.
    • Transportation: how to get to the buildings (bus, car, feet): industrial, private, offices, etc.
      • Places to live: do you want to live in the city, in the country, in a suburb, in a medium-sized city, in a small town, etc.
        • What are the most popular and trendy places?
          • What is the accessibility to health care, education, shopping, recreation, etc.?You can see that everything is connected and that around real estate, all facets of our lives depend on real estate.I travel a lot, all over the world, and I am struck by the fact that we do not learn from our mistakes.
            Everywhere, huge cranes are the markers of the ever-increasing constructions to accommodate an expanding world population... While in France, for example, in mid-April, we had already exhausted our natural resources for the year 2022... What unconsciousness, or rather, what irresponsibility, since all our leaders are informed of this catastrophic situation.What kind of world are we going to leave to our children? Don't we have any respect for ourselves, for our children? For the nature that we destroy every day under the pretext of wanting more and more... and that takes its revenge by sending us viruses like the covid 19 and others now and surely others in preparation.The real estate world, like the rest of the world, is still under the regime of male domination, which embodies values that no longer correspond to the emergencies we are facing and to the state of mind of the new generations.I used to say that women are THE KEY to the solution. Because, not being part of the system, we can bring a more realistic vision of the actions to be taken to save the planet.I created Arborus in 1995 with this vision of a world that is livable thanks to a vision shared by women and men. Based on EQUALITY I have built methodological tools, and as I said before, I was one of the pioneers in building networks of women professionals in France. Today, I help companies and organizations to implement new systems for equality and inclusion with an international standard: the GEEIS certification.I would like to encourage each of you to be part of the WWIRE network which is there to help women change the world.You! Women must be a force for change, in order to impose a new system of organization that takes into account all the issues discussed above.
            WWIRE is there for that, and Janicka is there to listen to you, to help you, to enable you all together to form a transformative force in the world of real estate to make it sustainable and equal.
            To conclude, I would like to highlight the inclusive and supportive nature of WWIRE. I believe that this network of women can really impose this new vision with a new value, which is that of SORITY.  
             
            I would like to conclude with two beautiful sentences
            One of them was recently recalled by Isabelle Rome, Minister of Equality, in reference to the 44 ordinance for women's right to vote where suffragettes proclaimed "One for all, all for one".
            Which is a positive phrase and which we still call for today
             
            The other one from Madeleine Albright: "there is a place in hell for those who don't help each other"
             

Thank you.