Women in Business: Negotiation, a Tool for Self-Advocacy

Women in Business is a series designed and led by women to share their knowledge about valuable and necessary business skills needed to drive growth at your company. Whether you are a startup or an SME, this series will introduce you to professional and highly skilled women. Each session will cover a specific topic and will provide valuable expertise to people who are looking to improve their skills to increase their employability or to develop or start their own businesses.

Women in Business: Negotiation, a Tool for Self-Advocacy

At some point or another, whether you are running your own business or are part of a business as an employee, you are going to have to negotiate. Indeed, negotiation is at the core of business strategy and relationship building. Whether attracting clients, establishing partnerships, growing your customer base, asking for promotion or a salary increase, skills in negotiation will be essential for personal and business growth. Furthermore, even if you are not an entrepreneur, knowledge about negotiation is a valuable life skill for everyday self-advocacy.

This session will be led by Venera Kusari, Conflict Assessment Specialist, and will focus on how women can overcome challenges concerning their motivation, confidence, and the expectations of others. By enhancing their understanding of negotiations and gaining negotiation skills, women will increase their ability to advocate for themselves and everyone involved through creative solutions.

The sessions will explore the following topics:

• Gender roles and negotiation
• Culture and power dynamics
• Emotions and communication
• Planning and preparation for negotiation

This will be a hybrid event– online and in-person tickets available.

Cost: NOK100

**This event is free for HerSpace members**

Maximum in-person attendees: 20

We are monitoring and following the current COVID restrictions. If necessary we will hold this event entirely online. 

Venera Kusari is a Conflict Assessment Specialist with over ten years of experience in program development and management, research, and training. She has supervised international projects on minority rights, youth and urban violence, crisis response, and intercommunal conflict, in former Yugoslavia, Colombia, Myanmar, and the United States. She received an undergraduate degree in Political Science and Sociology from the City University of New York and a graduate degree in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution from Columbia University in New York. As a researcher Venera researches complex dynamics in conflict, communication and conflict, power asymmetries, sustainable peace, mediation, and negotiation. As a trainer, she leads workshops with youth, women, and communities in conflict. Among the organizations where Venera has worked are Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4) at Columbia University, Smile Education and Development Foundation in Myanmar, and Mercy Corps International in Kosovo. Venera is dedicated and passionate about influencing positive change through personal and social development. She believes that social change starts by creating spaces that promote constructive communication practices within organized units such as workplaces, families, communities, and political institutions.