WAWA: We are part of the industry agenda

Worldwide Audiovisual Women’s Association (WAWA), an organization founded six years ago, seeks to generate business opportunities for all affiliated professionals by promoting events.

“Talking about WAWA´s achievements means speaking of business agreements and synergies reached by our associates as a result of the events that the organization designs and produces for this purpose,” said Carolina Cordero, general manager of WAWA.

“Today is a special day for the women of WAWA, who throughout all this time have worked tirelessly to achieve unity and growth, creating a space that did not exist in our industry, that common place for great professionals from all over the world, where we are together in search of strength. Showing our leadership capacity. As our dear Liliam Hernández says, ‘In unity is strength.’ I wish a happy day to all the women in our industry,” said Cecilia Gómez de la Torre, member of the board of directors.

Cordero highlighted their main achievements. She mentioned the WAWA Business Forum, which gave results with specific businesses such as Lifetime, that acquired two feature films; Latina TV from Peru, which closed an agreement for the acquisition of a format; and a co-production agreement was signed between WAWA, Lifetime and Sertv of Panama to carry out a pan-regional campaign in support of the fight against gender violence.

“WAWA is part of the industry agenda and we have managed to build a prestigious space made up of great professionals. Proof of this is that a few days ago we had the honor of having our Woman of the Year 2021 appointed as Minister of Culture of Panama. And that fills us with pride,” she pointed out.

Another important contribution has been the Inspiring Minds cycle that managed to “consolidate itself as an unmissable monthly event for our members”.

Another achievement has been the Content Hunters, which means organizing pitch rounds with important companies such as Gato Grande, FOXTelecolombia, Sony and Paka Paka, among others; where they were able to analyze projects of WAWA members in 1 to 1 meetings.

For Cordero, another noteworthy achievement was that WAWA was invited as jury of the 49th International Emmy Awards. “Having represented 16 countries at the ceremony was a confirmation that we were doing a great job.”

The main challenge they have faced as executive women, has been having to prove “our suitability for the position. In my personal case, on some occasions I have felt that way, and one cannot speak of a strategy because I did not have one. I just worked, I did what I knew how to do, and if I didn’t, I wasn’t afraid to bring it up and ask,” Cordero said.

What is missing to promote women’s advancement within organizations is “confidence, and a great deal of courage,” she pointed out.

She recommended to young women who want to be executives’ leaders in this industry, to “train, be curious, trust your knowledge and your intuition. I recently heard a phrase that seemed very interesting to me: ‘The world belongs to those who dare to lose their balance’ and I think it’s a bit like that, innovating and being disruptive have to do with that. Lose balance…”