“Sister Dong”, as Ms Dong Mingzhu is known by her employees who appear to adore her, is China’s leading businesswoman and runs Gree Electric Appliances. The youngest of seven children in a family of ordinary workers in Nanjing, she is a legend in China known particularly for her book, “Regretless Pursuit” about her success in running Gree Electric, which is a best seller. In 2002 a TV drama about her life was a big success and in 2009 she was named one of BusinessWeek’s 40 most-influential people in China. “I love a challenge. I stick to my principles. In my view, doing the best job is very important, which has also helped me to work my way from the basic level to a leadership position,” she says. China is home to many businesswomen: seven of the 14 women identified on Forbes magazine’s list of self-made billionaires are Chinese.

“Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets: Why Women are the Solution” is a book written by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Ripa Rashid. The authors look at how employers attract and retain women in Brazil, Russia, India and China, the so-called BRIC nations – as well as in the United Arab Emirates. Interestingly, it is becomming known that living in emerging markets offers many advantages for female professionals. On the one hand there are plenty of cheap babysitters; on the other hand corporate culture is changing very fast, not least because companies are hiring so many young people.

In spite of that, the authors point out how many steep obstacles businesswomen have to face. How can they stay on the fast track if, as in the UAE, they cannot travel without a male chaperone? And how can they be taken seriously if, as in Russia, the term “businesswoman” is synonymous with prostitute? Prudent firms focus on the two biggest problems for working women in emerging markets: looking after their ageing parents and commuting. A growing number of companies provide flexi-time so that women can work from home. Ernst & Young holds family days to show parents what their daughters have achieved and also offers medical cover for parents. Many companies provide their female staff with late-night shuttle buses and many female-only taxi companies are springing up in India, the UAE and Brazil.

Businesswomen are an important resource to boost the growth of emerging markets, which can open a wide range of new opportunities also for western companies. Ask SanTranslate, your professional language services provider, if you want to target the BRICs: choosing the right words is very important, because every word is a BRICK designed to pave the way for your success!

For example interpreting from and into English for languages such as Japanese or Chinese is rather tricky because cultural gap is considerable.

Japanese uses two forms of communication: Tatemae and Honne. The first one is formal, characterised by a mask of smiles from the speaker to avoid deep involvement and positive words to avoid offending the other person. The second one is more informal; this is generally the stage at which business discussions become meaningful and substantive.

The Chinese tend to express themselves indirectly as an attempt to preserve harmony. This allows both parties to “keep face”. They also avoid giving overtly negative responses, partially due to their language, which does not have a word for “no”; literally translated, the corresponding phrase for this actually turns out as “not yes”. This type of circumvention exists because negative responses are considered impolite.

A good interpreter has to be very culturally perceptive to get the message across in the best possible way. To secure a top quality interpreting service ask SanTranslate.

The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is a scale that shows the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is distributed around the world. It shows that high levels of resource consumption do not reliably produce high levels of well-being: the nations that score well show that achieving long, happy lives without over-stretching the planet’s resources is possible.

The resulting global index of the 143 nations for which new, improved data is available, reveals that the world as a whole has a long way to go. Some countries are more efficient than others, but every country has its problems and no country performs as well as it could.

Nine of the top ten nations in the HPI are in Latin America. The index also shows that middle-income countries and South East Asian countries tend to be the closest to achieving a sustainable well-being. It is interesting to note that half of the ten small island nations are in the top 20 per cent of the HPI rankings: this suggests that a more immediate contact with physical limits can successfully encourage ecological efficiency.

The happy planet charter, launched alongside the latest HPI report in July 2009, provides some key goals to help the planet attain good lives that do not cost the earth. You can also calculate your own HPI score by taking the online survey to measure your life expectancy, life satisfaction and ecological footprint.